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How Much Housing Will Be Built?

ternercenter2.berkeley.edu

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Re: How Much Housing Will Be Built?

#11

Post by eru »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #3
raldi wrote: post #2

If you click the link and, leaving all the rest of the defaults alone, drop the required affordable housing percentage from 10% to 0%, you lose about 4,000 affordable units but gain 6,000 market-rate ones. So, would this change increase or decrease displacement? Well, another recent Berkeley study concluded that a new market-rate apartment has about half the displacement-fighting impact of a below-market-rate apartme…

The entire concept of low income housing is a scam to keep market rate prices high. Build enough market rate housing that the price falls to what low income people can afford and you don't need any low income housing. If the government spent the money it spends subsidizing rents on subsidizing construction then the problem would be solved.

> If the government spent the money it spends subsidizing rents on subsidizing construction then the problem would be solved.

Or just give poor people money?

Re: How Much Housing Will Be Built?

#13

Post by JoshTriplett »

raldi wrote: post #7
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The flaw is scale. If you build one market rate unit (or ten or a hundred) then you get displacement, because the price of the market rate units remain too high for low income people to afford. You need to build a million .

Actually, just building 111,000 (increasing the city's supply by 30%) would cut housing costs in half. Source: http://experimental-geography.blogspot.com/2016/05/employmen...

As far as I can tell, the model shown here doesn't seem to take supply and demand into account when calculating the price of the resulting housing.

Re: How Much Housing Will Be Built?

#14

Post by AnthonyMouse »

tsmffh wrote: post #8
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire concept of low income housing is a scam to keep market rate prices high. Build enough market rate housing that the price falls to what low income people can afford and you don't need any low income housing. If the government spent the money it spends subsidizing rents on subsidizing construction then the problem would be solved.

Government price controls do not fundamentally change the cost only the price. If the government is so efficient and can, somehow, make housing cheaper than it would be in a free market why shouldn't they also take control of the food supply? Computers? Software? All industry?

The government created a market failure by passing restrictive zoning regulations leading to a severe under-supply of housing. Resolving the market failure requires either eliminating the restrictions or providing enough cash money to justify the builder's expense in contending with them.

Obviously the better solution is to do away with the restrictions, but politics is the devil's day job and all that.

Re: How Much Housing Will Be Built?

#15

Post by _9MOTHER9HORSE »

tsmffh wrote: post #8
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire concept of low income housing is a scam to keep market rate prices high. Build enough market rate housing that the price falls to what low income people can afford and you don't need any low income housing. If the government spent the money it spends subsidizing rents on subsidizing construction then the problem would be solved.

Government price controls do not fundamentally change the cost only the price. If the government is so efficient and can, somehow, make housing cheaper than it would be in a free market why shouldn't they also take control of the food supply? Computers? Software? All industry?

Because thus far they have intervened with the opposite effect, to push housing prices upwards.

In London this is through the Green Belt, torturous planning laws, height and density restrictions, low interest rates, government-backed mortgages and lending schemes, etc.

Supply in the markets for food, computers, software, etc. is not nearly so controlled by government action (or inaction).

Re: How Much Housing Will Be Built?

#16

Post by natrius »

raldi wrote: post #2

If you click the link and, leaving all the rest of the defaults alone, drop the required affordable housing percentage from 10% to 0%, you lose about 4,000 affordable units but gain 6,000 market-rate ones. So, would this change increase or decrease displacement? Well, another recent Berkeley study concluded that a new market-rate apartment has about half the displacement-fighting impact of a below-market-rate apartme…

That Berkeley study only considers units subsidized by taxpayers when it talks about subsidized housing. Inclusionary zoning is not studied, and like all disincentives to build more homes, I think it makes displacement worse.

Re: How Much Housing Will Be Built?

#17

Post by fennecfoxen »

eru wrote: post #11
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire concept of low income housing is a scam to keep market rate prices high. Build enough market rate housing that the price falls to what low income people can afford and you don't need any low income housing. If the government spent the money it spends subsidizing rents on subsidizing construction then the problem would be solved.

> If the government spent the money it spends subsidizing rents on subsidizing construction then the problem would be solved. Or just give poor people money?

And lose a third of it to the government bureaucracy? And probably construct a new generation of welfare-trap, making people afraid to earn more money for fear of losing their benefit?

Re: How Much Housing Will Be Built?

#18

Post by mickrussom »

The bay area. The best, brightest, smartest, pedigreed, hardest working most motivated people on earth. And we cant solve the simplest problems in the Maslow's hierarchy. American Indians solved the housing problems with Teepees and Wigwams - so much for being "smart." There was an article recently where a google employee was living in a 24 ft truck in the google parking lot. This Bay Area mess is a self inflicted joke. What I find amazing is Tokyo. Tokyo, 1945, burned to the ground, population 3.5 million. Today, Tokyo is at 13 million and the Tokyo-Yokohama urban area is 37.8 million. And if you've ever been to japan public transportation is functioning and the society seems to nail basic needs much better than smarty-pants bay area.

Re: How Much Housing Will Be Built?

#19

Post by youngButEager »

Even if all the tougher regs were removed tomorrow, very few builders with the large $$$ it takes to build housing are also stupid enough to risk government seizure in the future. The population will keep growing. The demand for housing will increase. The city leaders have already proven that stealing control of someone's personal asset is something they will do. (the personal asset in this case is a pre-1979 mom-and-pop rental property)

After 1979, long-term tenants moved in and the supply of rent controlled units dropped to nothing very quickly. Then what? You can't tell the entrenched 'fast movers' who got there first with the cheaper rent control units "move out and give someone else a chance."

Once a government shows a willingness to steal control of someone's personal assets, NO one who is smart enough to afford to build housing is also DUMB enough to build in rent control zones.

Only enticements get builders to build in those areas. And most builders see this:

- in Southern California there was a move to 'move the goalposts' and instead of pre-1979 rentals being rent controlled, now everything built pre-1995 would become rent controlled.

- here recently on the Peninsula the same topic came up -- re-classify candidate rental properties for rent control up to 1995.

Both of those were defeated. But it signaled to developers that the goalposts can be moved.

Until leadership stop stealing control of people's personal assets, it doesn't matter if all building code/zoning/etc. rules are removed -- very few builders will put a new project in a rent control area, where city leaders have already stolen control of personal assets.

"You like to steal control of assets that don't belong to you? I won't be building assets near you."

SIMPLE AS THAT.

Re: How Much Housing Will Be Built?

#20

Post by efaref »

kartan wrote: post #9
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire concept of low income housing is a scam to keep market rate prices high. Build enough market rate housing that the price falls to what low income people can afford and you don't need any low income housing. If the government spent the money it spends subsidizing rents on subsidizing construction then the problem would be solved.

> Build enough market rate housing that the price falls to what low income people can afford and you don't need any low income housing. There are other kind of problems like buy-to-leave ( http://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Buy_to_leave ). In that scenario the amount of housing to build to get to a point that it is affordable is a lot higher than it should be. > subsidizing construction If you mean state owned…

The solution to buy-to-leave is surely extremely high taxation on properties left empty (and I'm talking "10% of market value" levels of taxation, enough to obliterate any possible returns on investment).
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