San Francisco tenant Bianca Liebhaber was shocked when she learned the rent on her Bernal Heights apartment was increasing by 130 percent.
Liebhaber, 26, has lived with a roommate in the two-bedroom, one-bath Cortland Avenue apartment over a shopfront since March 2013 and split the original $2,100-a-month rent. When a new roommate moved into the apartment last November, the rent increased by $400 to $2,500 a month. Then, Citibrokers purchased the building in July, according to Liebhaber, and last week she was hit with a $3,250 increase.
Now, she and her roommate are faced with splitting $5,750 a month beginning Dec. 1. As a part-time biologist at the Exploratorium and a bartender at a music venue in the Mission District, she can't afford to stay in her home.
The University of Washington graduate started looking for a new place but is now looking to leave the area as she can't find anything she can afford in San Francisco's crazy rental market. What's more, Liebhaber is a dog owner, which limits her options.
"It's pretty upsetting," she said in an interview. "It's most disappointing because I have to leave the city not on my own terms.
"I haven't been able to find full-time work as a field biologist and whether I could afford to stay here was something I was thinking about but it doesn't feel good to be forced to make that choice. I think working in biology is my future but probably not here in locally."
Liebhaber works in the life sciences area of the Exploratorium and works in the lab that supports the museum's public exhibits and programs. "We do a lot of animal husbandry," she said. "helping with the reproduction of fish, sea anemone and plankton that are used in exhibits."
Is $5,750 a fair price for a two-bedroom in Bernal Heights?
Michael Meyers of Citibrokers, which owns the building, said in an interview, "That's fair market rate for the neighborhood."
San Francisco's rental market is notoriously crazy as the Bay Area's tech industry booms, and Bernal Heights is especially hot because it's located in the city's south side with easy access to the Silicon Valley. The average rent for a two-bedroom in Bernal Heights as of August 2015 is $4,350, up 1.2 percent in the past quarter, according to Zumper.
Is the Cortland apartment worth an extra $1,400 over the two-bedroom average?
Liebhaber loves her apartment with hardwood floors and a great location on Bernal's main drag, but she says the interior needs a coat of paint and the place is small and cozy. This isn't a newly remodeled, spacious space with fresh-white walls.
"It's not one of those apartments with Victorian charm and it hasn't been recently remodeled," she said. "But it's cute and I've made it my home."
Liebhaber shared her situation with the San Francisco Rental Board and was told that because her apartment is in a two-unit building and the other unit is a business, it's considered a single-family home and under the Rent Ordinance she's only protected from evictions, not rent increases.
San Francisco tenants' rights attorney Joseph Tobener of Tobener Law Center says Liebhaber might have a case against the owner if she can prove the rental increase is a wrongful endeavor to evict her.
"The rent increase needs to be above market rate," Tobener explains. "And the landlord needs to have an ulterior motive, for example wants to remodel. And then the tenant needs to be in a situation where they're forced to move out because of the rent increase."
In the meantime, Liebhaber is beginning to look into moving to San Diego or the Portland, Ore., area, where she grew up, and says you can find a two-bedroom for the price of a room in San Francisco.
"I definitely think within the past four years, I've seen the city change," she said. "I know the tech boom is good for the economy but it's definitely moving a lot of cultural influences out of the city."
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