Old World Charm, Modern Living: Nob HIll Condo
Beautiful, renovated Victorian condo!
Garage parking! Top floor!
Walking distance to everything!
Fun neighborhood!
Many involved with the SF Tenants Union and other tenants rights advocates have long been strong opponents of converting San Francisco housing units from rentals to anything else. This includes 1. combining 2 units in a building, 2. converting rental units owned by one party and rented to many to units owned by many and owner occupied and 3. rental units converted to vacation rentals.
I understand the objection to the third kind of conversion. This takes housing from the market and makes it available to visitors. It is facilitated by websites like vrbo.com which make it easy for home owners to share information about their property and schedule bookings. Easy for owners to make a lot of money while retaining a lot of flexibility (and not commiting to long term tenants who would be subject to SF’s strict rent control laws). OK, I understand the objections to this one. It reduces the available housing stock for renters. I also suspect there are city departments that are not happy about homeowners doing this and circumventing local hotel and tourism taxes.
Sometimes, I can understand the objection to the first kind of conversion. Sometimes. I think this should be reviewed by various city departments rather than being opposed in every situation. Sometimes, the conversion of a single family home to units was done many years ago and creates awkward space that would be better as a single family home. An owner of two adjacent condos in a building should be allowed to combine them to create one larger unit–it’s likely that this space is not currently a rental, so why not?
But objecting to the sale of a rental unit to a new owner as a TIC? I don’t get this one. In most cases, when a TIC is purchased in the city of SF, tenants are becoming homeowners. Isn’t that a good thing? It creates stability, increases the likelihood that owners will invest in the maintenance and preservation of their building (sometimes with rent controlled apartments, owners are making so little money that it doesn’t make sense for them to continue investing in their properties.
All said, I suspect the vacation rental option is an absolutely amazing way to visit the city. Instead of staying in a cramped hotel room downtown, a family can stay in one of San Francisco’s amazing neighborhoods and experience the city like a local–in our cafes, wandering around neighborhoods that are off the beaten (tourist) track.
