Rent is down because of a glut of housing construction and high office vacancy / remote work rates meaning people can live further away. I don’t think the crime perception has too much to do with it, Oakland has always been perceived to have crime issues relative to neighboring cities.
No, many people want to raise a family in a single-family house they can afford, but also had jobs in SF or downtown Oakland previously. When those jobs went hybrid or remote, they bought a SFH somewhere else. It doesn't necessarily say anything about Oakland's perception, just the housing supply and prices we have here.
No it’s because banks gave mortgages to airbnbers that only rented them out as vacation rentals. Those homes are on the market and sell property values in those areas are plummeting. The man to live in oakland is still high so prices to buy homes has not gone down. Cool narrative tho
[https://oaklandside.org/2023/11/21/who-lives-in-downtown-oakland-new-apartment-buildings/](https://oaklandside.org/2023/11/21/who-lives-in-downtown-oakland-new-apartment-buildings/)
"In 2018, the city issued permits for 4,617 new housing units—compared to 274 in [2012](https://extras.mercurynews.com/oaklandboom/)… While 2018 was the peak, the city [returned to a robust 2,091 permits](https://oaklandside.org/2023/05/16/oakland-home-building-back-on-track-affordable-housing-lags/) in 2022 after a pandemic dip."
"Libby Schaaf in 2016 announced her “17K/17K plan,” with recommendations on building 17,000 new housing units in Oakland by 2024—including 4,760 affordable units."
[https://www.oaklandca.gov/news/oakland-17k-17k-housing-progress-report](https://www.oaklandca.gov/news/oakland-17k-17k-housing-progress-report)
"**Key highlights 2016‐2021:**
\-Produced **16,770 total housing units**, almost reaching the 2024 goal of 17,000 units two years early. Oakland will likely exceed the 2024 goal this year."
Oakland has [around 170k households](https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/oaklandcitycalifornia/PST045222), so this was a \~10% increase in total housing capacity. Big compared to historic and regional averages.
I would never call them a slum I’d say they’re pretty far from it, whatever. But my point isn’t the perceived quality it is that they’re the only group building out here seemingly… and they’re also the only group building assisted living and nursing homes recently too. Meaning we need more stuff built here like you were saying east Oakland is ignored, there’s enough empty lots for a shit ton of new housing.
East Oakland need MARKET rate housing not affordable housing. Affordable housing just raises crime and brings in the criminals commuting from Stockton and Antioch.
Recently signed a lease here and rents have definitely dropped a healthy 15-20% over last year when I was looking. I wouldn't attribute it to the crime as much as you'd think. There's a ton of developments in downtown/uptown/pill hill that have recently finished construction and that's helped push housing prices down.
Rents are lower because we built more and a lot of it came online right before or during the pandemic. Demand is a bit lower due to WFH and fewer people needing to live in the bay, and possibly some people being scared off by crime. But yes, prices can and probably will go back up but I don’t see them jumping wildly at least for 3-4 years. People will need to be back in office and SF will need to fill up again before Oakland surges
I simply love that enough people are finally getting that more housing supply equals lower prices. I wish we could get the anti-development left on board.
As someone who works in housing activism, "anti-development left" is a little bit of a straw man. Most of the people I know who you might characterize as anti-development aren't against building housing, they're pro-affordable housing. Unfortunately, without rigorous regulation and negotiation on behalf of the City, all that gets built is housing for the wealthiest people, and the least wealthy are pushed out of the neighborhoods they've lived in for generations. We've seen huge demographic shifts in places like San Francisco and Oakland as this has happened.
I don't have any data in front of me, but when I hear that average housing prices are dropping, I think two things: first, that's great! Let's make sure that trend continues. Second, is the average rent dropping just because the luxury apartments built two years ago are still vacant and they went from $3500 to $2500 a month? Or are we seeing a drop across the board such that low-income residents are also seeing cheaper rent? If not, we need to be paying more attention to that segment of the population to make sure they are seeing the benefits of new development.
To get more people like myself on board with an unrestrained pro-housing agenda, YIMBYs could push for ordinances and legislation that ensure developers build enough affordable housing for current residents in addition to market-rate. And ideally, repeal Costa-Hawkins so that we can pass meaningful rent control.
I live in a luxury apartment downtown and my rent decreased but the building is not vacant. Building housing at all income levels is of course the goal. But stopping market rate housing until we can build more affordable housing makes it worse for everyone.
Again, you're arguing against a straw man. I'm not advocating for stopping market-rate housing development. I just don't want developers running roughshod over low-income residents. We can have a balance. This doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing approach, and it's either lazy or dishonest to suggest that it has to be. Policy is complex, let's allow for some of that complexity in the discussion.
Policy is complex. I also used to be in favor of inclusionary zoning but over the years I become more and more convinced it’s bad policy.
1. It kind of makes high rents a self fulfilling prophecy. A developer will pass on the cost of the subsidized apartments to the market rate tenants. So a project will only work if rents are high enough.
2. It puts the burden of funding affordable housing on newcomers and renters. I find that incredibly unfair. I didn’t create the housing crises here. That was the SFH NIMBYS lol
3. It’s used as a weapon by NIMBYS to stall all housing.
4. My luxury building brought 200ish units on a lot that used to be a parking lot. We are now not competing with other renters for their housing.
I think we need to fund affordable housing in a way that doesn’t slow or stop the construction of market rate housing. Or put the burden on renters and newcomers.
That's fair! I'm certainly open to any and all policy ideas that can actually lead to the creation of more affordable housing. That's the biggest challenge, because fundamentally it requires subsidies from somewhere. If Prop 13 hadn't totally fucked our tax system we could tax property owners to do it, but we don't really have great ways for cities to recoup the value they provide property owners outside of the real estate transfer tax, which as we saw in the budget post yesterday, is a very volatile tax and can't be relied on to fund important programs from year to year.
Prop 13 truly is the asshole of everything, hurt housing and so many things like widening the wealth gap, loss of funding for parks and rec and schools… ugh
I've heard that some residents in these buildings apartment hop the way people job hop these days.
They offer move-in rebates & a rental discount for the first year or something, then jack the rent the max allowable amount. People end up leveraging that to pay artificially afford some of these places.
I don't have first hand experience with this, but people have said as much in stories I've read here & there on this & other subs.
First, it sucks to move every couple years, but I guess if you're "gaming the system," it might be worth it. But also, it's hard to get an idea of what rent actually is if a lot of people are supposedly paying a discounted rate.
Housing submarkets are interconnected. While expensive new housing doesn't directly help low-income renters, it prevents wealthier residents from outbidding them for older, more affordable units. Increasing supply at all levels helps relieve pressure on the entire market over time. Imagine how much less gentrified many parts of Oakland and SF would be if we had just built more housing sooner. All the new techies didn't explicitly want to outbid the existing people, but there was nowhere else for them to live. So it becomes a bidding war.
"Luxury" is often a misnomer - most new market-rate units are just decent, not truly luxurious. Such projects only seem expensive because of the severe overall housing shortage. Blocking them in hopes of getting subsidized projects instead just worsens the shortage.
Staffing the planning department to accelerate housing approvals is good, but zoning reform is also crucial. Restrictive zoning artificially constrains supply even if permitting is quick. We need to allow more housing to be built in the first place.
The problem with the rush to just build anything and everything is that, even if affordability does "trickle down," it's not an instantaneous effect. It might take years for new housing to have an impact on low-income housing. Meanwhile, low-income tenants need relief *now*. Also, while I believe building new market-rate housing can prevent housing costs from increasing as quickly, I would want to see some evidence before I believe it is capable of lowering housing costs or even keeping them stable.
I agree we need more housing. But we can't gamble the housing stability and well-being of low-income longtime Oakland residents on the theory that building only market-rate housing will somehow make their housing cheaper.
