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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

#171

Post by gozur88 »

floatrock wrote: post #139
Grishnakh wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I shed exactly zero tears for someone whose $250k property quadruples in value to $1m in five years. Sell the house and dance with joy at your (untaxed!) $750k capital gain. Ok, now where are they supposed to live? All the other properties cost just as much, so now they're forced to not only move out of the city, but now they have to quit their job too! How is this productive? You're penalizing someone for living in…

Being priced out of their home is one option. The other option is to ease pressure on home prices by laying down the NIMBYism and letting more housing be built in your community in a sustainable way! This is the whole the point of self-corrective market forces: sure, you can choose to keep your low-density housing in a region that is attracting demand with great weather and strong industry, but prices are going to ap…

>The other option is to ease pressure on home prices by laying down the NIMBYism and letting more housing be built in your community in a sustainable way!

That doesn't actually work in the real world. If you live in a desirable area, and you increase the housing supply in such a way that the area is still desirable, as soon as the price drops a tiny bit people move in from the outside and drive it back up again.

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

#172

Post by awqrre »

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…

Wouldn't the water problem get even worst? unless some agriculture is move to other states?

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

#173

Post by thrownaway2424 »

magnetix wrote: post #108
Agustus wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your example, the building you describe is a condominium? If so, then what does it matter what your tax bill is and if they are absentee owners; if the owner maintains the property, pays their bills and taxes, then you should be happy to have them. Tax reassessments during the boom of 2001 to 2007 were on track to price a lot of people out of their houses based on their current economic status. Proposition 13 and…

>If you have a job that pays $100,000 and the taxes on your $250,000 house is $7,500 (3% property tax) and the tax quadruples to $30,000 in five years; why would you want the market fluctuations to be able to force an individual to leave their house? A simple solution (for the elderly at least) would be to roll up all the debt until death, payable by the estate.

That's exactly what people did before Prop 13. The idea that granny was getting tossed out on her ear by the tax collector wasn't ever literally true.

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

#174

Post by thrownaway2424 »

paulsutter wrote: post #3

One issue he doesn't mention is traffic congestion. A potential remedy could be a significant tax on parking. Perhaps very significant. Parking is ugly and a blight on the city, as well as a tremendous waste of space that could be more effectively used for housing.

You don't have to tax it. The city doesn't even charge for metered parking spaces on Sundays. Just pricing these would be a huge first step.

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

#175

Post by skewart »

capkutay wrote: post #123
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…

If you care about SF housing, please just show up to Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors meetings. Talking about policy on hacker news is useless. Better yet, start or join a grassroots group of at least 10-15 people and thoughtfully present all your ideas without coming off as insensitive towards the homeless or low-income individuals. There's TONS of room for public input in SF, it's what makes our plannin…

I wish I could upvote your comment twice. People need to get involved in person!

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

#176

Post by cowsandmilk »

tryitnow wrote: post #169
lubujackson wrote: post #134

I keep saying these same arguments put forth (add more affordable housing!) but the reality is that there are very specific laws that cause the crazy prices here and it ISN'T because of a lack of housing. It's lack of liquidity. First there is Prop 13, which is the Ponzi scheme that let's older owners pay basically the same tax rate forever. This means that landlords have little reason to repair or sell properties. W…

Hmmm, rent control has some problems, but your critique is missing a pretty big part of the picture. We need to look at what the average rents are, not the average rents of current available units. Rent control reduces the former dramatically, but probably increases the latter. In other words, a lot of people are paying a lot lower rent than they would otherwise have to pay, but a lot of non-residents will have to pa…

Rent control discourages downsizing, which has ugly effects on the housing market. If you've lived in a 2BR for 12 years while your kid grew up, you cannot rationally downsize to a 1BR. Why? Because the 1BR on the market has a higher rent than what you're paying for your 2BR.

Same story with the taxes. You can sell your current place for top dollar and buy a smaller one, but you're going to take a huge hit on the new tax basis.

