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The Shame of Palo Alto: An Interview with Kate Downing on Affordable Housing

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Re: The Shame of Palo Alto: An Interview with Kate Downing on Affordable Housing

#101

Post by dekhn »

mbreese wrote: post #7
ChuckMcM wrote: post #4

"Downing and her husband, an attorney and programmer, respectively, say they simply could not afford to pay almost $150,000 per year for housing alone while starting a family in Palo Alto." It's interesting the difference a couple of miles make. $150,000 per year is $12,500 a month. The most expensive house for rent in East Palo Alto (3 miles away) is $6,000 (half that) and there are many choices under $4,000 per mon…

The $150,000 number is the cost of the mortgage needed to buy a home the size of the one they rented in Palo Alto [1]. The breakdown was that they rented the home with another couple for $6200/mo. If they wanted to buy a similar home, it would cost ~ $2.7M, thus the $12.5k/mo mortgage. They were already renting a place in Palo Alto at ~ $3100/mo. Their problem was that they wanted to start a family and needed more sp…

$2.7M house in PA -> $1.2M house in San Mateo. less than 30 minute commute (it takes me 20 to go from SM to PA on a moderate traffic day).

Re: The Shame of Palo Alto: An Interview with Kate Downing on Affordable Housing

#102

Post by mchaver »

hkmurakami wrote: post #3

It seems that we made a pact with the devil by positioning housing as an investment asset. By doing so, we've encouraged people to commit a very large fraction of their net worth into a rather illiquid asset, tying their financial fates to the future assessment of that asset. As a result, protecting the price and appreciation of this asset has come to overshadow the other crucial roles that housing plays in our socie…

Which countries do you think handle housing well? Any references would be appreciated.

Re: The Shame of Palo Alto: An Interview with Kate Downing on Affordable Housing

#103

Post by karma_vaccum123 »

ben_jones wrote: post #75

Is living in the Bay Area a privilege or a right?

We'll kill the golden goose and eventually companies will leave. They can't afford to pay workers 3x the competitive rate just to support housing costs.

Re: The Shame of Palo Alto: An Interview with Kate Downing on Affordable Housing

#104

Post by karma_vaccum123 »

lindenksv1 wrote: post #52
ScottBurson wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your theory doesn't explain why she's moving to Santa Cruz -- the schools are nothing special there.

We're moving to Santa Cruz because we wanted to live in a walkable area. If you travel up and down the peninsula, any house near the walkable downtown area is going to be $2M+. Yeah, sure, you can buy for less and have to travel by car absolutely everywhere. But why spend $1.5 to live in a dead cul de sac when you can spend the same money to live in a lively walkable area near the beach? If you're going to hang an al…

Speaking as a Los Gatan...get ready to HATE hwy 17

Re: The Shame of Palo Alto: An Interview with Kate Downing on Affordable Housing

#105

Post by dekhn »

lindenksv1 wrote: post #52
ScottBurson wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your theory doesn't explain why she's moving to Santa Cruz -- the schools are nothing special there.

We're moving to Santa Cruz because we wanted to live in a walkable area. If you travel up and down the peninsula, any house near the walkable downtown area is going to be $2M+. Yeah, sure, you can buy for less and have to travel by car absolutely everywhere. But why spend $1.5 to live in a dead cul de sac when you can spend the same money to live in a lively walkable area near the beach? If you're going to hang an al…

As I've pointed out elsewhere on this post, you've setting up a ton of requirements that can't be met. While I appreciate that you want to live in a "walkable area", that's pretty much the first requirement you should drop. That's a "want to have", not a "must have" in housing. Like I've pointed out elsewhere, you're setting up specious arguments when you insist of a bunch of details, like living directly in PA, living directly in a walkable area, being able to bike on the streets in your neighborhood.

Re: The Shame of Palo Alto: An Interview with Kate Downing on Affordable Housing

#106

Post by lindenksv1 »

prostoalex wrote: post #84
vadym909 wrote: post #29

I'm surprised that none of the YCs startups have tried to solve this problem. People really want 'affordable housing' and YC's motto to its startups is to 'make something people want'- so what gives?

Does the problem scale beyond Palo Alto and San Francisco? Do residents of Topeka or Detroit have similar issues with housing affordability?

