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San Francisco Home Prices Fell for the First Time in Four Years in March

redfin.com

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Re: San Francisco Home Prices Fell for the First Time in Four Years in March

#191

Post by dice »

lisper wrote: post #173
kspaans wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Penalty", yeah because people have put in sooo much hard work to make their house values go up. (Sure, some people will spend money on renovations, and there could be tax credits for that. But I don't think that sitting on an asset and letting it appreciate should be a free lunch.)

"Penalty" because someone who sells their house and buys a new one every time it appreciates $250k pays zero tax whereas someone who buys and holds pays significant tax despite having the same net gain over the same time period.

There's a two year minimum that you must hold the home to qualify for the exclusion. So it's not "every time" it appreciates, but it is "once every two years".

https://www.irs.gov/publications/p523/ar02.html#en_US_2015_p...

Re: San Francisco Home Prices Fell for the First Time in Four Years in March

#192

Post by logfromblammo »

GavinMcG wrote: post #49
fiatmoney wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You pay rent to the government, around here about 1.25% of the purchase price / year.

That's not rent. That's a tax, which is what you agree to in exchange for living in one of the most advanced societies on earth.

This isn't the proper forum to discuss the morality of taxation. I have been in those forums. I don't want HN to become like them.

Re: San Francisco Home Prices Fell for the First Time in Four Years in March

#193

Post by lisper »

dice wrote: post #191
lisper wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Penalty" because someone who sells their house and buys a new one every time it appreciates $250k pays zero tax whereas someone who buys and holds pays significant tax despite having the same net gain over the same time period.

There's a two year minimum that you must hold the home to qualify for the exclusion. So it's not "every time" it appreciates, but it is "once every two years". https://www.irs.gov/publications/p523/ar02.html#en_US_2015_p...

Sure, but that's just another manifestation of the same problem: someone who sells after 23 months and 29 days pays tax. Someone who sells three days later doesn't.

Re: San Francisco Home Prices Fell for the First Time in Four Years in March

#194

Post by SapphireSun »

dice wrote: post #191
lisper wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Penalty" because someone who sells their house and buys a new one every time it appreciates $250k pays zero tax whereas someone who buys and holds pays significant tax despite having the same net gain over the same time period.

There's a two year minimum that you must hold the home to qualify for the exclusion. So it's not "every time" it appreciates, but it is "once every two years". https://www.irs.gov/publications/p523/ar02.html#en_US_2015_p...

Seems simple to apply the tax rate pro-rata rather than on a cliff. Then the rule works more fairly and gaming is somewhat limited. Government seems to love rule cliffs for some reason.

Re: San Francisco Home Prices Fell for the First Time in Four Years in March

#195

Post by pjlegato »

beatpanda wrote: post #181
rconti wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only scary if you believe rent control is a net benefit.

No, facing a 40% increase in your rent without an attendant increase in your wages or salary is scary no matter what the macro situation is. Anybody working on or thinking about housing policy needs to keep this in mind -- no matter how right your policy prescriptions may be, you need to keep in mind that they may do massive harm to individuals in the short term. And the failure to even try to ameliorate those harms…

Advocates for the reverse ought to bear in mind that however noble the goal of avoiding harm to individuals in the short term may be, the harm done to individuals in the long term is even more massive, and then much harder to fix.

Two case in point examples: Prop 13, and rent control.

These are not, as popularly concieved, great ways to protect the poor and disadvantaged. They are simply examples of very short term thinking becoming public policy, which has the unintended and paradoxical effect of harming the poor and disadvantaged much more in the long run.

Re: San Francisco Home Prices Fell for the First Time in Four Years in March

#196

Post by beatpanda »

pjlegato wrote: post #195
beatpanda wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, facing a 40% increase in your rent without an attendant increase in your wages or salary is scary no matter what the macro situation is. Anybody working on or thinking about housing policy needs to keep this in mind -- no matter how right your policy prescriptions may be, you need to keep in mind that they may do massive harm to individuals in the short term. And the failure to even try to ameliorate those harms…

Advocates for the reverse ought to bear in mind that however noble the goal of avoiding harm to individuals in the short term may be, the harm done to individuals in the long term is even more massive, and then much harder to fix. Two case in point examples: Prop 13, and rent control. These are not, as popularly concieved, great ways to protect the poor and disadvantaged. They are simply examples of very short term t…

Right, and I agree with you, but the fact that it would be better not to have them in the long run doesn't do anything about the short term harm of thousands of people losing their homes all at once. "It will be better for everyone in the aggregate, eventually" doesn't do anything for someone who just became homeless.

