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Housing in the Bay Area

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Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#371

Post by bduerst »

honkhonkpants wrote: post #75
bduerst wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you really been looking outside of SF? Redwood city, about 30-40 min south of SF, has been booming with building growth. Developers are building, but can't get approvals with local governments fast enough.

There are currently 18 residential projects in Redwood City, 7 of which are already entitled but not under construction, 1 which withdrew the application after being entitled, and three in planning, leaving 7 under construction. Given that half of the entitled projects are not proceeding, I don't see the evidence that the government is the one holding things back.

Source? Because there are many projects that have been stopped recently or moved to other locations.

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#372

Post by et2o »

youngButEager wrote: post #185

Some landlords (such as our firm) are liquidating our rental assets due to the increasing risk of 1979-1995 properties being pulled into rent control regimes. Cities like San Jose, Richmond, San Mateo, just this year either debated increasing or actually increased control over rental properties. The population is rising; the supply of rental units is too low; cities want to stop landlords from raising prices; so they…

"a doctor's right to increase prices"

Doctors can't even choose the prices they charge

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#373

Post by surfmike »

abalone wrote: post #311
surfmike wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When was the last time SF had too much housing? Obviously prices have gone down at times in the past but it's hard to argue there's ever been an oversupply....

Nobody claimed there's an oversupply of housing. The question is how much affordable vs. market-rate housing the city should negotiate for.

Parent said that SF has to "plan for the long term, like when the boom turns to bust and lots of those new residents leave."

I don't think that's something that needs to be planned for. Even in a worst case scenario there will be plenty of demand to fill up any the new housing that's coming up in SF.

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#374

Post by systembell »

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…

No chickens??

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#375

Post by gorkemyurt »

justizin wrote: post #287
gorkemyurt wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If they end up implementing all their plans its a major capacity expansion for cal train, and part of a sister plan that would connect oakland to downtown SF via second transbay tube.

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#376

Post by gorkemyurt »

mikeyouse wrote: post #249
gorkemyurt wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone is living in the mission there are only 3 options; 1) They own their house 2) They are renting but their unit is rent controlled 3) They are rich or have high paying jobs (and building more actually helps them) "Because the actual building they live in gets demolished to build another building" This happens very rarely, people will literally revolt before a rent controlled unit gets demolished in the missi…

This happens all the time (#2), it's literally happening to me right now. Look at the map of Ellis and Owner Move-In evictions in SF. Thousands of people are being displaced.

154 Ellis Act evictions last year. I know its sucks but I wouldn't say it happens all the time

http://sfist.com/2016/03/29/report_evictions_continue_to_inc...

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#377

Post by dmode »

galdosdi wrote: post #243
dmode wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NYC is far far far way from overtaking SV as the capital of tech industry. The combined value of just Google, Apple, and Facebook is $1.3 trillion dollars. To reach that scale will take many many years and some incredible companies. Honestly, places that can put in a serious competition to SV are in Asia - China and India. Chinese tech companies are raising massive rounds, with multiple billion dollar investments in…

Thank you, great comment! > The combined value of just Google, Apple, and Facebook is $1.3 trillion dollars. Well, to the extent that those three companies have employees in other cities, I'd count their market caps proportionally towards those cities. I'm not sure offhand about Apple or FB but Google has a huge office in NYC. But that still leaves the vast majority in SV. > Also, most successful hubs are often one i…

Yeah true that Google, Apple, FB have NY offices, but all of these companies are very HQ focused. Especially Apple and Alphabet, with most of Alphabet's based are based in SV (Calico, Verily, YouTube etc.). Apple is also notoriously Cupertino centric.

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#378

Post by vctheory »

jdminhbg wrote: post #220
vctheory wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By increasing the most substantial cost that startups face, VCs end up owning larger portions of each startup.

Is this anything like my plan to invest in McDonalds franchises and then kill off a huge proportion of the world's cattle to "own larger portions" of each?

No. I was writing a serious reply, but then I realized that there's no point in explaining the mathematics of a VC portfolio to somebody who was a jerk just because they didn't understand the situation.

And congratulations on learning how to be rude enough to be a toxic, while using the type of language that dang, pg, and saltman have all decided is A-OK. You're doing a great job of keeping HN horrible.

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#379

Post by kspaans »

youngButEager wrote: post #185

Some landlords (such as our firm) are liquidating our rental assets due to the increasing risk of 1979-1995 properties being pulled into rent control regimes. Cities like San Jose, Richmond, San Mateo, just this year either debated increasing or actually increased control over rental properties. The population is rising; the supply of rental units is too low; cities want to stop landlords from raising prices; so they…

I get that, generally speaking, the owner of a house should have the right to set their rental prices. But what is the risk associated with a property you own suddenly coming under rent control? Sure, there is the opportunity cost if the market rent goes up. But do costs correlate with the market rental value? I would assume (and I could be wrong), that when you buy a property you look at the current market rental value to decide if the property could be profitable. Are there landlords who buy properties that will rent at loss because they are speculating that they'll be able to raise the rents by 20%/year (to pull a number out of the air)? Does the cost of maintaining a property rise faster than what the rent-control laws allow you to charge for rent?

And yes, I get that the possibility of rental control can scare of developers. But I'm wondering what the effect is on current owners. I've never been a landlord so there is probably something I'm missing.

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#380

Post by paloaltokid »

hollerith wrote: post #364
paloaltokid wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Development along the existing CalTrain and BART lines makes a lot of sense. Though it would be great if there were good public transit options in Marin, the reality is that neither CalTrain nor BART will ever go there. The development is just too expensive at this point. Prediction: the gentrification currently happening in Oakland will soon spread to Richmond and Vallejo. Vallejo, it's crime problems aside, actuall…

I find it a little misleading to point out that there is no CalTrain to Marin while omitting to note that there is regularly-scheduled ferry service to Marin. The ferries are just as fast and definitely more pleasant than CalTrain. (BART though is faster, I'm pretty sure.)

The ferries are not a similar option to CalTrain or BART. I live in Marin and could recite you from memory the Larkspur ferry schedule without blinking. When I worked in SF my commute was tightly coupled to the ferry schedule. In addition, the ferry only stops at the ferry building. Once you're off the boat, you still have to walk/MUNI/Bart to your final destination.

Also, if you are in San Francisco after 10pm, no more ferry for you. BART, CalTrain, and Muni are all much more flexible options.

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