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I Have Read Prop F

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Re: I Have Read Prop F

#171

Post by fredkbloggs »

tmuir wrote: post #164
fredkbloggs wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not contorting anything. I'm saying that whether there are 50 or 5 million short-term rentals is irrelevant, and you should stop looking for a convenient corporation to attack and start solving a problem that existed long before it was founded... and will exist long after it perishes.

You are being willfully ignorant of basic logic. The high number of short term residential rentals _is the problem_. Airbnb exclusively facilitated the overwhelming majority of these short term rentals. Ergo, Airbnb created this problem. Due to the nature of cause and effect, the problem did not exist before it was created by Airbnb. Being the creator of the problem makes them the correct entity to attack.

We'll have to agree to disagree. To me, bad neighbor behavior is the problem, and I've seen nothing here to make me change my mind.

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#172

Post by tmuir »

fredkbloggs wrote: post #171
tmuir wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are being willfully ignorant of basic logic. The high number of short term residential rentals _is the problem_. Airbnb exclusively facilitated the overwhelming majority of these short term rentals. Ergo, Airbnb created this problem. Due to the nature of cause and effect, the problem did not exist before it was created by Airbnb. Being the creator of the problem makes them the correct entity to attack.

We'll have to agree to disagree. To me, bad neighbor behavior is the problem, and I've seen nothing here to make me change my mind.

If one of your neighbors is renting their house short term on a regular basis, you all of the sudden have a constant flow of new neighbors. The larger pool of neighbors increases the likelihood of bad neighbors. If other permanent neighbors see the original neighbor is doing good business, they may start renting their house out, further increasing your likelihood of bad neighbors. I realize that minds are never changed this far down a comment chain, but certainly you have to appreciate that Airbnb increases the cumulative number of people in areas where there service is used. Given a normal distribution of people, increased numbers of people results in increased numbers of bad actors.

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#173

Post by noyounoyounoyou »

dang wrote: post #83
noyounoyounoyou wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get over your self satisfied prejudices and actually think for a minute. Other cities don't have the same housing crisis as San Francisco and guess what, those cities also don't have bizarre and impossible restrictions on new constructions. So yeah, it is the city government causing the problem and suggestioning they only need another 18 months to come up with a plan is myopoc bullshit, they've had twenty years and s…

> Get over your self satisfied prejudices and actually think for a minute > tells me all i need to know of your cognitive powers We've banned this account for breaking the HN guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Cool dude, continue your BS Mod policy that allows group think and personal insults but ban the account that points out your double standard.

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#174

Post by steven2012 »

skuhn wrote: post #170
steven2012 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prop 13 is across California, not just San Francisco. You're saying that home sales in CA have been suppressed because of Prop 13? You would be wrong. There are about 6M housing units available in CA, and about 500k sales per year. That's an entire turnover of inventory in 12 years. Your anecdotal evidence is interesting but wrong.

I did not state that property sales have been suppressed, I said that property tax revenue has been suppressed. My particular anecdote was around property improvement, not sales. And once again, a property sale does not mean that reassessment definitely occurred. However it is hardly groundbreaking to state that prop 13 has created a "lock in" effect [1][2][3][4]. [1] http://econweb.ucsd.edu/~miwhite/wasi-white-final…

Yes, actually you did say that property taxes are fixed to the 1970s, which I said was wrong.

Based on the level of home sales and the current median home prices, it's safe to say that there is more than enough turnover to reset property taxes, and the idea that property taxes are fixed to the 1970s, which was your initial statement, is utter nonsense. Linking articles that are 10 years old and from the middle of the housing bust is also nonsense.

No one is talking about prop 13 now because there is more than enough housing turnover across CA, and more than enough hungry home buyers willing to pay whatever price, regardless of the property tax.

And since I know you just skimmed the articles you posted and didn't read it, here's a finding that pretty much talks about today's environment, and it completely invalidates what you are saying about Prop 13:

"Rapidly rising housing prices may also have contributed to reduced tenure by increasing home sales, including speculative home purchases. Low mortgage interest rates over that period may have also increased home sales, especially for first-time home buyers, which in turn, would decrease average tenure."

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#175

Post by ScottBurson »

douche wrote: post #163
ScottBurson wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prop. 13 could be fixed without forcing people out of their homes. Instead of capping the tax , we should cap the amount of the tax that actually has to be paid in a year in which the property does not change hands. That number could be limited according to the Prop. 13 formula; the city or county would receive a lien for the difference, that lien not becoming due until the property does change hands. This wouldn't c…

If I am reading this idea correctly, this would create some perverse incentives to hold onto property that has appreciated in value, particularly the longer the property has been held. If the "missing" tax amount gets tacked onto the lien every year, but only comes due when the property is sold, why would you ever sell? You'd keep locked into your pre-existing low tax rates, and lease out the property for income, or…

Let's look at some numbers. If you own a property for 10 years, during which time it doubles in value -- let's say it does that at the steady rate of 7.2% per year -- and your property tax rate is 1%, and the increase in your payments is capped at 2% per year, the amount of unpaid tax due when you sell the property is about 3% of your gain on the property. If you held it for 20 years, during which it continued to appreciate at the same rate, the unpaid tax due would be a little under 6% of your gain. If you held it for 30 years, during which it doubled in value again, the unpaid tax due would be about 8% of your gain.

Consider that the standard commission paid to the listing agent when you sell a property is 6% of the sale price, and you'll see that these amounts are not significant disincentives to selling.

