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Living in a parking lot in Santa Barbara

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Re: Living in a parking lot in Santa Barbara

#81

Post by nerfhammer »

teej wrote: post #45
grandmczeb wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is the the real cost of allowing (particularly foreign) capital to be parked in real estate in the developed world. It's amazing to me that people don't recognize this as xenophobia when other forms ("Mexicans are taking our jobs!", "Migrants don't have the same values!") are so readily called out. High housing prices are a self inflicted problem. When you mix supply restrictions with tax breaks explicitly des…

Foreign investment is certainly a factor as much as the NIMBY-ism of the Bay Area. But people would still be griping about outside money if it were New York investors buying homes and leaving them empty. But it’s not. Just because the outside investment is Chinese doesn’t make someone xenophobic.

It's entirely the NIMBYism because without that the supposed foreign real estate speculation would be almost completely pointless.

It is xenophobia and that's bad because it trains the reflex to waste time on stupid, lazy, self-satisfying thought blaming greedy, scheming outsiders instead of trying to think of any sane practicable solution.

Re: Living in a parking lot in Santa Barbara

#82

Post by Feniks »

perl4ever wrote: post #55
grandmczeb wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is the the real cost of allowing (particularly foreign) capital to be parked in real estate in the developed world. It's amazing to me that people don't recognize this as xenophobia when other forms ("Mexicans are taking our jobs!", "Migrants don't have the same values!") are so readily called out. High housing prices are a self inflicted problem. When you mix supply restrictions with tax breaks explicitly des…

When reading an article about New Zealand restricting foreign real estate investment, I found their reasoning compelling. Housing can be used to house people, or for speculation, like Bitcoin or gold. If you believe that providing shelter takes strict priority for the limited housing stock then it is moral and necessary to restrict the demand from investors. Quantifying the scale of the problem is another issue, but…

New Zealand also gave out passports for people who "invested" in the country. California does something alike, giving US citizenship to anyone born in the country.

Re: Living in a parking lot in Santa Barbara

#83

Post by ChuckMcM »

Its always sad to hear how people doing the right things getting caught up in circumstances that puts them on the wrong side of the power curve with respect to keeping their heads above water.

I looked into the safe parking initiatives a bit. I've noticed more folks living in RVs around town in various parking lots or on quiet side streets. It seems a bit like a no-brainer that if you have some extra land that isn't doing anything you should be able to just let people park on it without the fear of being hassled by the police or community members. But when you look at it closely what you are talking about are re-inventing the trailer park. Try to get a permit to build one of those in the bay area, not easy.

Re: Living in a parking lot in Santa Barbara

#84

Post by Feniks »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #21
solotronics wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

by your measure most people in the USA are poor I would guess about 80%+

One interesting factoid I know is that 50% of Americans represent 2% of the income in America. “The shrinking middle class” is a phrase that is part of common discourse here for a reason - I wouldn’t be surprised if 80% of Americans fit the parent comment’s definition.

I would like to remind everyone that the trillions of US debt is financed by a global elite who LITERALLY own America.

Re: Living in a parking lot in Santa Barbara

#85

Post by tyingq »

rcpt wrote: post #68
cletus wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s worse than that: they’re not even payin* their fair share of property taxes either. For example: - 157 West 57th St #77, asking $49m, paying $4,200 in monthly taxes [1] - 301 West 53rd St #3E, asking $1.85m, paying $1,681 in monthly taxes [2] Why is an apartment asking 25 Times as much only paying 2.5x the property taxes? You can largely blame Bloomberg and Andrew Cuomo for this. [1] https://www.elliman.com/new-…

Those property taxes sound high! I pay over $3500 to rent a house in Santa Cruz while my landlord only pays $2700 per year in property tax. The place is worth $1-2M depending on what website I'm checking.

It varies wildly. Property taxes in Texas, for example, could easily be $15k for a $450k house.

Re: Living in a parking lot in Santa Barbara

#86

Post by segmondy »

rcpt wrote: post #68
cletus wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s worse than that: they’re not even payin* their fair share of property taxes either. For example: - 157 West 57th St #77, asking $49m, paying $4,200 in monthly taxes [1] - 301 West 53rd St #3E, asking $1.85m, paying $1,681 in monthly taxes [2] Why is an apartment asking 25 Times as much only paying 2.5x the property taxes? You can largely blame Bloomberg and Andrew Cuomo for this. [1] https://www.elliman.com/new-…

Those property taxes sound high! I pay over $3500 to rent a house in Santa Cruz while my landlord only pays $2700 per year in property tax. The place is worth $1-2M depending on what website I'm checking.