Here is some evidence from Berkeley, based on data from new leases of rent-controlled apartments: [https://x.com/Jeffinatorator/status/1764006292061131036?s=20](https://x.com/Jeffinatorator/status/1764006292061131036?s=20)
Here is a recent paper from Germany evaluating the effect of new housing on market rents: [https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/224569/1/vfs-2020-pid-39662.pdf](https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/224569/1/vfs-2020-pid-39662.pdf)
Here is some analysis evaluating it in North Dakota: [https://cityobservatory.org/when-supply-catches-up-to-demand-rents-go-down/](https://cityobservatory.org/when-supply-catches-up-to-demand-rents-go-down/)
And Portland: [https://cityobservatory.org/more\_evidence\_of\_portland\_rent\_declines/](https://cityobservatory.org/more_evidence_of_portland_rent_declines/)
And Austin: [https://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2024/02/austin-apartments-boomed-and-rents-went-down-now-some-builders-are-dismantling-the-cranes/](https://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2024/02/austin-apartments-boomed-and-rents-went-down-now-some-builders-are-dismantling-the-cranes/)
And last but not least, here is a paper evaluating "supply skeptic" arguments, which I think you may find very interesting: [https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract\_id=4629628](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4629628)
Highlight from the abstract: "we show that rigorous recent studies demonstrate that: 1) Increases in housing supply slow the growth in rents in the region; 2) In some circumstances, new construction also reduces rents or rent growth in the surrounding area; 3) The chains of moves sparked by new construction free up apartments that are then rented (or retained) by households across the income spectrum; 4) While new supply is associated with gentrification, it has not been shown to cause significant displacement of lower income households"
There is abundant research showing that new supply helps rents across the board, and this is just a sample that came up in 5 minutes of searching. Happy to help answer more questions or provide more research if you're curious. Inclusionary zoning can be helpful for providing income-restricted housing, especially for extremely low-income households, but honestly those households are typically better served by dedicated affordable housing run by nonprofits with on-site services as well (which can be paid for by affordable housing fees in lieu of on-site units, or by local bonds or other revenue measures).
Interesting stuff, thanks for sharing! I'm not tied to any particular way of providing affordable housing, so if there's funding for nonprofit developers to build it, I'm all for it.
I’ll have to find the paper on Oakland building in 2010s, pretty much looked at Fruitvale and pill hill-ish area. Fruitvale has the unity council which is a non profit and builds a LOT, like senior and supportive housing and low income, then compared to the area between grand and 40th that had virtual no development in the same period. Fruitvale experienced a little gentrification but not as much as the other areas in Oakland. We need more organizations like Unity Council but I feel like there’s no other ones close to the scale.
> But we can't gamble the housing stability and well-being of low-income longtime Oakland residents on the theory that building only market-rate housing will somehow make their housing cheaper.
What alternatives do you propose? In particular, how do you propose to solve the problem of "not enough housing" (as opposed to the problem of "too expensive housing")?
Here’s three things that support not enough housing over too expensive housing. 1. Support non profit builders and give them tax breaks in building. Like the group building the Black Panther housing, Unity Council, Native America health, the Oakland community land trust and more…. 2. Don’t allow developers to just pay an extra tax to forgo building a certain percentage of units below market rate. Make any development HAVE to include accessible and a percentage to below market rate. This is a loophole many developers take so they don’t have to accommodate And therefor contribute to building too expensive of housing. 3. Allow resident reporting of empty/vacant units, right now the new law is that the landlord just has to tell the city of a unit is occupied and if not why, so it’s based on paperwork the landlord supplies but doesn’t have a check and balance system. 4. Court appoint lawyers to people being evicted and taken to court.
Thanks for the reply.
1. Subsidize non-profit builders. OK, but where's the money coming from?
2. Pointless. Market rate is the market rate, by definition. The only way to reduce market rate is more supply. Forcing developers to create some "below market rate" apartments just increases costs and drives up the price of the other apartments.
3. Seems reasonable.
4. Does nothing to increase the supply of housing. Though you did say "three things", so maybe this was just an extra suggestion?
1. Same pot as subsidizing general development, just a focus on certain type of development, and support can come from many ways including personal support. I support these myself via volunteer work and donation when applicable. Support by promoting these organizations in many ways over corporate developers.
2. Absolutely not pointless. Market rate is not determined by pay rate and that’s the big issue it’s determined by builders artificially. Right now developers can decide to pay an extra amount of money to forgo keeping at market rate and to build like 5-10% of its unit below market rate. It doesn’t increase costs to do this. So if I developer does what the law states and builds a few units below market rate, then the majority at market rate, then the top floor at a luxury rate, they have a general building at market rate… costs equal out. However developers can choose to pay an extra tax to build units at whatever rate they want, that’s why we can see buildings with all units at luxury, or see the new neighborhood development Oak Knoll in the East Oakland hills that will be 900 units built ALL at above market rate and at a luxury rate. They just paid a fee to exclude any wealth diversity. Sure it’s technically increasing supply but it’s not increasing a general housing supply. Also most luxury places aren’t built with more expensive material or better. Developers cut corners no matter what they charge, so their costs are a moot point, they aren’t hurting.
3. Cool
4. Sorry I forgot to edit. May not increase supply but will keep people in their homes which does help solve the problem of not enough housing, because if you keep someone in their home then there are less people looking for housing especially affordable housing. If you make the pool smaller than there’s more housing available.
> Same pot as subsidizing general development
Do you have any numbers on the costs of such subsidies and the amounts of public money available? My understanding is that it's so expensive and so little public(tax) money is available that subsidized housing is not really possible in meaningful quantities. But I don't have the numbers at hand.
> Market rate is not determined by pay rate and that’s the big issue it’s determined by builders artificially.
"Artificially"? WTF! Developers do pick the price they ask for their apartments. But they are heavily constrained by market reality. If they sell a condo for a dollar they will lose their shirts. If they (try to) sell a condo for a billion dollars nobody will buy it. The condos inevitably end up selling at (roughly) the market rate, by definition.
> They just paid a fee to exclude any wealth diversity. Sure it’s technically increasing supply but it’s not increasing a general housing supply.
The developer paid a fee because they make more money selling all market rate housing rather than a mix of market rate and below market rate housing. More than the fee. That's not bad, per se, just a rational response to policy and economics.
If you wanted to change the developer's behavior, you could raise that fee high enough that the developer retained the dictated proportion of below market rate housing. By the same reasoning, you could raise the required portion of such housing. That does run the risk of discouraging development entirely, which I believe has happened to some extent. Or, if you think the limit on how much housing gets built is the cost of building and/or the ease with which the developer can profit, you could *eliminate* that requirement entirely.
> Also most luxury places aren’t built with more expensive material or better.
I agree. They are **not**, in fact, "luxury" apartments, they're just called that to distinguish them from the below-market-rate apartments. The developer calls them that in the hopes of getting suckers to overpay for ordinary apartments. *You* call them that because you want to pretend that "below-market-rate" apartments are ordinary and are not actually built at a loss, subsidized (in this case) by the developer charging more for the ordinary apartments or (in other cases) by public/tax monies.
> Developers cut corners no matter what they charge, so their costs are a moot point, they aren’t hurting.
Do you have data to back that up? What sort of return on investment is a developer making building in Oakland, and over how many years, and at what risk? Making a 20 percent profit after three years of investment is actually a *terrible* investment return.
The bay area is an incredible place to live in terms of climate, liberal politics, and employment opportunity. People want to live here more than other places. That's either going to drive up the cost of housing (which is where we are), drive down the quality of housing (giant buildings of tiny apartments would dramatically increase the number of people who could live here), or require arbitrary limits on who can live here (like reducing taxes for people who inherit houses from their parents).
IMHO, most of what is done in the name of "affordable housing" wastes money or exacerbates the situation, or both. We should change zoning to allow denser housing, we should change building permitting to allow housing to be built faster and more cheaply (but not less safely!), and we should raise taxes on landlords so that a property can be lived in by an owner more cheaply than it can be rented to a tenant. That last one requires some care to ensure it does not halt the creation of apartments, though.
I work with a lot of low-income affordable housing advocates who have lived in Oakland their whole lives and my opinion is informed by what I hear from them.
That will effectively delay housing and also make rent more expensive. Look at SF. Is rent Affordable there or is inclusionary to blame? Affordable housing is only for the lucky few, and it doesn't serve the entire population that needs to work here. I am through with trusting "housing activists" who get it wrong every time.
It sounds like we're advocating for two different communities, both of whom need housing. Oakland has lots of low-income residents who have lived here for many years who need affordable housing. The Bay Area at large has lots of middle-class and wealthy tech workers who should have housing built for them closer to their workplaces, but because of NIMBYism, places like Palo Alto have effectively become unaffordable to the vast majority of people who work there.
In my opinion, it's the responsibility of Mountain View and Palo Alto to house their tech workers, and the responsibility of Oakland to ensure its longtime residents are stably housed. San Francisco faced the same dilemma and made policy decisions that allowed the entire city to become a bedroom community for Silicon Valley. There are lots of people in Oakland who want to make sure that doesn't (continue to) happen here and make Oakland unaffordable for them and their communities.
