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Housing in the Bay Area

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Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#281

Post by BurningFrog »

timr wrote: post #258
BurningFrog wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because the new building next door is filled with 'luxury' $5000/mo rents, which might drive the rent up in their building. This is such a stupid myth. On par with "vaccinations cause autism" or Bigfoot. Science has studied how price depends on supply and demand very thoroughly. Increased supply always leads to lower prices.

"Increased supply always leads to lower prices" Not in real estate economics. Housing isn't a commodity market. There are firm price tiers, different methods of construction, different fixed costs for those methods, and drastically different markets for individual neighborhoods. Real estate isn't fungible and it's isn't particularly liquid. Basically none of the requirements of Econ-101-style supply and demand are me…

> Not in real estate economics.

Increased supply leading to higher prices would be something that Economist would crawl over each other to study, if true.

So where are these studies?

Who are the professional economists who support this view?

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#282

Post by ssalazar »

carapace wrote: post #65

I'm in favor of how "building in the Bay Area is approved by discretion", I call it having some power over what gets built. "Democracy" y'know? I'm from SF. I grew up here. I'm also a computer nerd. To me, the tech "industry" has been ruining the city I love since the Dot-Com boom. To me, they are an invading army culturally speaking. In a very real sense my home is being destroyed. The saddest part is, this city kin…

> Y'all "young gods" will just have to figure out some other place to hatch the singularity. Move away. Build a floating "Seastead". Just please stop trying to cram a million more people into the Bay Area.

Money talks, whereas "just go away" is not an effective argument. Rather than be angry about the things you have no ability to change, consider how you might work with this "invading army" to find mutually agreeable circumstances. After all, tech nerds are their own kind of freak and weirdo.

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#283

Post by abalone »

Xcelerate wrote: post #276
davidw wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't live in SF, but having spent most of the past 15 years in Europe, which is dense: it's almost completely a supply problem. SF is not really very dense at all for a place with such a high demand for housing. Random place in SF: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7718267,-122.4388549,3a,75y,... Near where I lived in Padova, which is way smaller than SF, and way, way less well off: https://www.google.com/maps/@45.3…

> Random place in SF: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7718267,-122.4388549,3a,75y,... What is that really narrow, darkly painted building? Is that a house? Whatever it is, it sure looks peculiar (but I like it!)

It's actually a really nice house. I've been in it.

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#284

Post by Xcelerate »

abalone wrote: post #283
Xcelerate wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Random place in SF: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7718267,-122.4388549,3a,75y,... What is that really narrow, darkly painted building? Is that a house? Whatever it is, it sure looks peculiar (but I like it!)

It's actually a really nice house. I've been in it.

That's awesome! What is the interior like? Is it two rooms stacked on top of each other, or does the house go further back?

EDIT: I actually just noticed the street view image cuts off part of the house, making it seem tinier than it actually is. Originally, I thought it was a "micro-house" or something.

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#285

Post by ccarter84 »

danjayh wrote: post #259
jevinskie wrote: post #160

There is so much pressure, career-wise, to move to either the Bay Area, the West Coast in general, or a major urban hub. I honestly like living in a semi-rural part of the Midwest. I like seeing fields and forests while driving to work. If I want to get out to some wilderness, I can do so in 15-30 minutes. I travel in a car that, I feel, offers me freedom. To boot, I have a nice, reserved spot in the garage below my…

With you all the way. I have 11 acres, horses, a goat, cats, a dog, and I live 15 minutes from downtown and 17 minutes from work. This is in a mid-sized midwest city (Grand Rapids, MI). While I realize that I could achieve a substantial pay raise on one of the coasts, a similarly sized plot there would cost millions. I paid under 200k 5 years ago with a 1500sf house on it, and it's still probably only worth the mid 2…

That's an awesome setup and cost of living. If most of family and friends didnt have deep roots here I'd totally consider saying screw this place. Actually, I still may, but gonna ride it out a bit longer.

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#286

Post by rand1012 »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #174
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It rains too much, like 14 months per year is just rain. And the Seattle freeze...ya, people in Seattle don't like to talk to other people, it is like Northern Europe. /s We've always made up crazy lies just to keep the Californians away, but ultimately it isn't working. Seattle is a nice place to live/work, and has plenty of jobs for techies.

My experience with people in the bay is most are superficial and make their identity around either their careers or that they live in San Francisco. Pretty insufferable group compared to the "freeze" in Seattle. Also, believe it or not, some people actually like when it rains all the time, especially people who came from very sunny (and drought-y) climes. It's nice not having to worry about water rationing. Frankly,…

San Francisco is not the whole bay.

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#287

Post by justizin »

gorkemyurt wrote: post #235
chuckcode wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the cost of housing in the bay area gets a lot of press the entire infrastructure of the bay is getting stretched by the current tech boom. The traffic is already the second worst in the nation [1], and existing public transportation like bart[2] and caltrain[3] are already overloaded. While I'm generally in favor of development I think that this simplistic approach of just going around local planning departmen…

With the right projects like, the transbay terminal and I-280 city can actually allow development and create funds for transit at the same time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Transbay_Termina... http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Transit-plan-to-r...

the transbay terminal is not another transbay tube, nor is it an expansion of the capacity of major bart stations.

at rush hour, at many stations, there isn't only no space on the trains, there's nowhere to fucking stand and wait for them.

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#288

Post by 187235235 »

jevinskie wrote: post #160

There is so much pressure, career-wise, to move to either the Bay Area, the West Coast in general, or a major urban hub. I honestly like living in a semi-rural part of the Midwest. I like seeing fields and forests while driving to work. If I want to get out to some wilderness, I can do so in 15-30 minutes. I travel in a car that, I feel, offers me freedom. To boot, I have a nice, reserved spot in the garage below my…

The only reason I live in an apartment in an urban area is because I have to. The minute I get the financial ability to do so, I am moving. I like privacy, nature, real communities, space, etc. None of these things are available where I live.

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#289

Post by ccarter84 »

aliston wrote: post #275
mikeyouse wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course theres no BART in Marin due to racist local NIMBYs so there's a bit of a paradox involved.

This is not historically accurate. Marin voted in favor of BART, but after San Mateo country bailed, the costs were shifted North. It was the increased costs that prevented BART from going across the Golden Gate.

Didn't know that, thanks for filling in that gap....I had always thought it was just Marin elitism

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#290

Post by justizin »

dragonwriter wrote: post #51
TJTorola wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't say for sure if this is what Foobarqux was referring to but this article https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11708873 came up a couple weeks ago which states > Tim Redmond of 48 Hills has argued that building more housing would make the problem [high housing costs] worse because the people who would move into it are likely to be wealthy newcomers whose demand for services will increase low-income employment,…

The affordable housing requirements to qualify for the streamlined process should mitigate this effect, to the extent that it's real in the first place.

this is a reduction of current affordable housing restrictions, and "affordable" / Below-Market Rate housing is currently awarded by a lottery which is harder to win than the actual lotto.
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