ABSTRACT
Berkeley voters passed successor legislation, the Rent Stabilization and Eviction for Good Cause Ordinance, in June 1980. Berkeley’s rent stabilization ordinance regulated nearly 21,000 of the 24,500 rental units in the city. The city’s housing stock is a diverse mixture of about 45,800 units, of which some 26,000 typically are rented and about 19,500 are owner-occupied. In the early months of rent control, the city council became concerned that landlords would respond to the regulation by converting multifamily rental property to condominiums. The available data indicate that the city lost approximately 1,050 units, virtually all rentals, from its existing housing stock between April 1980 and April 1990. An analysis conducted by the city’s Community Development Department showed that a typical Berkeley rental property purchased in 1978 and sold in 1991 had received an average annual pretax rate of return of 9 percent.
