Silicon Valley's housing crisis, in one sentence • Hacker News Board

Re: Silicon Valley's housing crisis, in one sentence

#201

Post by johan_larson » Wed, Jun 08, 2016, 9:17 AM UTC

hx87 wrote: post #197

shostack wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that's crazy. I knew there was an exclusion of reassessment for initial transfer between parents and children (or grandparents and grandchildren in the event of deceased parents) but I didn't realize it just continued in perpetuity down the generational line. My original understanding was that the home could be transferred without triggering the reset in this manner once, and then subsequent times caused a reset…

Strategic marriages just got a whole lot more attractive in California.

"She's got huge ... tracts of land!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPX-mW4l1rU

Re: Silicon Valley's housing crisis, in one sentence

#202

Post by tannedNerd » Wed, Jun 08, 2016, 9:35 AM UTC

drwl wrote: post #189

ChuckMcM wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a couple of things at play of course. Apartment ownership pays parcel taxes just like single family home owners. However 1/3 of the budget is tax revenue. Of the taxes, the two big heavy hitters are property tax (16%) and sales tax (9%) of the total revenue[1]. More people, more business transacted, more revenue. As revenue increases, city services can be expanded. Schools on the other hands are basically c…

Fremont isn't the only town/city in SV and not all school districts in SV are crooked. Also, you didn't really address one of the big concerns the parent commented pointed out, that is new dwellings would be a DoS on current infrastructure for most places. It's not like you can get that infrastructure in time for it.

Well the increased tax base will help pay for expanded services. Yes there will be a lag time of a few years (if you had a real proactive city council you could be hiring as early as the following year each be property comes online with increased parcel tax revenue), but the schools should have some room to breathe as most of the people moving to these new high density downtown apartments will be empty nesters (freeing up current single family housing) and young mostly childless professionals.

Re: Silicon Valley's housing crisis, in one sentence

#203

Post by arethuza » Wed, Jun 08, 2016, 11:59 AM UTC

hx87 wrote: post #194

Johnny555 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that they aren't objecting to the sound proofing itself, but an architectural change of using a different style of windows than the rest of the units.

That's my suspicion too--the most airtight and thus soundproof windows are casements, which are common in continental Europe but less so in Anglophone countries where sash windows dominate, and HOAs (as well as historical preservation committees--the bane of energy efficient retrofits everywhere) often take a dim view of replacing the latter with the former.

We live in a flat that is in ~1800 townhouse that was converted to flats about ~1900. Have never heard a single noise from neighbours (external walls are 1m sandstone!). We also have original shutters on most windows which do a lot to overcome the weaknesses of old sash windows.

Re: Silicon Valley's housing crisis, in one sentence

#204

Post by hx87 » Wed, Jun 08, 2016, 7:01 PM UTC

codemac wrote: post #200

hx87 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most people don't have to deal with growth at these types of numbers over their lifetime. I used to live in Houston, and my parents still live there, and the growth (in construction, not price) they'd dealt with (and enjoyed) puts anywhere in the SF Bay Area to shame.

That's surprising! I think the big difference between Houston's sprawl and the Bay Area's increase in density is that the style of life your parents lead is probably the same they did before. Do you think that's true?

It is true, and it is only true because Houston allows free construction with no zoning whatsoever, so even when density increases the rents and property values don't go up that much and thus no one is every forced out.

Re: Silicon Valley's housing crisis, in one sentence

#205

Post by Futurebot » Wed, Jun 08, 2016, 10:03 PM UTC

archagon wrote: post #83

Futurebot wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You chase everyone out it means: - Service workers (everything from baristas to cops to teachers) either disappear or have to deal with punishing commutes - Brain drain. When even people making a decent salary get pushed out, it's bad for cities ( http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/05/26/silicon-valley-e... ) - Many people believe living in the place one was born/grew up in should be a right. That's a value differ…

Will highrises and density bring rent down? I think it's been shown that the number of houses needed to actually do that is enormous. In practice, what's likely to happen is that the city will fill up with even more of the well-off. (That is to say, people working in tech.) In a decade rent might come back down, but by then all those groups will be long gone anyway. Personally, I don't have any vested interest SF hou…

It is enormous, no question. If governments and people were serious about it, it could be done, though. I don't think anyone is arguing it would be easy.

Re: Silicon Valley's housing crisis, in one sentence

#206

Post by rms25 » Fri, Jun 10, 2016, 5:53 PM UTC

hx87 wrote: post #8

beachstartup wrote: post #6

i went to school with a lot of wealthy kids from the bay area. they and their families simply do not want to develop the area any further, in order to keep housing as high as possible and the area exclusive as possible. in private conversation they talk about it openly. personally i don't think it's much more complicated than that.

Like many other problems in California, this one can be largely traced back to a single source: Proposition 13

I live in NJ and the property taxes here are among the highest in the nation. My parents house is currently at 8k per year and that is considered "good".

Even in neighborhoods with shit schools taxes are ludicrous, an acquaintance of my family is paying 14k taxes for a small single family home in a town with a high school ranked 294 out of about 400 in the state. She wants to sell the house but due to high taxes and shit school buyers are hard to find.

Property taxes almost doubled in the past 10 years in my area, I am not looking forward to buying a house and then the property taxes doubling in another 10 years.

Proposition 13 sounds great to someone from New Jersey.