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by klipt
4665 days ago
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True, I was thinking from the perspective of a grad student. I got a nasty shock when my "original tenant" housemate moved out and my rent jumped up 20%. (Berkeley rent control only applies while at least one original tenant remains, but I had no idea I was benefiting so much from rent control up to then.) 20% may not sound like a lot, but I'm pretty sure grad student stipends haven't gone up more than a few % over the same time. I wonder how much rent around a university can rise before the situation becomes unsustainable (the university either needs to provide subsidized housing, or it'll lose prestige as good students switch to universities that aren't surrounded by housing bubbles.) |
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Thanks for posting this. I have a nice sunny one bedroom apartment for $1000/month a few blocks away from UC campus, which I'm only getting for that price because I pretended to move in with my friend, when in actuality he was moving out of the building after living there for around 4 years. So our names are both on the lease, but only I live there [1]. The prices in the building have gone up over 30% in the past few years - the units now rent for $1350+, which is still pretty cheap for the city.
Anyway, my friend was thinking of moving out on paper (i.e., getting his name off of the lease), but now I'll have to convince him not to do that. I doubt I'd be able to afford an extra $350 a month in rent on my stipend... I think I'll have no choice but to stay here for at least my entire grad school program to milk the rent control as long as possible, because rent really seems to be exploding in Berkeley. (Not to the extent that it is in SF, of course.)
[1] Throwaway account because I'm not sure whether this is legal. It's not as if the lease says "All tenants listed must be present in the unit for at least X hours per month", so in theory it doesn't seem like it should be illegal, but it seems a bit...sketchy.