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The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It

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Re: The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It

#51

Post by golergka »

Fede_V wrote: post #31

Housing in SF is an incredibly powerful illustration of the danger of letting things get so bad that the usual remedies no longer apply. Basically: - Traditionally, the proper fix for a shortage of housing is to build more houses. Just lift the existing regulations, and let the free market do what it does best: take care of the demand at an efficient price. - However, after years and years of very slow building, the…

It sounds like you think that only the poor people problems with housing should be solved, and if someone is better off and can't find an apartment due to crazy demand, his problems don't concern you and solving his problems counts for nothing.

Re: The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It

#52

Post by ZanyProgrammer »

zt wrote: post #36
pascalxus wrote: post #29

I agree with the author for the most part: the ideal solution is to build lots more housing - it's the morally and ethically correct thing to do. But, SF lacks the political will to do this and we need to accept that. the 2nd best solution would be to get tech companies out of SF. I hate this solution as much as the author, but I think it's worth considering. There's no reason why tech companies must be in SF, when t…

(I'm the author) Even putting aside the ethical and moral arguments, which carry a lot of weight for me: (1) There are network effects in urban environments. (2) Globally, specific industries often concentrate in specific cities. A lot of tech has concentrated in the Valley up to the San Francisco. The effects are getting stronger as that migration occurs. That's a great thing: it allows for people to move between co…

And yet there's nothing inherent with software development that makes SF and the Bay Area any different from lots of other cities, other than inertia. It's amazing that an industry that prides itself on being non traditional is so tied to a specific geographical location, as if there's some valuable mineral that can only be mined in SOMA and downtown Palo Alto.

Re: The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It

#53

Post by shostack »

nickhalfasleep wrote: post #5
richmarr wrote: post #4

I'd be interested to see projections of earthquake casualties before and after this increase in housing density.

Morbidly, I think a big earthquake will be the turning point for housing in the Bay Area. After a 6.5+, just about all the brick buildings will be degraded to the point of no return. We might see plenty of new steel / wood construction with the rebuilt (or 3d-printed) facades of old buildings, with new heights and efficiencies inside (better lighting, accessability, modularity).

I've often thought it might take a natural disaster to fix things a bit.

But realistically, at this point I'd expect investors to circle the aftermath like vultures waiting to throw money at whatever they could. There might be a small downturn, but then things will get right back up there.

My hypothesis is that it would only slightly dent demand for the area. And that says nothing about all the single story wood-framed ranches in the Peninsula which would largely be fine.

Re: The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It

#54

Post by lovich »

jjav wrote: post #38
mdb333 wrote: post #28

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_%281... Good thoughts. You failed to mention Prop 13 which was put into place a long time ago and simply doesn't make sense anymore. It's at least part of the reason it is so affordable (in relative terms) for rich people to keep second homes here when they bought them years ago. We live in a building of 60 units where probably at least a third of those are abse…

> are only adjusted upon sale of the property While often repeated, that is incorrect. In reality property tax goes up 2% every year under prop 13.

I see sources backing up percentage increases that are much larger than 2%

http://www.zillow.com/san-francisco-ca/home-values/

https://www.boe.ca.gov/ma/news/AV_Bay-Area_PC.htm

Re: The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It

#55

Post by [deleted] »

pascalxus wrote: post #49
johndevor wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the ideal solution is to build lots more housing - it's the morally and ethically correct thing to do. What do you mean when you say "morally and ethically correct"?

Food, water and shelter are fundamental human needs that everyone should have. It's wrong for society to deny Shelter to individuals on the grounds of: traffic, population density, and countless other slight inconveniences that are not on the same level as the need for shelter. I say solve Shelter first, then deal with the other problems. Furthermore, since government owns all the land outside of the zoned areas, the…

[deleted]

Re: The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It

#56

Post by BurningFrog »

Animats wrote: post #50

"We are on a self-imposed path leading to only one place: a city that is entirely rich and, more or less, entirely white." Sounds like a plan. The problem is this. SF is built out; to build something, you have to demolish something first. So the alternative is high-rise housing. High-rise low-income housing, especially high-rise low-income housing, has been a disaster in the US. Chicago had to demolish the Robert Tay…

to build something, you have to demolish something first

Yes, of course. That is how all healthy big cities work.

So the alternative is high-rise housing

Well, replacing 1-2 stories with 4-8 stories is probably optimal for current SF. Not sure I'd call those high rises.

Re: The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It

#58

Post by zt »

ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #52
zt wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I'm the author) Even putting aside the ethical and moral arguments, which carry a lot of weight for me: (1) There are network effects in urban environments. (2) Globally, specific industries often concentrate in specific cities. A lot of tech has concentrated in the Valley up to the San Francisco. The effects are getting stronger as that migration occurs. That's a great thing: it allows for people to move between co…

And yet there's nothing inherent with software development that makes SF and the Bay Area any different from lots of other cities, other than inertia. It's amazing that an industry that prides itself on being non traditional is so tied to a specific geographical location, as if there's some valuable mineral that can only be mined in SOMA and downtown Palo Alto.

There is nothing inherent about finance that makes New York and London any different than a lot of other cities, other than inertia.

It could be otherwise than it is, that's sort of the truth of network effects, but it's difficult.

Re: The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It

#59

Post by nkurz »

aetherson wrote: post #27
api wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some cases it's cheaper to live in another city and fly to/from SF every single day than to live in SF.

Name some of these cases.

I think it's mostly a "thought exercise", but here's a treatment looking at the costs of commuting to SF from Las Vegas: http://mobile.businessinsider.com/its-cheaper-to-commute-fro...

Re: The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It

#60

Post by beachstartup »

Fede_V wrote: post #31

Housing in SF is an incredibly powerful illustration of the danger of letting things get so bad that the usual remedies no longer apply. Basically: - Traditionally, the proper fix for a shortage of housing is to build more houses. Just lift the existing regulations, and let the free market do what it does best: take care of the demand at an efficient price. - However, after years and years of very slow building, the…

this problem is exacerbated by the fact that everyone that lives there (i.e. all the powerful people running the place) is getting richer and richer by letting it continue.

the only solution is to simply not live there, in my opinion.

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