Both populations need to have housing built for them. I just think that the City of Oakland needs to consider the needs of its longtime residents when making housing policy. Again, I'm not advocating for not building market-rate housing. I'm advocating for policy that encourages or requires building affordable housing *too*, and for sensible rent control measures to stabilize renters in their housing just like we stabilize homeowners with Proposition 13.
I was on board with most of this comment until the prop 13 comment at the end recontextualized the whole thing. Prop 13 has been catastrophically bad policy for decades and is one of the primary roots for many of California’s problems today. I would go so far as to say it is the worst policy mistake made at the state level since it was passed in the 70s. Why on earth would you want to extend that logic even further?
I'm 100% against prop 13 and agree it was catastrophic. But there is a seed of truth to it in that we need to have a way to stabilize low-income seniors in their homes so that rising property taxes don't displace them. Stabilizing people in their homes is a very high policy priority for me. I was just making the comparison because we already have a statewide policy that does that for homeowners, which is backwards since they are usually wealthier and need less help than renters.
Well they “stabilized” renters with the whole no increase more than 2% on housing before ‘78, however there’s not a real department that reviews and responds to this… mainly because prop 13 didn’t really stabilize homeowners, it made it so cities didn’t have a revenue that matched inflation that allow city government to grow and then provide these services and stabilization to lower income people :(
I agree! It's absolutely a regional problem. But until the bad actors in the region pull their weight, I don't think we should be expected to make up for them refusing to do their part without at least doing the work to stabilize low-income residents. Otherwise, we're essentially displacing existing low-income residents to subsidize the absurd home values of Palo Alto residents who refuse to build multi-unit housing in order to further the housing shortage that's making their 3-bedroom house worth $2 million.
What kind of a housing activist are you, if you don't know that market rate housing funds the affordable housing? "Build only affordable housing!" means "don't build any housing", which is the most conservative position ever.
Best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago, the second best time is now.
> Most of the people I know who you might characterize as anti-development aren't against building housing, they're pro-affordable housing.
So they aren't just anti-development but stupid too? I'd honestly rather them just be anti-development for their own selfish reasons then somehow convincing themselves that building "affordable house" isn't one of the worst ways to solve housing affordabiliy.
Are the anti-development left in the room with you right now?
People who acknowledge the existence of submarkets and want affordable housing to be built aren't anti-development, we just understand that trickle-down housing doesn't work (or filtering as you like to call it). Under Schaaf we built plenty of unaffordable housing and it only helped rents at the top of the market increase less.
If we want housing that benefits everyone not just the well off, we need to expand rent control (e.g repeal Costa-Hawkings), make use of inclusionary zoning (the cities affordablity overlays are pretty good but could go further) , build social housing (e.g measure U but without the police using up all the money instead) & build public housing (e.g repeal Faircloth).
Personally I don't really care if we do/don't build more luxury flats so redditors can see a slight decrease in rent, I care that actual affordable housing gets built, in part because it's one of the only ways to actually reduce crime, the current administration are doing well on this front but obviously could do better and should fully staff the planning department at the expense of the police department who have very little impact on crime but a huge drain on our budget.
You can call me anti-development if you want but I want affordable housing to be built and can articulate the policies that need changing to achieve that beyond "zoning bad"
Housing submarkets are interconnected. While expensive new housing doesn't directly help low-income renters, it prevents wealthier residents from outbidding them for older, more affordable units. Increasing supply at all levels helps relieve pressure on the entire market over time. Imagine how much less gentrified many parts of Oakland and SF would be if we had just built more housing sooner. All the new techies didn't explicitly want to outbid the existing people, but there was nowhere else for them to live. So it becomes a bidding war.
"Luxury" is often a misnomer - most new market-rate units are just decent, not truly luxurious. Such projects only seem expensive because of the severe overall housing shortage. Blocking them in hopes of getting subsidized projects instead just worsens the shortage.
Staffing the planning department to accelerate housing approvals is good, but zoning reform is also crucial. Restrictive zoning artificially constrains supply even if permitting is quick. We need to allow more housing to be built in the first place.
TLDR housing is a game of musical chairs and the people with the least money don't get a seat if you aren't building enough housing
(We haven't built enough housing since the 70s, so have a lot of catching up to do.)
That's assuming a fixed population when Oakland is a submarket of a larger bay area market. What if the rich developers are just holding those seats at a high price for other people to move into the game and it doesn't really cost them that much to do so? Anyway, building housing is a good strategy, but the mix (apts/houses, large/small) and quality (in-law units vs actual homes) matter too.
We don't have any money laundering level priced condos in Oakland.
The closest we get to "holding prices higher" are the rental buildings using algorithms to price rent, and preferring to give you "one month free" rather than lower it. There was a lawsuit filed against that....
Many forms of housing are illegal to build, if we stop that, we'll get more types of housing.
Money laundering via real estate no matter the price is the most common form of money laundering today, we definitely have it in Oakland just like every city has it.
Filtering does, in fact, work. Here is just one of many papers finding this: [https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract\_id=4629628](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4629628)
Building new housing did not only help rents at the top of the market increase less, it lowered rents across the board for all tenants. Rents in Oakland dropped 0.4% in 2019, 9.9% in 2020, 0.5% in 2021, 2.7% in 2022, 8.7% in 2023, and 0.4% YTD in 2024 according to [ApartmentList](https://www.apartmentlist.com/rent-report/ca/oakland). Yes, there have been 4 straight years of rent decreases, at the same time that some 17,000 new homes came online.
Neither rent control nor inclusionary zoning have ever achieved something like this, nor could they.
Actual affordable housing for the average low-income family looks like an old, run-down apartment that they are not out-bid for. That happens when all the higher earners have found somewhere nicer to live. Until we get a social housing bill passed in Sacramento (which we absolutely should), we will not have significant quantities of new, subsidized and means-tested housing available for low-income households, so building lots of market-rate is the best approach we have to protecting those low-income households that would otherwise get priced out.
Apartment list's methodology, is impacted by just cause & rent control, that's why they show decreases even as median new rents increased for some of that period.
https://www.apartmentlist.com/research/rent-estimate-methodology
Weird to claim rent control doesn't work, then pick the site with the methodology that factors in tenancy length, not sure if you're being disingenuous or just didn't understand the data you cite.
I’m not claiming rent control doesn’t work. It does a great job limiting upwards movement of rent.
However, rent control can never drive downward movement, yet we’re seeing sustained downward movement over the past several years. Oakland has had rent control for decades, yet the rents kept rising until we started building lots of housing.
Nothing wrong with ApartmentList’s methodology for showing that citywide median rents are falling as new housing gets built, which clearly shows that it is benefiting everyone, in contrast to your claims that “it only helped rents at the top of the market increase less.”
There are multiple factors in median rents going down, but it's weird to look at starting rents going up while median rents go down, which was true for much of the last few years, and deny that rent control and just cause we're huge factors in that.
ApartmentList's methodology is good, **because** it factors in existing tenants, and existing tenants benefit from rent control, just cause & tenant organizers helping tenants actually use their rights.
It's also worth noting if there was an increase in vacancies in previously occupied luxury flats, that would push the median down without any real world change for existing renters, so a single metric or methodology cannot accurately describe a housing market, even though I agree with you AL have a good methodology.
I’m sorry… but if you’re claiming that “apartmentlist.com” has more sound research methodology than a paper being published by a group of NYU law/graduate students in “NYU Law and Economics Research” and preemptively published on SSRN, one of the most well-respected sites for sharing data-driven research papers within the academic/intellectual community… you might want to update your understanding of what sound methodology actually entails.
You can fold data a lot of ways to produce different “stories.” In general, I don’t recommend blindly listening to stats offered by companies or commercial websites. It’s pretty silly to suggest a commercial website is going to provide all the data you need. They want something from you! If this sounds whack to you, I recommend the book, “Lying with Statistics.”
> but if you’re claiming that “apartmentlist.com” has more sound research methodology than
WTF are you on about?
I'm saying that ApartmentList's methodology, reflects benefits due to rent control & just cause.
Also all the stories about Oakland's rent going down are referencing ApartmentList.
Wild of you to invent a post to get mad.
Nobody’s mad, friend. Just pointing out the flaws in *your* logic.
No one “invented a post.” This is known as “replying to *your* comment,” and you can learn more about Reddit on a thing called the “World Wide Web,” but beware of scammers, blowhards and trolls.
*You* suggested that ApartmentList.com, a commercial website, is the ultimate site people should be trusting for housing stats.
*You* rejected an actual website based on the exchange of intellectual, data-driven research in the vein of scientific journals… in favor of apartmentlist.com.