I paid $3600 on $100k property in Detroit 10yrs ago. Property tax in most places is not based on the amount the house will sell for but based on what it original sold for and then it grows slowly. So Perhaps your landlord bought the property for $200k many years ago and the property tax was $1k and has now grown to $2.7k.

Re: Living in a parking lot in Santa Barbara

#87

Post by cmurf »

cletus wrote: post #7

I can’t help but think of Snow Crash where Hiro Protagonist (and many others) lived in the U-Store-It former storage facility. This is the the real cost of allowing (particularly foreign) capital to be parked in real estate in the developed world. In NYC for example most new developments are ultra-luxury not because building affordable apartments is uneconomic, it’s just that the ultra-luxury end is way more profitab…

Republicans are just serving their true masters. [1] Studies show immigration has a net positive on the economy, whereas the foreign owned real estate equivalent shows it has a deleterious effect overall with a vertical plus for those selling and moving elsewhere.

But this is a function of too low taxes at the top end, and cheap borrowing costs. There's a glut of money that has to go somewhere. So it's getting stuffed into the stock, bond, and real estate markets, rather than into businesses and workers.

[1] Graham: 'Financial contributions will stop' if GOP doesn't pass tax reform http://thehill.com/policy/finance/359606-graham-financial-co...

It's all about financial contributions, and ensuring there isn't a level playing field with the competition in particular in primaries. Just imagine how difficult it would be to convince them to get money out of politics entirely.

Re: Living in a parking lot in Santa Barbara

#88

Post by cmurf »

tempz wrote: post #12

There is a linguistic problem here - extending the term 'middle class' to hide prevailing poverty in the US. You are not middle class if: - you will lose home, car if you are out of job for 6-10 months; - you don't take 30 days vacation a year; - you cannot afford health services without going to debt; - you cannot send your kids to university; - your diet is mostly junk food because you can't afford fresh stuff. If…

Middle class definitions vary but one of the easier to remember metrics is between 2/3rds and 2x the national median per capita gross income. (Tax burden, geography, number of dependents, all skew this simplistic measure.)

I'd like to agree with the vacation value, but I don't know any Americans other than myself taking 30 days of vacation a year. The very idea of 30 days vacation makes my friends panic, what would they do?!

Also, poor diet is related to poverty due mainly to bad nutritional education and bad habits learned at home, not affordability. Processed foods with a lot of sugar, salt, MSG added, manipulate the brain into wanting disproportionately more of these foods, which are primarily empty calories.

Re: Living in a parking lot in Santa Barbara

#89

Post by gimmeminusnow4 »

Its sad, that people found this kind of living as "normal" these days. Question is, why do you live for in this lifetime ? .. are you living to work only ? Is your value as human measured in work ? ... oh my this is sad to read.

People, lets make something together.. lets make sure, that we do not have to be sleeping in streets, while megabillion companies are using and abusing people much as possible.. then they put you out without any warnings.. oh my how sad life is today.

Also, can you say technology sector is your favourite work ?? I am starting to thing little by little, manual job and services are going to keep you still in business after 10 years also.

This technology job and industrial sector is waaaaay to hyped.

Re: Living in a parking lot in Santa Barbara

#90

Post by losteric »

hashkb wrote: post #56
aphextron wrote: post #34

I'll be facing this soon as well, at least they've got RV's. After getting back from my third open house for the week, with double digit atendees, I think the bay area just isn't for me. A perfect credit score and a job making double the median wage is not enough to land a 1 bedroom apartment apparently. I'll probably end up sleeping on someones couch for a few months to finish my work contract, and get out of this h…

I don't think you're facing what they're facing. Sounds like you make quite a bit more than the people profiled in this article.

His anecdote is more powerful because of his income. You'd expect someone with low income to have trouble finding housing... that's a problem, but the situation makes sense. When someone struggles to find housing while making multiples of middle income, something is deeply fucked. That says a lot about how bad it is for everyone else.
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