SFAA PRESIDENT’S REPORT -- March 2007


          Your SFAA Board of Directors attended the annual California Apartment Association Board of Directors’ & Committee meetings at the end of January in Costa Mesa.  As many of you know, CAA consists of 19 local organizations (affiliates and chapters) representing distinct regions of apartment owners in our state.  SFAA is unique in that, geographically, our district is the smallest in terms of square miles.  Yet apparent from these meetings is the fact that our miniscule slice of the state creates the most intense and daunting political battles.  Indeed, the Los Angeles CAA chapter hardly ever encounters the gross hostility that we contend with on a regular basis here at home.
          In the midst of this reality comes a sobering and embarrassing fact discussed at length during this year’s CAA membership committee meeting:  That SFAA represents less than ten percent of the market in San Francisco, meaning that ninety-plus percent of all apartment owners and operators in the City are not members.  No wonder City Hall balks at our demands!
          Many of the other apartment association heads bragged that their organizations command more than 60% market penetration.  Ironically, such eager enrollment occurs in areas like Orange County, San Diego and Sacramento where rent control remains someone else’s nightmare.  Here at ground zero, the troops seem content to relegate active participation to the few, and sadly the vast majority of us cannot even muster the will to pay modest membership fees so as to enable this organization to fight the war.
          Why?  Is it because most have given up?  Or are we just content with the pervasive erosion of our rights as owners?  Everyday, I hear someone tell me that you have to be crazy to own rental property in the City.  Yet ask your local real estate salesperson about available inventory, and they will tell you that prices keep going up, and that supply cannot withstand ever increasing demand.  Obviously, someone recognizes that housing is our scarcest and most valuable commodity.
          This organization’s regular apartment owner membership stands at about 2,600.  As discussed above, this number represents less than 10% of San Francisco’s landlord population.  SFAA annually spends considerable time and funding on advertisement and new member outreach.  Such exposure only goes so far, and perhaps cannot go any farther. 
          Therefore, what I need from each of you is a sincere commitment to recruit at least one new member this year.  This is an easy task, and the results will more than double our membership.  The increase in revenue will translate into better representation in state and local government, which in turn will improve our ability to stop the onslaught. 
          If you cannot make this promise, then please do not complain about the further horrors that will inevitably confront us this year.  Do not express frustration at the membership meetings.  Refrain from writing the Chronicle’s editorial department.  In sum, be glad with what you have, and with what you will lose in years to come.
          Obviously, no one in the ownership community is pleased with the status quo.  The national consultant, hired by CAA to increase membership in all CAA affiliates and chapters, confirms what most of us already know to be true:  That new recruits come quickest and easiest from referrals and word-of-mouth, not newspaper ads.  So please, I urge each of you to take this pledge seriously. 
          At the CAA meeting, each affiliate and chapter promised to substantially increase its membership over the next year.  In fact, our Board will be undergoing serious introspection as to how each Board member shall bear personal responsibility for this shortfall.  As the leading representative body for apartment owners in the City, we cannot act effectively when the vast majority of the constituency sits on the sidelines.  So let’s change this reality now, and begin recruitment by contacting an owner you know to have either relinquished membership or to never have joined our organization.  I thank you for making this pledge.
 
DW