I think the problem with this analysis is the assumption that rental units and owner occupied units are identical to one another.

In most places, rental units have more basic fixtures an amenities and tend not to be upgraded. It can easily cost of $100K to upgrade a kitchen or bathroom with high quality cabinetry and appliances. And this happens all the time with $1M+ units.

I have a house for sale in Mexico and I'm intentionally not renting it out. Why? Because renter occupied units are perceived by buyers as having more wear and tear and low-end than a place that's owner occupied.

As a landlord (in a different city where things are sensible and I can raise my rent or evict my tenant any time I darn well like because it's my fricking property) this kind of thing makes me really angry.

The US likes to think of itself as a deregulated, capitalist country, but still has a large amount of regulation (largely state not federal it seems). In the UK rent control was abolished by Thatcher in 1980, and while there is occasional talk of reintroducing some controls the basic premise seems unlikely to change.

Oops - taxes were forgotten! They can differ wildly due to income level and legal loopholes, but it's pretty safe to assume an additional 130k in sales doesn't all go into the seller's pocket.

It would be more accurate to say 'can add over $100k to sale price.' In the case of legitimate owner move-in evictions, for example, compensation to the tenant is capped by a statutory formula. It's been a few years since I looked at it but I think it was in the region of $15k for the most complicated situation. There are additional constraints, like if a child is in elementary school you can't move in until the end of term due to the difficulty for parents of switching schools.

Reiterating my comment on the blog here:

Major issue with the article:

Condos do not have rent control- They are treated as single family homes- The new owner can simply raise the rent to market pricing at the end of the lease cycle. There are some rare outliers that can bypass this (such as if a tenant was present in the apartment when it originally converted to be a condo) but you should find that the vast majority of condos do not have this situation.

A much better analysis would have been on the sale of 2-4 unit buildings.

The amount a landlord should be willing to pay will be higher than this amount if your rent is substantially below the market rate, and lower if it’s only a little below the market rate.

...Why? I don't see how that conclusion follows from the data. The data only compared occupied vs unoccupied rent-controlled home sale prices. Nothing took into account how under-market said rents were. Unless I missed something...

This isn't exactly my wheelhouse, but doesn't that completely gloss over stuff like time-value of money, and the fact that it's converting illiquid to liquid? Not sure why a landlord would go through the aggravation and uncertainty of buying out the tenant and then selling if it was only break-even.

You own it, you can do whatever you want on the property (within reason..). If you want to evict a tenant, that's your right and the state/city/federal government should not have a place in intervening.