News: San Francisco
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A chapter of the California Apartment Association and two other groups have sued the city of San Francisco, claiming it passed legislation that violates building owners’ rights under the state’s Ellis Act.
The legislation, approved by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and signed by Mayor Ed Lee, prohibits owners of multi-unit buildings from combining units in a building for 10 years following an Ellis Act eviction or for five years following an owner-move-in eviction.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday, Jan. 28, says the state Ellis Act pre-empts the city legislation. The Ellis Act allows building owners to take a building… Read More
Tagged: Ellis ActLegislation
The California Apartment Association and a Los Angeles City Council committee Tuesday backed a proposal to scour the city for “soft story” apartment buildings vulnerable to collapse during a major temblor.
The project would identify soft-story structures from roughly 29,000 apartment buildings erected prior to 1978. These types of buildings often have wooden frames and carports at ground level. Without proper reinforcement, they’re prone to significant damage during the intense shaking of an earthquake.
Finding soft story buildings is likely a precursor to mandatory retrofitting. San Francisco passed this type of legislation this year, and CAA helped ensure financial help… Read More
As South Coast rents continued to climb this past summer, Orange County remained the fifth most expensive metro area to rent in California.
More expensive were San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles and Santa Cruz.
Read more in this Orange County Register article.
Tagged: Rental Prices Orange County
The city of Los Angeles may soon begin a study to inventory “soft story” apartment buildings — ones in which the ground floor may not be strong enough to support upper levels during a major earthquake, the L.A Times reported Wednesday, Aug. 21.
Locating and counting these vulnerable structures could lay the groundwork for an eventual proposal to require seismic retrofitting on soft story buildings in L.A.
The push comes as the 20-year anniversary of the Northridge quake approaches. The 1994 temblor destroyed or seriously damaged roughly 200 soft story buildings, according to the Times story.
If Los Angeles ultimately… Read More
Tagged: Safety
In this column in the New York Times, TV journalist Scott James tells a landlord’s horror story — it involves a sledgehammer — about renting out his downstairs apartment in San Francisco. He’s not renting out that unit again. Scott admits he’s adding to The City’s housing shortage and gives his reasons. What’s your take?
Tagged: Opinion
In this column in the New York Times, TV journalist Scott James tells a landlord’s horror story — it involves a sledgehammer — about renting out his downstairs apartment in San Francisco. He’s not renting out that unit again. James admits he’s adding to The City’s housing shortage and gives his reasons. What’s your take?
If it were the Giants vs. the A’s, we’d be headed for extra innings.
But we’re talking apartments here, and when it comes to the pace of rental revenue growth, the cities are in a dead heat for first place.
For the first quarter of 2013, Oakland and San Francisco were even for annual rent growth among the nation’s largest markets, according to propertymanagementinsider.com.