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97% of California Cities Failed to Meet State Housing Goals

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Re: 97% of California Cities Failed to Meet State Housing Goals

#161

Post by adrianmonk »

eweise wrote: post #95
briffle wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really get this mentality. Yes, its good to have your home go up in value, but when you sell, are you moving to South Dakota? If not, then the houses your hoping to move into have ALSO gone up in value. The difference being that nobody can afford 'starter homes' at the low end, so people have a harder time selling them, and moving up to a nicer house.

A lot of people view their home as part of their retirement plan. Buy house, raise kids, retire and sell house. Buy new house outside of work center. House prices in places like Redding CA are in the 200K range. Same house in the bay area is around 1million.

What advantage does that offer compared to just having cheaper housing and putting the difference in other investments?

To me it certainly seems worse than other retirement approaches. You are forced into making a single asset a huge percentage of your net worth, which utterly destroys your diversification. Real estate is also notoriously illiquid, so if something forces you out of the area, you could take an enormous loss.

If someone proposed another retirement investment strategy with these characteristics that didn't involve your home, people would say, "I'll pass... that sounds like a really bad deal."

Re: 97% of California Cities Failed to Meet State Housing Goals

#162

Post by dragonwriter »

briffle wrote: post #80
api wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The instant you sign a mortgage it becomes in your economic best interest to limit the supply of housing. Housing cannot simultaneously be affordable and a good investment. Homeowners on average tend to be more politically engaged, so homeowners dominate state and local politics. As for why every prosperous state doesn't have this problem as badly as California you can add prop 13 which hugely limited property tax in…

I don't really get this mentality. Yes, its good to have your home go up in value, but when you sell, are you moving to South Dakota? If not, then the houses your hoping to move into have ALSO gone up in value. The difference being that nobody can afford 'starter homes' at the low end, so people have a harder time selling them, and moving up to a nicer house.

> Yes, its good to have your home go up in value, but when you sell, are you moving to South Dakota?

Yes, lots of people plan to sell and move to a less expensive locale in retirement. Often, people who came to expensive places for good jobs but not because they had any particular desire to live in that place plan to return to where they came from in retirement. I've known lots of people from the Midwest working in CA where this is their plan.

Re: 97% of California Cities Failed to Meet State Housing Goals

#163

Post by Joe-Z »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #133
Joe-Z wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I ask where you ended up? If you're uncomfortable sharing the city, state would be fine. But: Where are the walkable cities in the US? I (coming from Europe) travelled on the East and West coast and both times was astounded by how much US living relies on having a car. I'm myself pretty anti-car-ownership by now, but I think this is much easier to do in European cities.

I am in a small town in Washington state, maybe a couple of hours from Seattle. It doesn't have everything I want, but I am off the street and my life is slowly coming together here. One of the reasons I ended up here: I had no problem arranging to get here affordably and efficiently via train and intercity bus. Many of the small towns I researched in the western half of the US were a case of "Good luck trying to get…

Hey, thank you for the reply. Very interesting insight into living without a car in the US!

Re: 97% of California Cities Failed to Meet State Housing Goals

#164

Post by DoreenMichele »

ghaff wrote: post #85
SaltyBackendGuy wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "... not exactly the middle of nowhere." Anecdotally, a of my friend moved from the Bay Area to Fresno and explicitly claims it's in the middle of nowhere.

If you're in one of the largest cities in the state, I'd suggest you're pretty much not in the middle of nowhere by definition--any more than, say, Las Vegas is. Now, one may reasonably not like Fresno but that's a different matter.

I have some sympathy for why people feel there's nothing in Fresno. For a major city, it isn't very urban. It sprawls tremendously. There isn't really an urban core with high rises anywhere. It lacks a lot of amenities that people expect when moving to a big city.

Music events at Woodward Park often attracted women in shorts or skirts and cowboy boots. Culturally, the city reads sort of like half a million farmers and ranchers decided to move to the suburbs.