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#176

Post by skuhn »

steven2012 wrote: post #174
skuhn wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not state that property sales have been suppressed, I said that property tax revenue has been suppressed. My particular anecdote was around property improvement, not sales. And once again, a property sale does not mean that reassessment definitely occurred. However it is hardly groundbreaking to state that prop 13 has created a "lock in" effect [1][2][3][4]. [1] http://econweb.ucsd.edu/~miwhite/wasi-white-final…

Yes, actually you did say that property taxes are fixed to the 1970s, which I said was wrong. Based on the level of home sales and the current median home prices, it's safe to say that there is more than enough turnover to reset property taxes, and the idea that property taxes are fixed to the 1970s, which was your initial statement, is utter nonsense. Linking articles that are 10 years old and from the middle of the…

Sorry that you're so fixated on prop 13 not contributing to any issues with local revenue collection or housing shortfalls. I continue to disagree. Either way though, neither of us are likely to get to express our opinions by voting in our life times.

To your point that "no one is talking about prop 13": a constitutional amendment to modify it was proposed 3 months ago [1]. Obviously that will never go anywhere -- the state can't even pass a balanced budget with regularity. But then, that's the whole problem with propositions, isn't it?

Otherwise, I think that you can rest easy, your point has been made. You prefer to make accusations (article skimming! anecdotes that are anecdotal!) rather than constructive dialogue. Welcome to the Internet, it's full of people you won't get along with.

[1] http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert...

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#177

Post by geebee »

tg3 wrote: post #99
s73v3r wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The heart of your argument is that there is some clear distinction between residential and commercial which doesn't actually exist. Residential properties have always been used for profit - its called an apartment." That's a completely different situation, and not at all relevant to this conversation. "These visitors are renting in a residential area precisely because they want a residential experience." And I want…

What is the burden of short-term visitors? I've heard that said before, but I've never heard any actual examples of problems that occur from short-term visitors that aren't present with long-term residents.

Here's one scenario. A family, with two kids, lives in a single family house in a neighborhood zoned for single families. A house on the block goes on the market.

Several families, with children around the same as the neighbors, tour and bid on the property. However, an enterprising person (who doesn't need the bedrooms for kids) uses the anticipated income from airbnb rentals (not to mention the absence of childcare costs) to outbid all those families. The SFR zoned house, on a SFR zoned block, is now a hotel, for all practical purposes. Guess the kids will have to find neighborhood friends somewhere else.

The visitors are quiet, polite. So, no harm no foul?

I understand that this scenario can occur in the absence of airbnb or even short term rentals(plenty of people rent out rooms in their houses), but there's an order of magnitude difference here. Also, I still see more benefit to this if these are permanent, long term rentals. They may be students who need a place to live, long term residents who need a place to live. I also think that unregulated and unresticted[1] airbnb makes this scenario much more likely (which is one reason why the company is so profitable, it has made it much easier to rent out "spare" bedrooms, creating a new market).

[1] properly regulated airbnb, which allows someone to rent out their house while they are on vacation, now and then, would not cause any of this harm.

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#178

Post by chao- »

Wingman4l7 wrote: post #104
thrwwy707 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Prop I is a moratorium on building new market-rate housing Are these people completely insane? Shouldn't there be propositions for denser zoning, land reclamation, or other measures that would increase the SF housing stock? Houston has famously lax zoning laws, and as a consequence has seen much greater population growth (31% vs 18% from 1980-2010 per wikipedia) yet experienced none of these same problems.

Lax zoning laws has created its own set of problems for Houston -- infamously horrible sprawl, for one.

The lack of zoning in Houston has its upsides and downsides, but it has comparatively little to do with the sprawl. The sprawl is mostly a result of the manner by which Houston chose to grow: by annexing neighboring municipalities that were growing quickest to gobble up their tax dollars.

And even for all that famous sprawl, Houston is seeing the same sort of urban in-fill that every other major US metro area is seeing... it just has a lot more land to fill before it achieves similar density.

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#179

Post by slg »

bcoates wrote: post #102
slg wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not specifically anti-Airbnb, but I'm anti "disruption is euphemism for just ignoring the law". It is common with companies like Uber, Airbnb, and the most recent uproar is over DraftKings and FanDuel. These companies have a disregard for the law as part of their business model and that rubs me the wrong way.

There is a specific, long-standing exception in Federal gambling laws for what DraftKings and FanDuel is doing. They're not ignoring or even bending the law. The weasel-wording they use in their ads is to get around TV network (and sports league) squeamishness about running ads for sports betting.

There might be a federal exception for most of their games, but the exception might not apply to all of their games. There are also several states where their games are pretty clearly illegal and these companies are just operating there until they either get shutdown or get enough lobbying power to push through their own exceptions.

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#180

Post by pbreit »

fredkbloggs wrote: post #128
pbreit wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever owned a residence? For starters, some banks won't even lend on a property that has too high a percentage of renters. And who wants to have new strangers roaming around the neighborhood all the time?

> Have you ever owned a residence? Yes. Do you even lift? This article is about SF, which is a city. Most of the busybodies who get up in arms about airbnb are residents of cities as well. Cities are densely populated places with large numbers of tenants per unit area, high residential turnover rates, and lots of tourists. "New strangers roaming around" is just a fact of life, regardless of whether a particular renta…

Lift?

In dense areas, the solution is pretty easy and widespread: HOAs and landlords forbid it. No one in multi-unit dwellings wants a steady stream of strangers.

It's the less dense neighborhoods where residents resent renters, much less short-term renters.

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