By The Mercury News
A newly-minted rent cap deal would have brought relief last year to relatively few renters in the state, although Bay Area tenants would have benefited more than most, according to a Zillow analysis.
The proposed cap — allowing landlords to annually raise rent no more than 5 percent plus the rate of inflation — would have saved money last year for about 12 percent of Bay Area tenants. About 30 percent of renters in two popular destinations for Silicon Valley refugees, Vallejo and Sacramento, would have received a break. Overall, about 7 percent of California renters would have benefited from the measure, according to the estimate released Wednesday.
Zillow senior economist Cheryl Young said the impact of the proposal would have been much greater on the Bay Area a few years earlier. “The rental market has been flat for a while in San Francisco and San Jose,” she said.