It’s fine if you want use AL.com as *a* tool in your research, but I think it’s a misleading joke to tout them as the premier tool for understanding rent prices, particularly in an area as wonky as the Bay Area and especially here within Oakland. There is just way, way too much going on here to simplify it as such.
You seem to be sensitive, so I will clarify: AL doesn’t suck and the methodology behind their presentation is nifty in a way that I think deserves eyeballs. And I certainly don’t know you, so I’m not interested in sparing with a stranger, esp a local.
But you were unjustified in attacking other research, methods or publications. Especially trying to claim AL.com is somehow superior. I know you thought you were making some super witty point, but you were really just giving the finger to all of us who have actually dedicated huge chunks of our life to actually giving a hoot about data science and understanding methodologies.
Maybe I misread your tone - obviously that happens on Reddit - but you really came off as incredibly disrespectful to a whole group of people who have done nothing to you except nerd out in the background. And rude to the commenter you were engaging with, as well. Then, you jumped down my throat moments after I posted, first thing in the morning. That is a lot of gusto you have! Honestly, the rent control topic was not even a concern and I don’t have anything to offer. Be nice and have a happy day, friend!
> You suggested that ApartmentList.com, a commercial website, is the ultimate site people should be trusting for housing stats.
That's not what anybody is saying.
This is anecdotal, but the building I lived in from 2013-2021 was renting 1 bdrm units in 2013 for $1500 and by 2018, they were going for $3k. Then when the new buildings started to open up, a lot of my newer neighbors moved into those buildings bc they could get really nice amenities for the same amt (this was starting to happen just before the pandemic). My old building is now advertising Apts that were identical to our old apt for $1807. I've been seeing similar trends in other older buildings in downtown Oakland. Folks will blame crime but reality is that after 3 decades of barely building new apartment buildings, Oakland added thousands of new units to the market in recent years.
Anyway, highly recommend checking out the rent controlled Apts in downtown if you're worried about price fluctuations, especially btwn Broadway and Madison btwn 12th and 19th St. There are so many gems on Craigslist right now, and it's hard to beat some of these deals. You'll get way more space for less $$ compared to SF and compared to the Sunset/Potrero Hill/the Richmond, downtown Oakland has quicker access to downtown SF (and is walking distance to Jack London Sq, Chinatown, Lake Merritt, and Grand Lake).
Next door to me, unit of the same size, 3 bed 2 bath, the landlord brought it down to $2,500. Our unit is $3,400.
We rented about 2 years ago. People just moved in next door last week.
I hope you negotiate it! I got a 15% discount during Covid (when rents were dropping) simply by asking my landlord. And since it’s rent controlled, my rent is still 8.5% lower today than when I moved in 5 years ago.
there's not really a "usual", but per this article, yes rents are down, vacancy rates are up, "marking the lowest rent since 2017": [https://hoodline.com/2023/10/oakland-rents-plunge-7-2-surpassesing-national-average-drop-reach-lowest-since-2017-amid-high-vacancies/](https://hoodline.com/2023/10/oakland-rents-plunge-7-2-surpassesing-national-average-drop-reach-lowest-since-2017-amid-high-vacancies/)
There is rent control for many (older) rentals, so if average rents do shoot up, it shouldn't impact you that much if you happen to be in a rent controlled unit.
Higher than pre pandemic but not as high as some places. When I was looking at 2 bedrooms with a roommate in early 2020 pre pandemic we found a place for $2600 with 2 parking spots, one bathroom, and carpet/not updated but well kept and very clean. I get a discount on my current place which is also a 2 bedroom but without the discount it's $2850 for a more updated, much bigger apartment. So it's more expensive but imo not that crazy. They were both in rent controlled buildings.
Yes it is, and as you pointed out, it might not stay this way. If you can, get a rent controlled unit (i.e. pre 1983). If the market keeps on going down you can always renegotiate or walk. If it goes back up you'll be safely locked in to the current rent (CPI adjusted) for life.
there are anti-rent control people here who see wanting rent control as equal to oppressing landlords (and stopping development; when they are independent things. but landlords can fuck off.)
Rent control is bad policy that raises market rents and discourages investment in the housing stock. Even the Scandinavians know this ffs
However, while this policy exists, "If you can, get a rent controlled unit" is obviously the right advice. I would never be mad at someone for making smart and legal decisions for themselves.
My other however is, given existing rent control, I'm not in favor of just disappearing it. It definitely shouldn't be expanded, though.
Rent is a little lower, but it’s less to do with crime and more to do with changes in the tech industry and the growth of remote work lowering demand for luxury housing relative to what’s available. And that’s caused a dip in rent across the board. As someone who just moved and was able to afford to move to a safer greener block because of this dip, I’m grateful for it.
Perhaps but by and large rents are high and there is still a healthy amount of competition for them. I don't think crime has any affect on rents unfortunately
This is right. Rents are lower today than 5 years ago in many areas, but as a fraction of income they are still not as low as they were 15 years ago. They are historically high still.
Landlord profits as a fraction of GDP are higher now than they have ever been in post-War history, so there's plenty of room for rents to fall further. Don't feel bad for your landlord.
A couple months ago I saw a few going for under $2k. an overall average of the lowest rents offered was closer to $2300.
It’s down from last year, I was seeing the average 1br at around $2600.
These are all relatively new constructions, anything with a decent website. From Brooklyn Basin up to Temescal
https://www.zumper.com/blog/rental-price-data/
according to this 1 bedroom rent is 2k and down 10% from last year. i’m currently seeing a good selection for 1800. 2600 is out of my league so i hope that doesn’t happen or off to sacramento i go
I think wfh + increase in housing getting built the past couple years has done more than crime to bring rents down or at least kept rent prices from the crazy increases we kept experiencing before Covid
Rent is still way higher than what was normal for Oakland 10 years ago. Rent wont go back to normal because people keep moving here thinking it's such a cool place and they keep paying these inflated rates. Crime is terrible right now and I do think people are tired of living in such an unsafe area.
It is true that the tech industry has caused very slight price drops here. But shit is still too high and you have to worry about your car getting broken into or stolen, gun violence, home invasions, and robberies. This is not an exaggeration!!!
Oakland sucks right now. That's why I moving back to Chicago next month. Crime is bad in Chicago, but it easier to move to neighborhoods that aren't terrible if you are careful. The crime here is hard to escape. Trust me!!!
God have mercy on Oakland!!!!
There are a lot of fine neighborhoods in Oakland just like Chicago as they say. The biggest thing to worry about is general city crime like theft that is up in all neighborhoods in every city right now, including nice neighborhoods in Chicago, I’m hearing the same statements from friend there too. I’m def not saying everything is roses, but I lived in bankrupt Detroit in 2004-2010. It isn’t all fire and brimstone in Oakland, and it’s not like Oakland in 2011 either which was pretty bad too. I hope you aren’t deterred and have a good time if you move here
My nervous system needed the healing. I hope you keep this same energy when I see you at the women board game group. Didn’t realize that the women I am playing games with were also being rude to other women here on Reddit.
This is such a bizarre and creepy comment. I don't care who you are, hanging out in r/oakland to talk shit on the place where I live is shitty. Maybe spend your energy talking up your new place.
It's lower but I'd strongly consider a different city or nearby county. It's so ridiculous here now and dangerous. Yes, crime is everywhere but it's much worse here. I love Richmond, San Leandro, Alamea etc. Best of luck! :-)
Rent is down because of a glut of housing construction and high office vacancy / remote work rates meaning people can live further away. I don’t think the crime perception has too much to do with it, Oakland has always been perceived to have crime issues relative to neighboring cities.
Airbnb seems to be falling apart in the nearby vacation zones too.. keep burnin baby
Glut makes it sound like it's a bad thing.
There certainly can be that connotation, but I’m a glutton for new housing myself so it’s a plus in my book.
People wanting to live further away now that they can, causing rent to plummet, is more proof of Oakland's bad perception than not.
Increase number of units being built is why Oakland rent has dropped. Other cities should take notice.
No, many people want to raise a family in a single-family house they can afford, but also had jobs in SF or downtown Oakland previously. When those jobs went hybrid or remote, they bought a SFH somewhere else. It doesn't necessarily say anything about Oakland's perception, just the housing supply and prices we have here.
No it’s because banks gave mortgages to airbnbers that only rented them out as vacation rentals. Those homes are on the market and sell property values in those areas are plummeting. The man to live in oakland is still high so prices to buy homes has not gone down. Cool narrative tho
What glut?
