If you bought a small rental property in San Leandro sometime in the past year and raised the rent along the way, there is a decent chance you will need to unwind part of that increase before the ordinance that just passed takes full effect. That is not a hypothetical. It is written into the ordinance itself, and it is the kind of detail that never shows up in a listing description.
On February 2, 2026, the San Leandro City Council adopted Ordinance 2026-001, creating the city's first residential rent stabilization program. The cap does not start until January 1, 2027, but the base rent the cap will apply to is not today's rent. It is whatever was being charged on July 1, 2025. Any increase collected between that date and the cap's start has to line up with the new rules once they arrive, and the ordinance does not allow banking unused increases the way some neighboring cities do. A landlord who raised rent 8 or 9 percent this year under the old rules, thinking they were simply following AB 1482, may find that increase does not survive contact with the new ordinance.
That single detail is worth sitting with, because it is not really a San Leandro story. It is a preview of how rent regulation actually behaves across Alameda County, and it points to something buyers and sellers of multi-unit property routinely misjudge: the county is not one rent-control market. It is a patchwork of at least six different local rulebooks, each doing its own math, each with its own cutoff date, and the ceiling on a building's income can shift under an owner's feet even after closing.
Alameda County Isn't One Rent Market. It's a Patchwork of Them.
Oakland, Berkeley, and the city of Alameda have each run their own rent stabilization programs for years. Hayward has its own rent review and cap structure. San Leandro just joined the list, and its neighbor Union City runs a rent review process that kicks in above a 7 percent increase. Meanwhile Fremont has no local ordinance at all, which means covered units there fall back entirely on the statewide floor set by AB 1482.
Here is what that actually looks like for a covered multi-unit property this year:
| City | Local rent ordinance | Current allowable annual increase | Coverage cutoff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oakland | Rent Adjustment Program | 0.8% (Aug. 1, 2025 through July 31, 2026) | Built before 1983 |
| Berkeley | Rent Stabilization Board | 1.0% for 2026 | Built before June 1980 |
| Alameda | Rent Program, established by Measure L1 | 1.0% per the city's Rent Program | Built before Feb. 1995 |
| Hayward | Rent review and stabilization | 5% (10% if no increase was taken the prior year) | Varies by unit |
| San Leandro | Ordinance 2026-001, phasing in | AB 1482's statewide floor applies until Jan. 1, 2027 | Base rent locked to July 1, 2025 |
| Fremont | None | AB 1482 statewide floor: 5% plus CPI, capped at 10% | No local cutoff |
The gap between the top and bottom rows is the number worth pausing on. Oakland's 0.8 percent allowable increase is roughly one-eighth of the 6.3 percent statewide ceiling that applies for the same August 2025 through July 2026 period in a city with no local ordinance at all. That is not a rounding difference. It is the difference between a covered fourplex that can add roughly $16 a month to a $2,000 unit in Oakland this year, and a comparable unit in Fremont where the same rent could legally rise by well over $100.
The Cutoff Date Is Doing More Work Than the Percentage
None of this is arbitrary. California's Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act sets the outer boundary every local ordinance has to operate inside. It bars cities from applying rent caps to any building with a certificate of occupancy dated on or after February 1, 1995, and it lets each city choose its own, earlier cutoff for the buildings it does cover. That single state law explains why Oakland's ordinance only reaches buildings from 1983 and earlier, why Berkeley's stops at June 1980, and why Alameda's line falls at 1995 itself.
It also explains why single-family homes and condos slip out of most of these programs even when the buildings themselves are old. Costa-Hawkins exempts them from local rent caps as a category, regardless of construction date, so a 1960s single-family rental in Oakland is typically governed by AB 1482's statewide formula rather than the city's much tighter 0.8 percent ceiling.
For anyone comparing multi-unit deals across the county, the practical takeaway is that the year a building was constructed matters as much as its zip code. Two nearly identical fourplexes on either side of the Oakland-San Leandro line are not just in different cities. They are, for underwriting purposes, in different regulatory categories entirely, and San Leandro's own category is about to change again.
What This Means When You Run the Numbers
Rent control does not reset when a property changes hands. A buyer who closes on a covered building inherits whatever rent ceiling and tenancy history come with it. If a long-term tenant has been paying well under market because annual increases have been capped near 1 percent for a decade, that gap does not disappear at the closing table. The new owner steps into the same ceiling, the same just-cause eviction rules, and in most of these cities, the same annual registration requirements.
That single fact should shape how a buyer reads a rent roll before making an offer. A pro forma built on "market rent" for every unit in an Oakland or Berkeley building is only accurate for units that have already turned over voluntarily, since Costa-Hawkins allows rent to reset to market on a genuine vacancy. Units still occupied by the original long-term tenant are a different asset entirely, and the income timeline for reaching market rent depends on when, or whether, that tenant chooses to leave.
San Leandro adds one more layer worth knowing before you buy there. Its ordinance sets relocation payments for no-fault evictions at the higher of three times the tenant's current rent or three times HUD's Fair Market Rent for the Oakland-Fremont metro area, which works out to a baseline around $7,000 per unit, with an additional $1,000 for households that include seniors, people with disabilities, or minors. That is a real cost to model if a business plan for a San Leandro property involves turning over units.
Before You Write an Offer on a Multi-Unit Property Here
A few questions are worth asking before any offer goes in on a duplex, triplex, or small apartment building anywhere in the county:
- Which city is this property actually in, and does that city have its own rent ordinance or does it rely on AB 1482?
- What year was the building issued its certificate of occupancy? That date, not the neighborhood, often determines coverage.
- Is the current rent roll built on in-place rents, market comps, or some mix, and which units have actually turned over since the last owner took title?
- If the property is in San Leandro, has any rent increase since July 1, 2025 been documented, since that is the baseline the new ordinance will measure against?
- Has the property owner been filing the required annual registration in cities that require it? Missed registration can block a rent increase entirely in Oakland and several neighboring cities.
A Few Questions Worth Asking First
Does buying a rent-controlled duplex mean I'm stuck with today's rent forever? No. Under Costa-Hawkins, rent on a covered unit can reset to market once a tenancy ends voluntarily. The constraint is timing, not permanence. You cannot force that turnover, and you cannot raise rent to market while the original tenant stays.
Are single-family homes and condos exempt from all of this? Generally yes from local rent caps, though they still fall under AB 1482's statewide increase limits and just-cause eviction rules once a tenant has been in place for 12 months, unless the owner is a natural person who has issued the required exemption notice.
Could a city like Fremont adopt something like San Leandro's ordinance next? It is possible. San Leandro's path started with a rental registry in 2025 before the rent stabilization ordinance followed in early 2026, and that same sequence has played out in other Alameda County cities already on this list.
Whether you are underwriting a small apartment building, comparing a duplex in Hayward against one in Fremont, or trying to understand what you actually inherit when you buy a covered rental in Oakland or Berkeley, the county-level numbers will not tell you enough. The city, the construction date, and the tenancy history do the real work.
If you are weighing a multi-unit purchase anywhere in Alameda County and want a clear read on how a specific property's rent ceiling and tenancy history actually pencil out, Amy Thomas can walk through the numbers with you before you write an offer. Let's Connect.