It is a fairly unique city, with an international airport and multiple national forests nearby. But "check out the natural beauty of our great outdoors!" is typically a small town or rural marketing pitch, not the pitch of a major city.

Last I checked, it was the 5th largest city in California and I think the 34th largest in the US. So I think there are 20 US states that don't have a city of that size. The entire state of Wyoming, our least populous state, has about the same number of people as the city of Fresno, in the neighborhood of about a half million apiece.

Fresno is a very unusual city and I think most people can't really relate to it. I spent considerable time baffled by its terrible reputation and simultaneously trying to wrap my mind around the place. It isn't like most big cities.

It has a terrible reputation for air quality. I found that weird when I lived there because I could see the stars at night better than anyplace else I had lived. On the other hand, moving elsewhere has dramatically improved my health. So, in retrospect, I think there are serious environmental issues there, though I am not entirely sure what they are because I remain baffled by the idea that air quality there is extremely bad when the stars are so much more visible than I am used to.

Re: 97% of California Cities Failed to Meet State Housing Goals

#165

Post by dragonwriter »

ghaff wrote: post #30
phkahler wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> ...seen hundreds of properties for a fraction of Bay Area prices. Anything under 300K? How about 200K? A fraction of the Bay area doesn't necessarily mean affordable.

You look at, say, Fresno and there are properties for sale under $200K (although that's below the median of $300K+). I assume those are not the most attractive places but they certainly exist. That's the 5th most populous city in California so it's not exactly the middle of nowhere.

> That's the 5th most populous city in California so it's not exactly the middle of nowhere.

It really is the middle of nowhere, despite being the fifth most populous city in the state.

But, you say, how can that be: the bigger cities are all embedded in even bigger urban clusters [0]. Fresno is, well, in the middle of nowhere.

[0] And even the smaller central cities; Sacramento, is a little smaller than Fresno if you look at the city itself, but the metro area is a time and a half the Fresno metro area.

Re: 97% of California Cities Failed to Meet State Housing Goals

#166

Post by sheepmullet »

Firadeoclus wrote: post #27
sheepmullet wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The parents of those children contribute to the economy and pay taxes It's unlikely the parents pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits like free schooling for their kids. And at the same time by working here they illegally decrease wages and jobs for the most marginalized Americans. > Some of the kids of unauthorized immigrants are US citizens They wouldn't be here in the first place if we enforced our imm…

> It's unlikely the parents pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits like free schooling for their kids . I think it's a mistake to assign the educational benefits people receive (whatever age they are at the time) to their parents.

Why?

The money has to come from somewhere.

It is a parents duty to provide for their kids.

We have a welfare system that can step in when the parents can't take responsibility and this system only works when those parents are a small minority.

Re: 97% of California Cities Failed to Meet State Housing Goals

#167

Post by kevinburke »

rsync wrote: post #96
gwbas1c wrote: post #43

I think everyone's realizing that the solution to various housing crisis is to build more homes for all income levels. Artificially manipulating prices via rent control mechanisms; or only building homes for a specific income level doesn't work.

"I think everyone's realizing that the solution to various housing crisis is to build more homes for all income levels." Of course this is correct. However, it is also correct that many, many of these are badly mischaracterized as "crises". It is not a crisis that you cannot afford to live in Aspen. It is not a crisis that you cannot afford an apartment in the very specific neighborhood in the very specific borough o…

It is actually a crisis in Aspen. The City Council had to buy land to build housing for teachers, after realizing that high housing costs were hurting teacher recruitment. "The board's approval comes when it is looking for more ways to house teachers and staff in an area known for its exorbitant living costs. "

https://www.aspentimes.com/news/aspen-school-district-eyes-m...