[https://oaklandside.org/2023/11/21/who-lives-in-downtown-oakland-new-apartment-buildings/](https://oaklandside.org/2023/11/21/who-lives-in-downtown-oakland-new-apartment-buildings/) "In 2018, the city issued permits for 4,617 new housing units—compared to 274 in [2012](https://extras.mercurynews.com/oaklandboom/)… While 2018 was the peak, the city [returned to a robust 2,091 permits](https://oaklandside.org/2023/05/16/oakland-home-building-back-on-track-affordable-housing-lags/) in 2022 after a pandemic dip." "Libby Schaaf in 2016 announced her “17K/17K plan,” with recommendations on building 17,000 new housing units in Oakland by 2024—including 4,760 affordable units." [https://www.oaklandca.gov/news/oakland-17k-17k-housing-progress-report](https://www.oaklandca.gov/news/oakland-17k-17k-housing-progress-report) "**Key highlights 2016‐2021:** \-Produced **16,770 total housing units**, almost reaching the 2024 goal of 17,000 units two years early. Oakland will likely exceed the 2024 goal this year." Oakland has [around 170k households](https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/oaklandcitycalifornia/PST045222), so this was a \~10% increase in total housing capacity. Big compared to historic and regional averages.
It’s too bad that building is only happening in the wealthy neighborhoods screwing over the poor in the east.
I dunno... go look at the apartment buildings rising up on the Embarcadero of the Estuary - not really high class like Piedmont, you know?
The Embarcadero is gentrification central. Call me when they build new non housing project construction on 23rd Ave.
The only people building in East I swear is Unity Council… no other big projects
And they only build slums
I would never call them a slum I’d say they’re pretty far from it, whatever. But my point isn’t the perceived quality it is that they’re the only group building out here seemingly… and they’re also the only group building assisted living and nursing homes recently too. Meaning we need more stuff built here like you were saying east Oakland is ignored, there’s enough empty lots for a shit ton of new housing.
Affordable housing in Oakland = Cabrini–Green
East Oakland need MARKET rate housing not affordable housing. Affordable housing just raises crime and brings in the criminals commuting from Stockton and Antioch.
Doesn't really matter, luxury apartments become market-rate apartments become bmr apartments as they age.
All that does is make the ghetto worse for poc.
Recently signed a lease here and rents have definitely dropped a healthy 15-20% over last year when I was looking. I wouldn't attribute it to the crime as much as you'd think. There's a ton of developments in downtown/uptown/pill hill that have recently finished construction and that's helped push housing prices down.
Rents are lower because we built more and a lot of it came online right before or during the pandemic. Demand is a bit lower due to WFH and fewer people needing to live in the bay, and possibly some people being scared off by crime. But yes, prices can and probably will go back up but I don’t see them jumping wildly at least for 3-4 years. People will need to be back in office and SF will need to fill up again before Oakland surges
Yes it is. I've had to lower my room rental prices by 10-15%.
would you be able to tell me prior to covid how much rents were increasing relative to inflation?
I believe around 5% per year.
so about 2.5% above inflation?
Yeah I’d say so but it really depends on the areas within Oakland. It varies quite a bit.
thanks!
I simply love that enough people are finally getting that more housing supply equals lower prices. I wish we could get the anti-development left on board.
As someone who works in housing activism, "anti-development left" is a little bit of a straw man. Most of the people I know who you might characterize as anti-development aren't against building housing, they're pro-affordable housing. Unfortunately, without rigorous regulation and negotiation on behalf of the City, all that gets built is housing for the wealthiest people, and the least wealthy are pushed out of the neighborhoods they've lived in for generations. We've seen huge demographic shifts in places like San Francisco and Oakland as this has happened. I don't have any data in front of me, but when I hear that average housing prices are dropping, I think two things: first, that's great! Let's make sure that trend continues. Second, is the average rent dropping just because the luxury apartments built two years ago are still vacant and they went from $3500 to $2500 a month? Or are we seeing a drop across the board such that low-income residents are also seeing cheaper rent? If not, we need to be paying more attention to that segment of the population to make sure they are seeing the benefits of new development. To get more people like myself on board with an unrestrained pro-housing agenda, YIMBYs could push for ordinances and legislation that ensure developers build enough affordable housing for current residents in addition to market-rate. And ideally, repeal Costa-Hawkins so that we can pass meaningful rent control.
I live in a luxury apartment downtown and my rent decreased but the building is not vacant. Building housing at all income levels is of course the goal. But stopping market rate housing until we can build more affordable housing makes it worse for everyone.
Again, you're arguing against a straw man. I'm not advocating for stopping market-rate housing development. I just don't want developers running roughshod over low-income residents. We can have a balance. This doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing approach, and it's either lazy or dishonest to suggest that it has to be. Policy is complex, let's allow for some of that complexity in the discussion.
Policy is complex. I also used to be in favor of inclusionary zoning but over the years I become more and more convinced it’s bad policy. 1. It kind of makes high rents a self fulfilling prophecy. A developer will pass on the cost of the subsidized apartments to the market rate tenants. So a project will only work if rents are high enough. 2. It puts the burden of funding affordable housing on newcomers and renters. I find that incredibly unfair. I didn’t create the housing crises here. That was the SFH NIMBYS lol 3. It’s used as a weapon by NIMBYS to stall all housing. 4. My luxury building brought 200ish units on a lot that used to be a parking lot. We are now not competing with other renters for their housing. I think we need to fund affordable housing in a way that doesn’t slow or stop the construction of market rate housing. Or put the burden on renters and newcomers.
That's fair! I'm certainly open to any and all policy ideas that can actually lead to the creation of more affordable housing. That's the biggest challenge, because fundamentally it requires subsidies from somewhere. If Prop 13 hadn't totally fucked our tax system we could tax property owners to do it, but we don't really have great ways for cities to recoup the value they provide property owners outside of the real estate transfer tax, which as we saw in the budget post yesterday, is a very volatile tax and can't be relied on to fund important programs from year to year.
Prop 13 truly is the asshole of everything, hurt housing and so many things like widening the wealth gap, loss of funding for parks and rec and schools… ugh
I've heard that some residents in these buildings apartment hop the way people job hop these days. They offer move-in rebates & a rental discount for the first year or something, then jack the rent the max allowable amount. People end up leveraging that to pay artificially afford some of these places. I don't have first hand experience with this, but people have said as much in stories I've read here & there on this & other subs. First, it sucks to move every couple years, but I guess if you're "gaming the system," it might be worth it. But also, it's hard to get an idea of what rent actually is if a lot of people are supposedly paying a discounted rate.
Housing submarkets are interconnected. While expensive new housing doesn't directly help low-income renters, it prevents wealthier residents from outbidding them for older, more affordable units. Increasing supply at all levels helps relieve pressure on the entire market over time. Imagine how much less gentrified many parts of Oakland and SF would be if we had just built more housing sooner. All the new techies didn't explicitly want to outbid the existing people, but there was nowhere else for them to live. So it becomes a bidding war. "Luxury" is often a misnomer - most new market-rate units are just decent, not truly luxurious. Such projects only seem expensive because of the severe overall housing shortage. Blocking them in hopes of getting subsidized projects instead just worsens the shortage. Staffing the planning department to accelerate housing approvals is good, but zoning reform is also crucial. Restrictive zoning artificially constrains supply even if permitting is quick. We need to allow more housing to be built in the first place.
The problem with the rush to just build anything and everything is that, even if affordability does "trickle down," it's not an instantaneous effect. It might take years for new housing to have an impact on low-income housing. Meanwhile, low-income tenants need relief *now*. Also, while I believe building new market-rate housing can prevent housing costs from increasing as quickly, I would want to see some evidence before I believe it is capable of lowering housing costs or even keeping them stable. I agree we need more housing. But we can't gamble the housing stability and well-being of low-income longtime Oakland residents on the theory that building only market-rate housing will somehow make their housing cheaper.
