Study Okayed for Evictions Involving Children

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a new measure regarding evictions and their possible effect on children’s school performance. The measure directs the San Francisco Rent Board to identify and report data on evictions involving school-age children, while the San Francisco Unified School District must now track student mobility caused by evictions. These findings will then be reported to the board. Both agencies have said that they can file the reports, but not without some difficulty.

SFAA considers this legislation to be an unnecessary and time-consuming use of city resources. “Conducting this kind of a study with two unrelated departments that involve complicated calculations is a huge waste of time,” says SFAA Executive Director Janan New. She adds that most no-fault evictions are negotiated between the property owner and the tenants, so those tenants with school-age children can almost always arrange to leave outside of the school year.

The measure was sponsored by Supervisor Jake McGoldrick, who has suggested he may use the data to draft legislation that would prohibit the eviction of families with school-age children during the school year. He says he was inspired to look at the correlation between evictions and school performance after living in France, which disallows school-year evictions.

Passthrough Loophole Finally Closed
In a major victory for SFAA, the legal loophole that has prevented property owners from recovering 50% of the costs of voter-enacted bonds is now closed. The legislation making the split of all bonds automatic passed the full Board of Supervisors unanimously.

This legislation makes right an agreement Supervisor Tom Ammiano and the San Francisco Tenants Union made with apartment industry groups four years ago. The so-called “Ammiano agreement” was passed by the Board of Supervisors in 2002 and mandated that all future bonds be split 50-50 between landlords and tenants. But it also required that the passthrough be “disclosed and approved by the voters.” This loophole allowed some proponents of bonds to choose not to include passthrough language and thereby prohibit a passthrough. This was the case in last November’s Proposition B (the infrastructure bonds), which SFAA successfully fought and defeated.

When the San Francisco Unified School District placed a $450 million bond on this November’s ballot, SFAA’s position was clear—the loophole in the Ammiano agreement must be closed or we would organize to defeat the bonds. The SFUSD and Supervisor Ammiano worked quickly to craft legislation to close the loophole and over the last month we maintained pressure on both the district and the board. With this passthrough loophole closed, SFAA takes a “no position” stance on the school bond proposition.

Property owners can now finally make decisions on bonds with regard to their merit, not the passthrough issue. Many SFAA members, other industry groups snd Supervisor Ammiano worked hard to achieve this victory and we owe them a debt of gratitude.

SFAA at Work on New Health Code Legislation

SFAA has successfully lobbied to remove some of the more onerous requirements of a potential new health code ordinance. Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi is leading the charge to give San Francisco Health Department inspectors more leeway to fine property owners over vermin and pest control issues, including bedbugs. Mirkarimi originally included requirements that all apartment common areas must be nonsmoking and that all units must have window screens, but SFAA was able to have these portions of the ordinance removed. Still up for debate is language saying that “lead hazards” now apply to adults, as well as children, and that property owners are responsible for attorneys’ fees that stem from health code violations. There are also some vague references to mandatory health code classes for property owners, but no reference to where or when these classes would take place. At press time, the legislation had been heard, but is stalled in committee.

SFAA Board Elections November 13
The membership of SFAA will elect its new board of directors at a special meeting on November 13 at Fort Mason. Mail proxies were sent out in October and are due back at the start of November.

Free property management classes and the SFAA trade show, Apartments Ahoy, will be held on the same day as the vote. The trade show will be held in Fort Mason’s conference center from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Professionals who provide San Francisco’s rental housing industry with top products and services will be on hand to answer all your questions.

Advance registration is required for the educational classes. Please contact Education and Events Director Vanessa Khaleel at vanessa@sfaa.org to get involved or for further information.

60-Day Eviction Notice Approved
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill that requires landlords to give 60 days’ notice for no-fault evictions, extending the 30-day requirement currently in effect. The law goes into effect on January 1, 2007, and will be on the books until 2010. This new notice requirement only applies to tenancies of more than one year and that one-year clock restarts if a new tenant is added to the lease.

SFAM Seeks Columnist to Cover Property Management
SF Apartment Magazine is seeking a seasoned on-site property manager to write a quarterly column covering all aspects of running an apartment building. The ideal candidate should be well versed in leasing, rental forms, maintenance, repair and tenant communications, as well as knowledgeable about local and statewide rental housing laws. Familiarity with local politics and overall housing issues in San Francisco is a plus. Clever and talented writers are encouraged to apply. Please email Managing Editor Emily Landes at emily@blackpointpress.com with a resume and two brief writing samples, or call 415-392-3770 for more information.

San Francisco Named Tenth Most Expensive Real-Estate Market
A new survey from Coldwell Banker shows that San Francisco is the tenth most expensive real-estate market in the United States, trailing behind other Bay Area communities like Palo Alto (#5), San Jose (#7) and San Mateo (#9). Nine of the ten most expensive markets are in California. Greenwich, Connecticut (#8) was the only non-California community to crack the top ten.

Coldwell set these criteria to determine average sales prices: a single-family dwelling, approximately 2,200 square feet, four bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, family room or equivalent and a two-car garage in neighborhoods/ZIP codes within a market that is typical for corporate middle-management transferees. A home with these parameters costs an average of $1.36 million in San Francisco, while in the most-expensive Beverly Hills market the price is $1.8 million.

New Guidelines for “Exotic” Mortgages
Federal banking regulators recently published new guidelines that crack down on banks offering “nontraditional” mortgages. Many in the loan industry credit these mortgages, some of which allow interest-only payments with no money down, for contributing to people’s abilities to buy in markets they might otherwise have been priced out of, but regulators fear that lenders and borrowers are making irresponsible choices that could lead to increased foreclosures and economic instability.

The new guidelines mandate that lenders qualify borrowers at the fully
indexed rate for interest-only and payment-option loans, not just the lower-cost introductory period. Lenders must also now disclose how monthly payments will change if borrowers only make minimum payments or if interest rates increase. These new guidelines apply only to federally insured lenders and some bankers have argued that they give unregulated institutions a competitive advantage.