Let's talk about what's actually happening in San Francisco's rental market right now, because it's ugly.
Tech workers pulling six figures are watching rent eat over half their take-home pay. Tenants in SOMA luxury buildings are getting hit with 25%+ rent increases in a single year, with landlords openly telling them to pack up because "AI flipped the market." Meanwhile, long-time residents are clinging to rent-controlled apartments like life rafts, terrified that one hoarder fire or rodent infestation away from losing their unit means their housing costs literally double overnight.
This is what happens when a city spends decades strangling its own housing supply.
San Francisco's planning and permitting process remains one of the most expensive and time-consuming in the country. Every new unit that doesn't get built is another unit of leverage handed to landlords. Every discretionary review, every CEQA challenge, every neighborhood group that kills a project — they all feed the same beast. When demand surges (hello, AI boom), and supply hasn't moved, prices do what prices do. Econ 101 doesn't care about your feelings.
Rent control, for all the comfort it provides current holders, actually makes this worse in the long run. It creates a two-tier market where insiders pay 2019 prices and newcomers get fleeced. It discourages landlords from maintaining properties and incentivizes them to find creative ways to push tenants out. It's a band-aid on a bullet wound.
The real solution? Build. A lot. Faster. Cut the permitting timeline. Reduce fees on new construction. Stop treating every proposed apartment building like an environmental catastrophe. Let the market actually function.
And here's the uncomfortable truth nobody at City Hall wants to say: when people earning $100,000+ can barely save money in your city, you don't have an income problem. You have a government-created scarcity problem.
San Franciscans deserve better than a housing market that functions like a game of musical chairs where the music is always about to stop. The fix isn't more regulation — it's less obstruction.