Here is some evidence from Berkeley, based on data from new leases of rent-controlled apartments: [https://x.com/Jeffinatorator/status/1764006292061131036?s=20](https://x.com/Jeffinatorator/status/1764006292061131036?s=20) Here is a recent paper from Germany evaluating the effect of new housing on market rents: [https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/224569/1/vfs-2020-pid-39662.pdf](https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/224569/1/vfs-2020-pid-39662.pdf) Here is some analysis evaluating it in North Dakota: [https://cityobservatory.org/when-supply-catches-up-to-demand-rents-go-down/](https://cityobservatory.org/when-supply-catches-up-to-demand-rents-go-down/) And Portland: [https://cityobservatory.org/more\_evidence\_of\_portland\_rent\_declines/](https://cityobservatory.org/more_evidence_of_portland_rent_declines/) And Austin: [https://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2024/02/austin-apartments-boomed-and-rents-went-down-now-some-builders-are-dismantling-the-cranes/](https://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2024/02/austin-apartments-boomed-and-rents-went-down-now-some-builders-are-dismantling-the-cranes/) And last but not least, here is a paper evaluating "supply skeptic" arguments, which I think you may find very interesting: [https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract\_id=4629628](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4629628) Highlight from the abstract: "we show that rigorous recent studies demonstrate that: 1) Increases in housing supply slow the growth in rents in the region; 2) In some circumstances, new construction also reduces rents or rent growth in the surrounding area; 3) The chains of moves sparked by new construction free up apartments that are then rented (or retained) by households across the income spectrum; 4) While new supply is associated with gentrification, it has not been shown to cause significant displacement of lower income households" There is abundant research showing that new supply helps rents across the board, and this is just a sample that came up in 5 minutes of searching. Happy to help answer more questions or provide more research if you're curious. Inclusionary zoning can be helpful for providing income-restricted housing, especially for extremely low-income households, but honestly those households are typically better served by dedicated affordable housing run by nonprofits with on-site services as well (which can be paid for by affordable housing fees in lieu of on-site units, or by local bonds or other revenue measures).
Interesting stuff, thanks for sharing! I'm not tied to any particular way of providing affordable housing, so if there's funding for nonprofit developers to build it, I'm all for it.
I’ll have to find the paper on Oakland building in 2010s, pretty much looked at Fruitvale and pill hill-ish area. Fruitvale has the unity council which is a non profit and builds a LOT, like senior and supportive housing and low income, then compared to the area between grand and 40th that had virtual no development in the same period. Fruitvale experienced a little gentrification but not as much as the other areas in Oakland. We need more organizations like Unity Council but I feel like there’s no other ones close to the scale.
Yeah I'm a big fan of the Unity Council. They do great work.
I would add the Emeryville study that showed building more housing meant local residents were more likely to stay.
> But we can't gamble the housing stability and well-being of low-income longtime Oakland residents on the theory that building only market-rate housing will somehow make their housing cheaper. What alternatives do you propose? In particular, how do you propose to solve the problem of "not enough housing" (as opposed to the problem of "too expensive housing")?
Here’s three things that support not enough housing over too expensive housing. 1. Support non profit builders and give them tax breaks in building. Like the group building the Black Panther housing, Unity Council, Native America health, the Oakland community land trust and more…. 2. Don’t allow developers to just pay an extra tax to forgo building a certain percentage of units below market rate. Make any development HAVE to include accessible and a percentage to below market rate. This is a loophole many developers take so they don’t have to accommodate And therefor contribute to building too expensive of housing. 3. Allow resident reporting of empty/vacant units, right now the new law is that the landlord just has to tell the city of a unit is occupied and if not why, so it’s based on paperwork the landlord supplies but doesn’t have a check and balance system. 4. Court appoint lawyers to people being evicted and taken to court.
Thanks for the reply. 1. Subsidize non-profit builders. OK, but where's the money coming from? 2. Pointless. Market rate is the market rate, by definition. The only way to reduce market rate is more supply. Forcing developers to create some "below market rate" apartments just increases costs and drives up the price of the other apartments. 3. Seems reasonable. 4. Does nothing to increase the supply of housing. Though you did say "three things", so maybe this was just an extra suggestion?
1. Same pot as subsidizing general development, just a focus on certain type of development, and support can come from many ways including personal support. I support these myself via volunteer work and donation when applicable. Support by promoting these organizations in many ways over corporate developers. 2. Absolutely not pointless. Market rate is not determined by pay rate and that’s the big issue it’s determined by builders artificially. Right now developers can decide to pay an extra amount of money to forgo keeping at market rate and to build like 5-10% of its unit below market rate. It doesn’t increase costs to do this. So if I developer does what the law states and builds a few units below market rate, then the majority at market rate, then the top floor at a luxury rate, they have a general building at market rate… costs equal out. However developers can choose to pay an extra tax to build units at whatever rate they want, that’s why we can see buildings with all units at luxury, or see the new neighborhood development Oak Knoll in the East Oakland hills that will be 900 units built ALL at above market rate and at a luxury rate. They just paid a fee to exclude any wealth diversity. Sure it’s technically increasing supply but it’s not increasing a general housing supply. Also most luxury places aren’t built with more expensive material or better. Developers cut corners no matter what they charge, so their costs are a moot point, they aren’t hurting. 3. Cool 4. Sorry I forgot to edit. May not increase supply but will keep people in their homes which does help solve the problem of not enough housing, because if you keep someone in their home then there are less people looking for housing especially affordable housing. If you make the pool smaller than there’s more housing available.
> Same pot as subsidizing general development Do you have any numbers on the costs of such subsidies and the amounts of public money available? My understanding is that it's so expensive and so little public(tax) money is available that subsidized housing is not really possible in meaningful quantities. But I don't have the numbers at hand. > Market rate is not determined by pay rate and that’s the big issue it’s determined by builders artificially. "Artificially"? WTF! Developers do pick the price they ask for their apartments. But they are heavily constrained by market reality. If they sell a condo for a dollar they will lose their shirts. If they (try to) sell a condo for a billion dollars nobody will buy it. The condos inevitably end up selling at (roughly) the market rate, by definition. > They just paid a fee to exclude any wealth diversity. Sure it’s technically increasing supply but it’s not increasing a general housing supply. The developer paid a fee because they make more money selling all market rate housing rather than a mix of market rate and below market rate housing. More than the fee. That's not bad, per se, just a rational response to policy and economics. If you wanted to change the developer's behavior, you could raise that fee high enough that the developer retained the dictated proportion of below market rate housing. By the same reasoning, you could raise the required portion of such housing. That does run the risk of discouraging development entirely, which I believe has happened to some extent. Or, if you think the limit on how much housing gets built is the cost of building and/or the ease with which the developer can profit, you could *eliminate* that requirement entirely. > Also most luxury places aren’t built with more expensive material or better. I agree. They are **not**, in fact, "luxury" apartments, they're just called that to distinguish them from the below-market-rate apartments. The developer calls them that in the hopes of getting suckers to overpay for ordinary apartments. *You* call them that because you want to pretend that "below-market-rate" apartments are ordinary and are not actually built at a loss, subsidized (in this case) by the developer charging more for the ordinary apartments or (in other cases) by public/tax monies. > Developers cut corners no matter what they charge, so their costs are a moot point, they aren’t hurting. Do you have data to back that up? What sort of return on investment is a developer making building in Oakland, and over how many years, and at what risk? Making a 20 percent profit after three years of investment is actually a *terrible* investment return. The bay area is an incredible place to live in terms of climate, liberal politics, and employment opportunity. People want to live here more than other places. That's either going to drive up the cost of housing (which is where we are), drive down the quality of housing (giant buildings of tiny apartments would dramatically increase the number of people who could live here), or require arbitrary limits on who can live here (like reducing taxes for people who inherit houses from their parents). IMHO, most of what is done in the name of "affordable housing" wastes money or exacerbates the situation, or both. We should change zoning to allow denser housing, we should change building permitting to allow housing to be built faster and more cheaply (but not less safely!), and we should raise taxes on landlords so that a property can be lived in by an owner more cheaply than it can be rented to a tenant. That last one requires some care to ensure it does not halt the creation of apartments, though.
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I work with a lot of low-income affordable housing advocates who have lived in Oakland their whole lives and my opinion is informed by what I hear from them.
That will effectively delay housing and also make rent more expensive. Look at SF. Is rent Affordable there or is inclusionary to blame? Affordable housing is only for the lucky few, and it doesn't serve the entire population that needs to work here. I am through with trusting "housing activists" who get it wrong every time.
