[lazyasciiart]

I know a few property owners in San Francisco and this is the first I've heard of it. Sounds like an urban legend.

[almost_usual]

Are the people you know single or two home owners? I’m talking about multi home owners in the Bay Area (4+) with property in the most expensive cities in the world. That’s a very different social class than a Bay Area home owner.

The ones who do rent usually hire an agency to take care of the headaches for them.

[lazyasciiart]

I might have been thinking of a different definition of 'common' than you were. I don't doubt that more than one person like this exists, but nobody who has attempted to study this has found that the vacancy rate is significant. e.g http://www.spur.org/sites/default/files/publications_pdfs/SP... (from 2014), https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/03/12/empty-homes-a-califor... (actual data from the Census is at https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/data/rates.html)

[jeffreyrogers]

It happens in other cities, so it would be odd if it's not happening in SF too.