Re: 97% of California Cities Failed to Meet State Housing Goals

#168

Post by sheepmullet »

marcell wrote: post #137
sheepmullet wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The parents of those children contribute to the economy and pay taxes It's unlikely the parents pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits like free schooling for their kids. And at the same time by working here they illegally decrease wages and jobs for the most marginalized Americans. > Some of the kids of unauthorized immigrants are US citizens They wouldn't be here in the first place if we enforced our imm…

> They wouldn't be here in the first place if we enforced our immigration laws. A couple things to consider: 1) This is a nit pick, but remember that many of these children likely have a parent who is a green card holder or US citizen, and another parent who is an unauthorized citizen. 2) More importantly, these children are here, and they are citizens. You can't (or at least, modern societies should not) retroactive…

> These are related but separate issues.

Without solving the illegal immigration problem any fix to the education problem only increases strain on the system.

California has shown no political will to solve the underlying problem of illegal immigration.

> Figuring out how to educate children of unauthorized immigrants is part of the second question.

We (royal we) know how - it will just take time and a lot of money.

Nobody wants to spend that money unless it's for a long term fix.

In the mean time the poor and middle class Americans in California get poorer (or in many cases leave the state).

> It takes time. The America dream works across multiple generations

The American dream is not magic or inevitable.

Like any complex ecosystem it's only sustainable up to a limit.

There is significant evidence we are well past that limit.

Re: 97% of California Cities Failed to Meet State Housing Goals

#169

Post by jnordwick »

dang wrote: post #146
viridian wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, I partially agree with jnordwick's comment. I've noticed an uptick over the last couple of months in the comments that receive public callouts feeling ideological in nature. It may just be based on who flags posts, since a lot of non polemic low quality posts seem to go dead after a few hours without any flagging, but it may be worth looking into this pattern, because I imagine you don't want to…

It would be helpful if you (or anyone) would send links to us at hn@ycombinator.com when you notice comments that break the site guidelines and don't seem to have been moderated. Examples would be comments that are generically ideological or unsubstantive or uncivil. Whatever our biases are, they're not strongly ideological. I know this won't persuade anyone, but the reason is that after slogging through hundreds of…

This would only explain why you don't reprimand some comments, not why you reprimand the comments you do.

Such as the example I gave in another cooment is definitely holding that comment to a higher standard than those you are more ideological sympathetic too.

If I were to point to a similar comment from the other side of the isle, you would rightly say it followed the site guidelines so it doesnt need to be flagged or the author scolded. However, your overly tight rein on one idiological side leads to a ratcheting down on it.

Re: 97% of California Cities Failed to Meet State Housing Goals

#170

Post by theptip »

briffle wrote: post #80
api wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The instant you sign a mortgage it becomes in your economic best interest to limit the supply of housing. Housing cannot simultaneously be affordable and a good investment. Homeowners on average tend to be more politically engaged, so homeowners dominate state and local politics. As for why every prosperous state doesn't have this problem as badly as California you can add prop 13 which hugely limited property tax in…

I don't really get this mentality. Yes, its good to have your home go up in value, but when you sell, are you moving to South Dakota? If not, then the houses your hoping to move into have ALSO gone up in value. The difference being that nobody can afford 'starter homes' at the low end, so people have a harder time selling them, and moving up to a nicer house.

I think the calculations here can get a bit complex, and you don't often see the full argument made.

Let's say you buy a house at price 100, and the market doubles bringing the price up to 200. If you then sell and move into a house that was 120 and is now 240, then you've got to find 40 extra for the upgrade instead of the 20 extra you would have paid absent the price change.

That might hurt in the short-term, but in absolute terms your asset is worth a lot more, so you're winning. And depending on how much of your mortgage is paid off, you could be ahead in the short-term too; if you have paid down 25, when you sell you get 50 back to put into your new mortgage, and that more than covers the increase in cost of the upgrade (you got 25 profit from the market movement, and had to pay 20 extra for your upgrade, so you're up 5).

Not to mention that if you don't decide to move house, the nest egg that you're leaving to your kids (or sitting on until you downsize later in life) just doubled in value.

As you can probably see it would be easy to construct a set of parameters where the short-term price change hurts you (e.g. you're moving before paying down much of your principal), but property owners tend to be optimizing for the long-term gains.

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