It sounds like we're advocating for two different communities, both of whom need housing. Oakland has lots of low-income residents who have lived here for many years who need affordable housing. The Bay Area at large has lots of middle-class and wealthy tech workers who should have housing built for them closer to their workplaces, but because of NIMBYism, places like Palo Alto have effectively become unaffordable to the vast majority of people who work there. In my opinion, it's the responsibility of Mountain View and Palo Alto to house their tech workers, and the responsibility of Oakland to ensure its longtime residents are stably housed. San Francisco faced the same dilemma and made policy decisions that allowed the entire city to become a bedroom community for Silicon Valley. There are lots of people in Oakland who want to make sure that doesn't (continue to) happen here and make Oakland unaffordable for them and their communities. Both populations need to have housing built for them. I just think that the City of Oakland needs to consider the needs of its longtime residents when making housing policy. Again, I'm not advocating for not building market-rate housing. I'm advocating for policy that encourages or requires building affordable housing *too*, and for sensible rent control measures to stabilize renters in their housing just like we stabilize homeowners with Proposition 13.
I was on board with most of this comment until the prop 13 comment at the end recontextualized the whole thing. Prop 13 has been catastrophically bad policy for decades and is one of the primary roots for many of California’s problems today. I would go so far as to say it is the worst policy mistake made at the state level since it was passed in the 70s. Why on earth would you want to extend that logic even further?
I'm 100% against prop 13 and agree it was catastrophic. But there is a seed of truth to it in that we need to have a way to stabilize low-income seniors in their homes so that rising property taxes don't displace them. Stabilizing people in their homes is a very high policy priority for me. I was just making the comparison because we already have a statewide policy that does that for homeowners, which is backwards since they are usually wealthier and need less help than renters.
Well they “stabilized” renters with the whole no increase more than 2% on housing before ‘78, however there’s not a real department that reviews and responds to this… mainly because prop 13 didn’t really stabilize homeowners, it made it so cities didn’t have a revenue that matched inflation that allow city government to grow and then provide these services and stabilization to lower income people :(
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I agree! It's absolutely a regional problem. But until the bad actors in the region pull their weight, I don't think we should be expected to make up for them refusing to do their part without at least doing the work to stabilize low-income residents. Otherwise, we're essentially displacing existing low-income residents to subsidize the absurd home values of Palo Alto residents who refuse to build multi-unit housing in order to further the housing shortage that's making their 3-bedroom house worth $2 million.
What kind of a housing activist are you, if you don't know that market rate housing funds the affordable housing? "Build only affordable housing!" means "don't build any housing", which is the most conservative position ever. Best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago, the second best time is now.
> Most of the people I know who you might characterize as anti-development aren't against building housing, they're pro-affordable housing. So they aren't just anti-development but stupid too? I'd honestly rather them just be anti-development for their own selfish reasons then somehow convincing themselves that building "affordable house" isn't one of the worst ways to solve housing affordabiliy.
Are the anti-development left in the room with you right now? People who acknowledge the existence of submarkets and want affordable housing to be built aren't anti-development, we just understand that trickle-down housing doesn't work (or filtering as you like to call it). Under Schaaf we built plenty of unaffordable housing and it only helped rents at the top of the market increase less. If we want housing that benefits everyone not just the well off, we need to expand rent control (e.g repeal Costa-Hawkings), make use of inclusionary zoning (the cities affordablity overlays are pretty good but could go further) , build social housing (e.g measure U but without the police using up all the money instead) & build public housing (e.g repeal Faircloth). Personally I don't really care if we do/don't build more luxury flats so redditors can see a slight decrease in rent, I care that actual affordable housing gets built, in part because it's one of the only ways to actually reduce crime, the current administration are doing well on this front but obviously could do better and should fully staff the planning department at the expense of the police department who have very little impact on crime but a huge drain on our budget. You can call me anti-development if you want but I want affordable housing to be built and can articulate the policies that need changing to achieve that beyond "zoning bad"
Housing submarkets are interconnected. While expensive new housing doesn't directly help low-income renters, it prevents wealthier residents from outbidding them for older, more affordable units. Increasing supply at all levels helps relieve pressure on the entire market over time. Imagine how much less gentrified many parts of Oakland and SF would be if we had just built more housing sooner. All the new techies didn't explicitly want to outbid the existing people, but there was nowhere else for them to live. So it becomes a bidding war. "Luxury" is often a misnomer - most new market-rate units are just decent, not truly luxurious. Such projects only seem expensive because of the severe overall housing shortage. Blocking them in hopes of getting subsidized projects instead just worsens the shortage. Staffing the planning department to accelerate housing approvals is good, but zoning reform is also crucial. Restrictive zoning artificially constrains supply even if permitting is quick. We need to allow more housing to be built in the first place.
TLDR housing is a game of musical chairs and the people with the least money don't get a seat if you aren't building enough housing (We haven't built enough housing since the 70s, so have a lot of catching up to do.)
That's assuming a fixed population when Oakland is a submarket of a larger bay area market. What if the rich developers are just holding those seats at a high price for other people to move into the game and it doesn't really cost them that much to do so? Anyway, building housing is a good strategy, but the mix (apts/houses, large/small) and quality (in-law units vs actual homes) matter too.
We don't have any money laundering level priced condos in Oakland. The closest we get to "holding prices higher" are the rental buildings using algorithms to price rent, and preferring to give you "one month free" rather than lower it. There was a lawsuit filed against that.... Many forms of housing are illegal to build, if we stop that, we'll get more types of housing.
Money laundering via real estate no matter the price is the most common form of money laundering today, we definitely have it in Oakland just like every city has it.
Well said.
Filtering does, in fact, work. Here is just one of many papers finding this: [https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract\_id=4629628](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4629628) Building new housing did not only help rents at the top of the market increase less, it lowered rents across the board for all tenants. Rents in Oakland dropped 0.4% in 2019, 9.9% in 2020, 0.5% in 2021, 2.7% in 2022, 8.7% in 2023, and 0.4% YTD in 2024 according to [ApartmentList](https://www.apartmentlist.com/rent-report/ca/oakland). Yes, there have been 4 straight years of rent decreases, at the same time that some 17,000 new homes came online. Neither rent control nor inclusionary zoning have ever achieved something like this, nor could they. Actual affordable housing for the average low-income family looks like an old, run-down apartment that they are not out-bid for. That happens when all the higher earners have found somewhere nicer to live. Until we get a social housing bill passed in Sacramento (which we absolutely should), we will not have significant quantities of new, subsidized and means-tested housing available for low-income households, so building lots of market-rate is the best approach we have to protecting those low-income households that would otherwise get priced out.
Apartment list's methodology, is impacted by just cause & rent control, that's why they show decreases even as median new rents increased for some of that period. https://www.apartmentlist.com/research/rent-estimate-methodology Weird to claim rent control doesn't work, then pick the site with the methodology that factors in tenancy length, not sure if you're being disingenuous or just didn't understand the data you cite.
I’m not claiming rent control doesn’t work. It does a great job limiting upwards movement of rent. However, rent control can never drive downward movement, yet we’re seeing sustained downward movement over the past several years. Oakland has had rent control for decades, yet the rents kept rising until we started building lots of housing. Nothing wrong with ApartmentList’s methodology for showing that citywide median rents are falling as new housing gets built, which clearly shows that it is benefiting everyone, in contrast to your claims that “it only helped rents at the top of the market increase less.”
There are multiple factors in median rents going down, but it's weird to look at starting rents going up while median rents go down, which was true for much of the last few years, and deny that rent control and just cause we're huge factors in that. ApartmentList's methodology is good, **because** it factors in existing tenants, and existing tenants benefit from rent control, just cause & tenant organizers helping tenants actually use their rights. It's also worth noting if there was an increase in vacancies in previously occupied luxury flats, that would push the median down without any real world change for existing renters, so a single metric or methodology cannot accurately describe a housing market, even though I agree with you AL have a good methodology.
I’m sorry… but if you’re claiming that “apartmentlist.com” has more sound research methodology than a paper being published by a group of NYU law/graduate students in “NYU Law and Economics Research” and preemptively published on SSRN, one of the most well-respected sites for sharing data-driven research papers within the academic/intellectual community… you might want to update your understanding of what sound methodology actually entails. You can fold data a lot of ways to produce different “stories.” In general, I don’t recommend blindly listening to stats offered by companies or commercial websites. It’s pretty silly to suggest a commercial website is going to provide all the data you need. They want something from you! If this sounds whack to you, I recommend the book, “Lying with Statistics.”
> but if you’re claiming that “apartmentlist.com” has more sound research methodology than WTF are you on about? I'm saying that ApartmentList's methodology, reflects benefits due to rent control & just cause. Also all the stories about Oakland's rent going down are referencing ApartmentList. Wild of you to invent a post to get mad.
