Berkeley Tenants are urged to join members of the notorious Berkeley Property Owners Association at a Public Hearing this Monday, May 4 at 7 PM

Screen Shot 2015-05-01 at 1.01.34 PM

The Board must consider raising their registration fees for the first time since 2009.

Tell Them Yes
The Rent Board must maintain or increase their services!

The fee might go up as much as 10%.
Market Rents have gone up at least 10% EACH YEAR, according to several sources. Even rents under rent control have gone up over 8% since the last time the Rent Board raised their fee. But the landlords are going to tell the Board they can’t afford another $19 a year. Even though the entire registration fee is less than 1% of the average rent for a one-bedroom in Berkeley.

Please join BTU on Monday.
Tell your story.  Encourage the Board to maintain staffing, or even increase services.

Landlords Can Afford It: Rents Going Up Up Up!

Rents in the East Bay up 62.5% in five years
http://www.ctbtapartments.com/images/reports/Bay_Area_Multi_Family_Snapshot_Q1_2015.pdf

“Berkeley had the largest change, with a 32.4 percent spike in rents from January 2014 to January 2015.”
http://sf.curbed.com/archives/2015/02/24/yikes_the_bay_area_leads_the_nation_in_annual_rent_growth.php

http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_26733312/bay-area-apartment-rents-at-record-high

http://abc30.com/realestate/san-francisco-bay-area-rents-continue-to-climb/504262/

Where Does the Money Go? Rent Board Info:

7a3_Prelim Mkt Medians Report for Q2 Q3 Q4 2014-1

At BTU, we’ve always found the above chart from the Rent Board a little curious. We never see Berkeley apartments on Craigslist for as low as these “median” rents above. For more info on REAL rent increases in Berkeley, see https://www.berkeleytenants.org/?p=1085

The Rent Board voted to increase the fee by $19 on May 11, 2015. BTU had three times as many speakers as the landlord association at the May 4 hearing.