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Paying for Dirt: Where Have Home Values Detached from Construction Costs?

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Re: Paying for Dirt: Where Have Home Values Detached from Construction Costs?

#111

Post by ddnb »

Retric wrote: post #13
loeg wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You got 80% of a nice house for something like 120-140k (guessing at interest rate and term here)? In the states, or a cheap foreign country?

I have seen a nice 4 story house sold for under 60k in the US. It's really all about location, location, location.

Wow, 60k USD for a home, incredible. That's an older home then probably? Here in Belgium the absolute minimum would be double that, those would be the smallest, oldest buildings with nothing of insulation or modern comforts.

Here a building-stop has been announced for 2040 as all available land in flanders will be used up for homes!

Re: Paying for Dirt: Where Have Home Values Detached from Construction Costs?

#112

Post by [deleted] »

pascalxus wrote: post #107
emodendroket wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about you but income tax isn't my main concern

sure, its not the first concern. but, if you're going to pick everything up and leave all your friends and family behind, don't you want to find someplace ideal (consider all your choices and all factors involved) ?

[deleted]

Re: Paying for Dirt: Where Have Home Values Detached from Construction Costs?

#113

Post by ensignavenger »

rspeer wrote: post #37
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will building more units / appartments/ houses bring the price down? Have other cities seen home prices move toward affordability when more housing has been built? I'm not saying it isn't a good idea, just that the logic seems flawed.

I'm not up on the sources, but a moderately pro-development candidate for Cambridge City Council has often quoted a statistic saying that there are only two ways to bring down house prices: 1. Make the city suck 2. Get the housing vacancy rate to 5.5% And of course he says this to encourage everyone to work toward #2, and the way to do that without displacing anyone is to build new housing. I don't really understand…

If the new housing replaces old housing, without adding any /many new units, it can certainly increase prices (new brand new apartment often costs more than a 20 year old one). That isn't what you are talking about here, but some NIMBYs may think that is what is going on in some situations- in those cases, education is key to persuasion.

Re: Paying for Dirt: Where Have Home Values Detached from Construction Costs?

#114

Post by ensignavenger »

nradov wrote: post #99
rspeer wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hurts grandmas/grandpas who lucked into houses with high property values, who could be rich but don't want to be because they have personal reasons not to move. These are incidentally severely overrepresented among voters, and their votes are amplified by how easy it is to paint someone following the economic wisdom as an evil grandma-displacer. It's much more politically convenient to displace young minorities. Nobo…

One solution would be to defer tax payments and put a lien on the property instead, payable upon change of ownership. That way no one will be forced out of their home, and the government can even use those liens as collateral if they need to borrow funds for current operations.

Allow those liens to compound over enough time, and eventually they become more than the value of the home. Also, many of these voters want to leave their property to their children, not the government.

Re: Paying for Dirt: Where Have Home Values Detached from Construction Costs?

#115

Post by nradov »

ensignavenger wrote: post #114
nradov wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One solution would be to defer tax payments and put a lien on the property instead, payable upon change of ownership. That way no one will be forced out of their home, and the government can even use those liens as collateral if they need to borrow funds for current operations.

Allow those liens to compound over enough time, and eventually they become more than the value of the home. Also, many of these voters want to leave their property to their children, not the government.

Many of those voters also don't want to pay higher sales, value-added, or income taxes. The money to operate governments has to come from somewhere.

Re: Paying for Dirt: Where Have Home Values Detached from Construction Costs?

#116

Post by ensignavenger »

nradov wrote: post #115
ensignavenger wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Allow those liens to compound over enough time, and eventually they become more than the value of the home. Also, many of these voters want to leave their property to their children, not the government.

Many of those voters also don't want to pay higher sales, value-added, or income taxes. The money to operate governments has to come from somewhere.

Sure, but just how much government we need is always a political question, subject to much debate. The point is, the solution isn't as simple as raising taxes.

Re: Paying for Dirt: Where Have Home Values Detached from Construction Costs?

#117

Post by m0llusk »

kevinburke wrote: post #109
m0llusk wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Brisbane proposal is a great example of the need for public input. Instead of expanding the town the idea is to build high density development on swampland far from town and services in a location so clearly undesirable that it has escaped even proposals for development since the Gold Rush. Reasonable expansion of existing towns is a good answer to this crisis while building large apartment buildings in fetid swa…

> "far from transit" The proposed development is literally next door to a freeway (101), a Caltrain stop - Bayshore Caltrain - and a Muni stop. SF has proposed extending Muni into the new development for free. "The public" largely wants new housing in the Baylands, if the city meetings were any guide, where a large majority of the speakers wanted to approve the housing proposal. You may have seen the signed letter fr…

You got lost somewhere. The land near the Bayshore CalTrain station is the old factory, has already undergone extensive remediation and decontamination, and is having an entire new high density community build right there. The Brisbane proposal is for the ponds and swamp well down the line from there and several big blocks from town.

The core issue remains: Will we expand these towns as we should or will we in desperation put a lot of high density uses out on fringes that have far more value ecologically than economically? The real fight isn't for the fringes.

Re: Paying for Dirt: Where Have Home Values Detached from Construction Costs?

#118

Post by carlivar »

emodendroket wrote: post #106
pascalxus wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me too. That's one less state we can escape to.

I don't know about you but income tax isn't my main concern

Property and sales taxes are also high.

I think one major problem is the number of government bodies with taxing authority:

https://www.illinoispolicy.org/reports/too-much-government-i...

Essentially, Illinois has a long history of corruption and political patronage that I find detestable.

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