Zephyr Real Estate Takes Stand Against Ellis Act
From today’s BeyondChron,
A real estate firm formerly known for its willingness to represent Ellis Act evictors dramatically changed course recently, issuing a new policy that prevents their agents from working with landlords who used the Ellis Act to evict tenants. Zephyr Real Estate, a massive firm with five offices and more than 200 employees throughout the city, will be honored by the Board of Supervisors today for their actions. Zephyr’s new policy reveals just how far public opinion has changed regarding the Ellis Act, and could represent an important new strategy for tenant activists to stop Ellis Act evictions.Opening in 1978, Zephyr Real Estate quickly grew to become the largest independent realtor in San Francisco. The thousands of properties they deal with make up a formidable portion of the buildings bought and sold in the city. [more...]
This article came out of a resolution that is being brought before the Board of Supervisors today. But as much as I, as a Zephyr Real Estate agent, appreciate the free love here, Mr. Mills missed a crucial piece of the puzzle. As you’ll see if you read the resolution, this applies to ‘protected’ tenant evictions, not ALL Ellis Act evictions. There’s only one word that BeyondChron missed in their article, but as you can imagine, it’s an important word…
And as you might imagine, this one journalist’s error could very well cause folks to gloss over the fact that Zephyr is following the Board of Supervisors’ lead in making the evictions of elderly and disabled tenants less desirable and less profitable. So let’s all hope this won’t turn into some new topic over which to bash real estate agents…
I have personally never represented the seller of a property that has been subject to an Ellis Act, so this will not affect me or my clients in the least.
Zephyr Real Estate Takes Stand Against Ellis Act [BeyondChron]
Zephyr Real Estate [official site]
Full disclosure: I am currently an agent with Zephyr
No kidding? That’s a pretty bold move. Props.
2Dogs&aBaby at August 15th, 2006 at 6:07 pm ( )Is this for all buildings (with protected tenants) that have been Ellis Acted since the beginning of time? Or is there a cut off date?
Anonymous at August 16th, 2006 at 11:49 pm ( )As I understand it, the limitation is for the first representation of an Ellis Acted property which involves a protected tenant.
If a unit or building were sold once already, this new policy doesn’t apply, as the current sellers were not the parties responsible for invoking the evictions, so there’s no need to ‘punish’ them, and there’s no way to undo what had been done months or years earlier.
If there is a building out there which had protected tenant evictions five years ago, but has never been placed on the market since that eviction, that would still (as I understand it) fall under the current Zephyr policy.
The bottom line here is that Zephyr does not appear to want to participate in speculative evictions, and this also follows the course that the Supervisors have most recently chosen with regards to the new condo conversion limitations.
But as I’ve said, I intentionally have not been involved in representing any seller who Ellis Acted their building, so this new policy won’t change anything for me personally.
And although I am an agent at Zephyr, I do not presume to speak on behalf of the company. These are merely my interpretations of their new policy.
Matt Lanning at August 16th, 2006 at 11:59 pm ( )