My apartment building is for sale. The realtors included finance info in their pamphlet to help investors. I'm not planning on investing, but I was curious about the finances; the building is rent-controlled, and in the news you keep hearing about landlords griping about rent control.

I've lived in my rent-controlled apartment for 20+ years. For 20+ years, the city rent board has told my landlords what % they can raise my rent that year instead of letting supply&demand determine it. Looking at this pamphlet, I see that if I moved out of my apartment and got a new lease on an identical apartment in the building, my rent would nearly double; it would go up more than 90%

Wow, no wonder landlords grouse about rent control. I almost felt bad for them, until I kept reading…

The pamphlet lists out the building's expenses. The expenses are less than half of the building's income. So even if enough of the building's tenants stayed put long enough such that their rent-controlled rents fell to half of market rents, the landlords would still come out ahead. I guess the San Francisco Rent Board has done a pretty good job setting those rent increase levels.