A crucial component in freeing up housing is downsizing in later life, especially as we have the baby boomer generation starting to retire.

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

#177

Post by skewart »

gozur88 wrote: post #171
floatrock wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being priced out of their home is one option. The other option is to ease pressure on home prices by laying down the NIMBYism and letting more housing be built in your community in a sustainable way! This is the whole the point of self-corrective market forces: sure, you can choose to keep your low-density housing in a region that is attracting demand with great weather and strong industry, but prices are going to ap…

>The other option is to ease pressure on home prices by laying down the NIMBYism and letting more housing be built in your community in a sustainable way! That doesn't actually work in the real world. If you live in a desirable area, and you increase the housing supply in such a way that the area is still desirable, as soon as the price drops a tiny bit people move in from the outside and drive it back up again.

That can happen at the small scale - neighborhoods or suburban villages. It doesn't really happen at the city or metro area scale.

(If you have evidence of urban areas that have allowed lots of construction during periods of high population and job growth - cities like Dallas, Houston, or Atlanta - and have also seen high housing prices, please share it; I'm genuinely curious).

Part of the problem in the bay area is that there is minimal cooperation between the dozens of municipal governments to allow more housing. None of them want to be the first or only one to do it out of fear that they'll just end up with more density and high prices. It's a bit of a prisoner's dillema.

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

#178

Post by bluejekyll »

lubujackson wrote: post #134

I keep saying these same arguments put forth (add more affordable housing!) but the reality is that there are very specific laws that cause the crazy prices here and it ISN'T because of a lack of housing. It's lack of liquidity. First there is Prop 13, which is the Ponzi scheme that let's older owners pay basically the same tax rate forever. This means that landlords have little reason to repair or sell properties. W…

> Prop 13, which is the Ponzi scheme

Prop 13 is a tax issue, not a housing supply problem. It affects schools more than housing prices. Also prop 13's worst offenders are corporations not individuals.

Individual property owners sell/move on average every 7 years. And the taxes are reset at that point to market rate for the new owner.

This has nothing to do with housing supply constraints, but for schools we should remove it from corporate property owners, who some like Wells Fargo have property that hasn't changed hands in over 100 years.

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

#179

Post by cowsandmilk »

Agustus wrote: post #67
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…

In your example, the building you describe is a condominium? If so, then what does it matter what your tax bill is and if they are absentee owners; if the owner maintains the property, pays their bills and taxes, then you should be happy to have them. Tax reassessments during the boom of 2001 to 2007 were on track to price a lot of people out of their houses based on their current economic status. Proposition 13 and…

> Tax reassessments during the boom of 2001 to 2007 were on track to price a lot of people out of their houses based on their current economic status. Proposition 13 and other bills passed across the country allowed individuals to avoid being "taxed out" of their house.

Proposition 13 was passed in 1978. The housing boom of 2001-2007 had jack shit to do with its passage.

(Yes there, is a Prop 13 in 2010 that also has to do with property taxes, but only about seismic retrofitting of existing buildings).

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

#180

Post by ng12 »

bluejekyll wrote: post #178
lubujackson wrote: post #134

I keep saying these same arguments put forth (add more affordable housing!) but the reality is that there are very specific laws that cause the crazy prices here and it ISN'T because of a lack of housing. It's lack of liquidity. First there is Prop 13, which is the Ponzi scheme that let's older owners pay basically the same tax rate forever. This means that landlords have little reason to repair or sell properties. W…

> Prop 13, which is the Ponzi scheme Prop 13 is a tax issue, not a housing supply problem. It affects schools more than housing prices. Also prop 13's worst offenders are corporations not individuals. Individual property owners sell/move on average every 7 years. And the taxes are reset at that point to market rate for the new owner. This has nothing to do with housing supply constraints, but for schools we should re…

> Prop 13 is a tax issue, not a housing supply problem

If it's a tax issue that impacts the housing supply, isn't it both?

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