traytonwhite

I want to agree with you, but I don't think this is true. The average building height in Paris is 6 stories. People in my SF neighborhood cause a ruckus over 3 story buildings because they're too tall.

The part where the person thinks they have some right to tell others what to do with their properly-zoned property while simultaneously refusing to pay for that right?

This argument is so funny because it's true that owners make it, and the owners are narrow-mindedly mistaken. Right now in SF, a developer doesn't know if they'll be able to buy a single family home and replace it with a 3 story multifamily unit - even if the area is zoned for it. Because California doesn't have by right zoning, so anyone can just come along and get the project stopped.

Presumably, if a developer knows they'll be able to do whatever they can that's allowed in the zoning regulations, then the property value should increase even more as a significant risk has been removed.

Because the Mission has easy access to BART, Caltrain, highways, and is central-ish to the SFMTA whereas Sea Cliff is just sort of out there.

Your renter pays the market rate for rent for that property (in general). In your case, that happens to work out in your favor. But in a place like SF, a 2 bedroom apartment costs $1.5 million, which is ballpark $7k+ a month. I can rent a 2 bedroom for less than half that because the market is simply not paying $7k a month for 2 bedroom apartments.

I've also rented a house where my rent payment did not even cover the mortgage (I knew the landlords - they had bought in 2006 and were still waiting on the market to rebound so they could cash out and move on).

So as the article says - it all depends.