A Beverly Hills real estate agent not only ignored a California law, but grossly violated it. That’s essentially what California Attorney General Rob Bonta had recently found, announcing charges against Iman Eshaghyan for “allegedly advertising, listing, and eventually renting two properties at a cost that exceeds” the state law that prohibits price-gouging after a disaster, reported LAist.
After L.A.’s wildfires in January, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency, which stopped landlords from raising rents by more than 10 percent. Eshaghyan was accused of jacking up the rents at a Beverly Hills property by a whopping 30 percent.
The Eshaghyan controversy is just one more example of the real estate industry showing its true colors, always looking to make king-sized profits off other people’s misery. It’s why we keep saying, and will keep saying, that only rent control will rein in predatory landlords.
In fact, a recent white paper published in the Harvard Business Review made that point, too.
Since we’re bringing up that white paper, it’s a good time to mention that Housing Is A Human Right has collected its key reports and articles about rent control, corporate landlords, the California Apartment Association, and California YIMBY in a single article so people can have easy access to that vital information. People can also use the link for the piece to share on social media or to send to family and friends, which we strongly recommend. It’s good to spread the word.
In the Midwest, the Milwaukee Independent recently reported in a “review of records from the Wisconsin Circuit Court Access system, Milwaukee’s Assessor’s Office, and eviction tracking projects shows in certain ZIP codes, evictions are not isolated acts of hardship but part of a high-volume business model.”
The Independent also noted: “Many of these companies are registered under shell corporations or real estate trusts, making them difficult to identify by name.”
In short, the real estate companies make big profits by constantly evicting tenants and charging higher rents for new tenants. They are not acting as “housing providers” (a public-relations term the California Apartment Association loves to use instead of “landlord”), but purely as predators who are trying to squeeze every last cent out of hard-working people. In Milwaukee’s case, Black and Latino tenants have been the primary victims of the “high-volume” eviction model.
Talking about predators, you may be amazed (we’re not) by the number of news stories about a developer or some other person in the real estate industry hiring a hitman to kill a partner or a wife or whomever. The industry, in other words, has a hitman problem.
In Florida, last year, a “Miami real estate titan,” according to HuffPost, allegedly put out “multiple contracts” to kill his wife, which included poisoning, arson, a hit-and-run, and two gun-related attempts. The titan, Sergio Pino, killed himself before an FBI raid at his $8-million waterfront mansion.
In New York, in 2023, a son was sentenced to life in prison for ordering a hit job on his father and brother so he could take over the family’s real estate empire, the New York Post reported. The father was killed, and the brother survived. The son would have seized control of some 90 properties in The Bronx worth around $45 million.
In California, also in 2023, real estate developer Arthur Aslanian was found guilty for plotting murders for hire, The Real Deal reported. Aslanian planned to have two people killed: an attorney who represented him in a bankruptcy proceeding and a person who stopped Aslanian from taking possession of the home where the person’s parents lived.
Aslanian also allegedly paid another person to set fire to a vacant unit at his North Hollywood property to try to force tenants out of the building. He was found guilty for conspiracy to commit arson.
And there are many more examples, which we bring up for a very important reason: the real estate industry is filled with these kinds of people, and that’s the industry that’s preying upon middle- and working-class tenants. For decades, the predatory thing has been deeply ingrained in the culture of the real estate industry, which makes one wonder about California YIMBY and YIMBY Action, who’ve been quick to work with predatory corporate landlords the past several months in a very public way.
(Yes, there are good people in the real estate industry, too.)
So we’ll say it once again: politicians must pass strong tenant protections, including rent control. Regulations are the only thing that are going to keep the predators honest, or at least hold them to account.
Until next time…
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