The problem in the Bay Area is that since 2010, we added about 500,000 jobs and only 50,000 housing units. Roughly speaking, jobs gives you a sense for demand and housing units give you a sense for supply. Our jobs-housing ratio is completely out of whack. That's what makes the Bay Area so expensive. I actually don't believe any of the nonsense about this being a "destination area" or that there is "insatiable demand" - the demand is directly driven by job growth and you can see that plainly. People are not moving here from Nebraska and taking on housing that is multiple times more expensive just because it's pretty here- they're doing it because they got a job offer here. So no, Topeka and Detroit don't have this problem because their jobs growth isn't so far out of whack from their housing growth.

Re: The Shame of Palo Alto: An Interview with Kate Downing on Affordable Housing

#107

Post by dekhn »

lindenksv1 wrote: post #52
ScottBurson wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your theory doesn't explain why she's moving to Santa Cruz -- the schools are nothing special there.

We're moving to Santa Cruz because we wanted to live in a walkable area. If you travel up and down the peninsula, any house near the walkable downtown area is going to be $2M+. Yeah, sure, you can buy for less and have to travel by car absolutely everywhere. But why spend $1.5 to live in a dead cul de sac when you can spend the same money to live in a lively walkable area near the beach? If you're going to hang an al…

If you hate driving, you're really gonna hate being on the wrong side of Highway 17. Many of my coworkers commute over the hill (I used to go to UCSC, too) and it's a really bad commute: there's effectively a single path, with 2 lanes, and a high rate of accidents that block both lanes.

Re: The Shame of Palo Alto: An Interview with Kate Downing on Affordable Housing

#108

Post by lsiebert »

all2well wrote: post #99
bufordsharkley wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "technically correct" way to fix this would be to remove the investment potential of housing by taxing away land value (the grand old panacea of the Land Value Tax[0]). I think this is a good idea, but it's a disruptive one, and one unlikely to happen soon. But in the meantime, we might as well fix the policy that's in direct contradiction to this ideal: 1) Repeal prop 13. Full stop. 2) Intervene with exclusionar…

The thing about getting rid of prop 13 is you'd price out a lot of residents that bought a long time ago for something they don't have a whole lot of control over. If you thought that gentrification is bad now, churn in residents would got through the roof. Not to mention that you wouldn't solve the issue of shorter-term investments in land, or investments that include new constructions. Honestly, the real issue in t…

We shouldn't just repeal it. You abuse it's existence and the appeal to drive investment in property. Have the repeal not affect existing housing... and not affect housing built for some short period afterwards. In places where developers have sway with local government or have carte blanc from counties to build, there will be immense efforts, because the benefits to the property owner will be huge, meaning they can charge a premium. And after 5 years or whatever is appropriate, you will have removed the penalty in tax revenue cities take with residential and residential services. Maybe add a provision for city councils to more easily approve bond measures to fund housing development, and kick start building properties where value will go up.

Re: The Shame of Palo Alto: An Interview with Kate Downing on Affordable Housing

#109

Post by phamilton »

dekhn wrote: post #96
lindenksv1 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NO ONE is talking about the city providing anyone with housing. This is not about government subsidized housing. It's just about the city allowing people to build housing on the land that they own. Just permitting people to build.

What do you mean, "allow people to build housing on land that they own". What land? The cost of building housing in PA is marginal to the land costs.

Multi-tenant buildings are the key here. Cost of land is inversely proportional to the number of units. Building up, shared outdoor space, etc. all lower cost for owners but are often prohibited by local municipal regulations.

Re: The Shame of Palo Alto: An Interview with Kate Downing on Affordable Housing

#110

Post by karma_vaccum123 »

lindenksv1 wrote: post #46
dekhn wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, the argument is based on her insisting that she had to buy a house in Palo Alto. But renting a place large enough would have been much cheaper than that $150,000: $5k/month gets you a nice 4 bedroom. I don't think her math adds up. She's just insisting that she has to buy, and it has to be in Palo Alto. Neither of those are truly requirements for her, so the $150K quote is specious. EDIT: I acknowledge $5k is not…

Hey there. I'm Kate Downing. I don't insist on living in Palo Alto at all. See? I'm moving. But what I'm trying to say is that we have a serious problem because people who are integral to our community who SHOULDN'T move can't afford it. You can tell lawyers and engineers to go get lost and they don't HAVE to buy a house in Palo Alto. But are you also going to tell our police, firemen, teachers, city staff, nurses an…

I support you Kate but firefighters etc don't deserve a pass on housing costs (I say this as a son of a lifelong firefighter). They all are commuting in to most high cost municipalities anyway and have been doing so for years already.

There is a stack of applications for the Palo Alto dept that is surely a foot high...supply and demand says most of the positions are plenty acceptable to a huge backlog of applicants

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