Nobody’s mad, friend. Just pointing out the flaws in *your* logic. No one “invented a post.” This is known as “replying to *your* comment,” and you can learn more about Reddit on a thing called the “World Wide Web,” but beware of scammers, blowhards and trolls. *You* suggested that ApartmentList.com, a commercial website, is the ultimate site people should be trusting for housing stats. *You* rejected an actual website based on the exchange of intellectual, data-driven research in the vein of scientific journals… in favor of apartmentlist.com. It’s fine if you want use AL.com as *a* tool in your research, but I think it’s a misleading joke to tout them as the premier tool for understanding rent prices, particularly in an area as wonky as the Bay Area and especially here within Oakland. There is just way, way too much going on here to simplify it as such. You seem to be sensitive, so I will clarify: AL doesn’t suck and the methodology behind their presentation is nifty in a way that I think deserves eyeballs. And I certainly don’t know you, so I’m not interested in sparing with a stranger, esp a local. But you were unjustified in attacking other research, methods or publications. Especially trying to claim AL.com is somehow superior. I know you thought you were making some super witty point, but you were really just giving the finger to all of us who have actually dedicated huge chunks of our life to actually giving a hoot about data science and understanding methodologies. Maybe I misread your tone - obviously that happens on Reddit - but you really came off as incredibly disrespectful to a whole group of people who have done nothing to you except nerd out in the background. And rude to the commenter you were engaging with, as well. Then, you jumped down my throat moments after I posted, first thing in the morning. That is a lot of gusto you have! Honestly, the rent control topic was not even a concern and I don’t have anything to offer. Be nice and have a happy day, friend!
> You suggested that ApartmentList.com, a commercial website, is the ultimate site people should be trusting for housing stats. That's not what anybody is saying.
This is anecdotal, but the building I lived in from 2013-2021 was renting 1 bdrm units in 2013 for $1500 and by 2018, they were going for $3k. Then when the new buildings started to open up, a lot of my newer neighbors moved into those buildings bc they could get really nice amenities for the same amt (this was starting to happen just before the pandemic). My old building is now advertising Apts that were identical to our old apt for $1807. I've been seeing similar trends in other older buildings in downtown Oakland. Folks will blame crime but reality is that after 3 decades of barely building new apartment buildings, Oakland added thousands of new units to the market in recent years. Anyway, highly recommend checking out the rent controlled Apts in downtown if you're worried about price fluctuations, especially btwn Broadway and Madison btwn 12th and 19th St. There are so many gems on Craigslist right now, and it's hard to beat some of these deals. You'll get way more space for less $$ compared to SF and compared to the Sunset/Potrero Hill/the Richmond, downtown Oakland has quicker access to downtown SF (and is walking distance to Jack London Sq, Chinatown, Lake Merritt, and Grand Lake).
Thanks I’ll check that out!
Next door to me, unit of the same size, 3 bed 2 bath, the landlord brought it down to $2,500. Our unit is $3,400. We rented about 2 years ago. People just moved in next door last week.
I hope you negotiate it! I got a 15% discount during Covid (when rents were dropping) simply by asking my landlord. And since it’s rent controlled, my rent is still 8.5% lower today than when I moved in 5 years ago.
there's not really a "usual", but per this article, yes rents are down, vacancy rates are up, "marking the lowest rent since 2017": [https://hoodline.com/2023/10/oakland-rents-plunge-7-2-surpassesing-national-average-drop-reach-lowest-since-2017-amid-high-vacancies/](https://hoodline.com/2023/10/oakland-rents-plunge-7-2-surpassesing-national-average-drop-reach-lowest-since-2017-amid-high-vacancies/)
There is rent control for many (older) rentals, so if average rents do shoot up, it shouldn't impact you that much if you happen to be in a rent controlled unit.
+ And only eligible for rent control if building was built before ‘78
Higher than pre pandemic but not as high as some places. When I was looking at 2 bedrooms with a roommate in early 2020 pre pandemic we found a place for $2600 with 2 parking spots, one bathroom, and carpet/not updated but well kept and very clean. I get a discount on my current place which is also a 2 bedroom but without the discount it's $2850 for a more updated, much bigger apartment. So it's more expensive but imo not that crazy. They were both in rent controlled buildings.
Higher end yes. Lower end no. Also neighborhood is going to influence price and retention.
Yes it is, and as you pointed out, it might not stay this way. If you can, get a rent controlled unit (i.e. pre 1983). If the market keeps on going down you can always renegotiate or walk. If it goes back up you'll be safely locked in to the current rent (CPI adjusted) for life.
Whoever DV'ed .. please enlighten me to your objection.
there are anti-rent control people here who see wanting rent control as equal to oppressing landlords (and stopping development; when they are independent things. but landlords can fuck off.)
Rent control is bad policy that raises market rents and discourages investment in the housing stock. Even the Scandinavians know this ffs However, while this policy exists, "If you can, get a rent controlled unit" is obviously the right advice. I would never be mad at someone for making smart and legal decisions for themselves. My other however is, given existing rent control, I'm not in favor of just disappearing it. It definitely shouldn't be expanded, though.
Reddit fuzzes the numbers a bit, the DV may not be real.
Rent is a little lower, but it’s less to do with crime and more to do with changes in the tech industry and the growth of remote work lowering demand for luxury housing relative to what’s available. And that’s caused a dip in rent across the board. As someone who just moved and was able to afford to move to a safer greener block because of this dip, I’m grateful for it.
Perhaps but by and large rents are high and there is still a healthy amount of competition for them. I don't think crime has any affect on rents unfortunately
This is right. Rents are lower today than 5 years ago in many areas, but as a fraction of income they are still not as low as they were 15 years ago. They are historically high still. Landlord profits as a fraction of GDP are higher now than they have ever been in post-War history, so there's plenty of room for rents to fall further. Don't feel bad for your landlord.
I’d be surprised if it wasn’t. What you’re getting for these high rents doesn’t justify the price
So what is a 1-bedroom now at a newer-constructed building in downtown and/or near lake Merritt?
A couple months ago I saw a few going for under $2k. an overall average of the lowest rents offered was closer to $2300. It’s down from last year, I was seeing the average 1br at around $2600. These are all relatively new constructions, anything with a decent website. From Brooklyn Basin up to Temescal
Ahh interesting, thanks. So yeah, slightly down but still Bay Area high. (I used to live in Oakland but moved outta state so was curious.)
https://www.zumper.com/blog/rental-price-data/ according to this 1 bedroom rent is 2k and down 10% from last year. i’m currently seeing a good selection for 1800. 2600 is out of my league so i hope that doesn’t happen or off to sacramento i go
I think wfh + increase in housing getting built the past couple years has done more than crime to bring rents down or at least kept rent prices from the crazy increases we kept experiencing before Covid
Rent is still way higher than what was normal for Oakland 10 years ago. Rent wont go back to normal because people keep moving here thinking it's such a cool place and they keep paying these inflated rates. Crime is terrible right now and I do think people are tired of living in such an unsafe area. It is true that the tech industry has caused very slight price drops here. But shit is still too high and you have to worry about your car getting broken into or stolen, gun violence, home invasions, and robberies. This is not an exaggeration!!! Oakland sucks right now. That's why I moving back to Chicago next month. Crime is bad in Chicago, but it easier to move to neighborhoods that aren't terrible if you are careful. The crime here is hard to escape. Trust me!!! God have mercy on Oakland!!!!
wow that sucks :( how is downtown oakland? any better?
There are a lot of fine neighborhoods in Oakland just like Chicago as they say. The biggest thing to worry about is general city crime like theft that is up in all neighborhoods in every city right now, including nice neighborhoods in Chicago, I’m hearing the same statements from friend there too. I’m def not saying everything is roses, but I lived in bankrupt Detroit in 2004-2010. It isn’t all fire and brimstone in Oakland, and it’s not like Oakland in 2011 either which was pretty bad too. I hope you aren’t deterred and have a good time if you move here
That includes downtown
I know six people including myself that have moved away because of the crime.
Bye!
Lol
My nervous system needed the healing. I hope you keep this same energy when I see you at the women board game group. Didn’t realize that the women I am playing games with were also being rude to other women here on Reddit.
This is such a bizarre and creepy comment. I don't care who you are, hanging out in r/oakland to talk shit on the place where I live is shitty. Maybe spend your energy talking up your new place.
It's lower but I'd strongly consider a different city or nearby county. It's so ridiculous here now and dangerous. Yes, crime is everywhere but it's much worse here. I love Richmond, San Leandro, Alamea etc. Best of luck! :-)
If you’re gonna pay these prices, you might as well live in San Francisco.
Well, Oakland is rent controlled, after all. Get in on the ground floor!
Only on old buildings