What I'm saying is, if you want this policy, start thinking of ways you could change it while accounting for the harm that changing it would do.

Re: San Francisco Home Prices Fell for the First Time in Four Years in March

#197

Post by realdlee »

kspaans wrote: post #139
ChuckMcM wrote: post #115

Reaffirming once again that if "nobody can afford to buy them" the actual prices start coming down. A more interesting thing for me however was that owner occupied (which is to say the person buying the house lives there) has not been growing[1]. Instead third parties are buying the houses as investments and renting them. That is a really risky strategy in a place like SF with rent controls as the floor can fall out…

Remember that rent control only applies to buildings built before 1978, so it's not _all_ rent controlled.

The cutoff is actually June 13, 1979, not 1978.

source: https://www.sftu.org/rentcontrol/

Re: San Francisco Home Prices Fell for the First Time in Four Years in March

#198

Post by blackguardx »

kyledrake wrote: post #122
ryanSrich wrote: post #43

It's always hard to believe the numbers, but I trust Redfin since I used them to purchase my home. I think the problem is comparing what's turn key and not. For example they say: > Portland, OR had the nation’s highest price growth, rising 16.1% since last year to $325,000... The problem is you're fighting 100's of people for that one house in Portland that is livable at $325,000. Most houses that cheap need a ton of…

An observation I've also had is that not many people factor in time, maintenance and repair costs when considering Portland homes. I've looked at $350k houses here that are complete junk without another $50-200k in (I'm not just talking kitchen remodels, just as often I see serious roof and water damage problems), and therefore really are priced at $450-600k. Real estate brokers have been.. less than stellar about di…

What is wrong with knob and tube wiring? Fuseboxes suck, but knob and tube isn't too bad. You are basically guaranteed to never have an electrical fire.

Re: San Francisco Home Prices Fell for the First Time in Four Years in March

#199

Post by aianus »

turnip1979 wrote: post #158
jonnathanson wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know basically nothing about the Canadian market, or the various factors (regulatory, tax-related, currency-driven, or otherwise) that might make it more or less attractive to foreign investment than the market in SF. I also know very little about which types of foreign buyers consider Canadian real estate attractive. Since I'm admittedly pretty ignorant of that market, I honestly can't say. The best I can tell you…

My hypothesis is that the China/hk dollar peg is to blame. Edit: to clarify, the Chinese yuan and hkd are pegged to the USD. The recent strength of the USD has caused problems for China ...some people thing the peg will fail. If you are one of these people and you have lots of cash in China, you want to move the money out of the country and into a different asset class. The recent weakness of the Canadian dollar has…

> People I meet seem to own 2-3 condos a piece. Everyone thinks they'll just rent them out. I think we are almost guaranteed to have a condo collapse in the near future.

If you're not hung up on owning, this is a great spot to be in. I can already rent a luxury condo here in Toronto for less than (mortgage interest + property tax + maintenance) would cost me if I had purchased it. Rich landlords are effectively subsidizing our rents (which are very, very cheap compared to SF or NYC).

Re: San Francisco Home Prices Fell for the First Time in Four Years in March

#200

Post by dionidium »

earlz wrote: post #58
KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a foreigner, I don't understand this attitude. Why would you want all your wealth to be invested in a single leveraged asset that's also depreciating, requires your constant attention and ties you to a single locale?

Even without all of the financial aspects everyone else has mentioned, if you own the home you can do whatever (well, with approval from the local homeowner committee if applicable). Don't like a wall separating the kitchen and living room? Tear it down. Want to rip up your yard and install new grass and a garden? Go ahead. My current landlord allows pretty much no modifications to anything, just recently cut down th…

You always have rent, by some name or another. Homeowners pay property taxes and homeowners insurance. Homeowners with an extant loan pay interest.
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