The Bay Area’s tech boom in historical and social context • Hacker News Board

Re: The Bay Area’s tech boom in historical and social context

#121

Post by pimmen » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 12:28 PM UTC

sanderjd wrote: post #71

nerfhammer wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

on average prop 13 overwhelmingly benefits wealthy homeowners. So why not add an income level qualification to prop 13 so that it only benefits people that actually need it?

This might well be a good thing to do, but it should be noted that income qualifications come with their own entire bag of tricky problems and potential perverse incentives. What income level do you set it at? Is it a cliff or phased out? If the latter, what does the curve look like? How does it change with inflation? Are these questions set up front or negotiated by politicians at some frequency? How is wage vs. cap…

If you would get it wrong, such as setting the income level too high, how would it be worse than now?

And it’s not set in stone, why not try? You would increase tax revenue and thus have more resources to deal with the problens. And there’s lots of examples across the world that have done this and can share experiences of what to look out for.

Re: The Bay Area’s tech boom in historical and social context

#122

Post by bedhead » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 12:32 PM UTC

aresant wrote: post #12

The principal issue, full stop, in the Bay Area and most of California is housing. There are two solutions to this: 1) Build more. But this is outrageously difficult due to a well-meaning political view of safety / fairness / etc. These restrictions employ an awful lot of bureaucrats for enforcement but add $10s of thousands in fees and delays for builders, that are IRR driven and would rather concentrate their effor…

Wow it's almost like the free market could've solved this problem but government laws got in the way and distorted everything and caused more problems than they solved. Weird.

Re: The Bay Area’s tech boom in historical and social context

#123

Post by astura » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 1:36 PM UTC

sulam wrote: post #108

paulsutter wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually there are many ways of appraising houses, and they track the market pretty well (own multiple rental properties so I keep an eye on it) > here's no great system for appraising houses

To me a "great" system would be independently verifiable. As in, you appraise your house and you then find you can sell it within 5% of that number. This is not how it actually works, though. The appraisal is often spot on the offer you got for your house, because the appraiser clearly knows the number they need to hit for the loan to go through. Maybe the system is great for some slice of the market, but for owner o…

>The appraisal is often spot on the offer you got for your house, because the appraiser clearly knows the number they need to hit for the loan to go through.

You're talking about the appraiser hired by the lending bank (at your expenses). Their job is not so much "blindly come up with an independent valuation", their job is more to justify the selling price already agreed upon to the lending bank. It also makes sense to take into consideration a price both interested parties already agreed upon - that's important information when trying to determine what something is "worth."

Re: The Bay Area’s tech boom in historical and social context

#124

Post by randomdata » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 1:43 PM UTC

almost_usual wrote: post #45

aresant wrote: post #12

The principal issue, full stop, in the Bay Area and most of California is housing. There are two solutions to this: 1) Build more. But this is outrageously difficult due to a well-meaning political view of safety / fairness / etc. These restrictions employ an awful lot of bureaucrats for enforcement but add $10s of thousands in fees and delays for builders, that are IRR driven and would rather concentrate their effor…

I think the transferring of the low tax basis is bogus but Prop 13 does protect blue collar families. I personally know someone who works for a low hourly wage and now owns his home he bought in the 1970s. If he did not have those tax protections he would lose the home he raised his family in and have to move immediately. I understand it's frustrating to outsiders who are new to the city and are trying to "make it" b…

But why wouldn’t you just have the mill rate decline with increasing property values across the community? The city shouldn’t need orders of magnitude more income just because the value of homes blew up.

Re: The Bay Area’s tech boom in historical and social context

#125

Post by jogjayr » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 4:55 PM UTC

almost_usual wrote: post #45

aresant wrote: post #12

The principal issue, full stop, in the Bay Area and most of California is housing. There are two solutions to this: 1) Build more. But this is outrageously difficult due to a well-meaning political view of safety / fairness / etc. These restrictions employ an awful lot of bureaucrats for enforcement but add $10s of thousands in fees and delays for builders, that are IRR driven and would rather concentrate their effor…

I think the transferring of the low tax basis is bogus but Prop 13 does protect blue collar families. I personally know someone who works for a low hourly wage and now owns his home he bought in the 1970s. If he did not have those tax protections he would lose the home he raised his family in and have to move immediately. I understand it's frustrating to outsiders who are new to the city and are trying to "make it" b…

Or if low-density zoning didn't hold sway everywhere, that person could sell up to a condo developer, get a condo in the new building + some cash. Win-win.

Re: The Bay Area’s tech boom in historical and social context

#126

Post by lern_too_spel » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 8:54 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #106

lern_too_spel wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Repealing Prop 13 also removes another impediment to increasing housing stock. People who already own property and don't feel the effects of quickly increasing property prices will vote against new development more often than people who have to pay higher taxes when property values go up.

That argument relies on somewhat circular logic. You say one cause is that home owners don't want new housing. You solve that by repealing prop 13 giving them a financial stake in the market value of homes. However, why would the home owners support that repeal if they are against new housing in the first place? Either the home owners are against new housing or they aren't. If your suggestion was a feasible solution…

You missed the argument. The argument wasn't that homeowners should support repealing Prop 13 because it creates more housing. The lower taxes alone are enough to keep them from wanting to repeal it. The argument was that everybody else should support repealing Prop 13 because it gives homeowners one less reason to support more housing. There's nothing circular about it.

Re: The Bay Area’s tech boom in historical and social context

#127

Post by TheCoelacanth » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 9:44 PM UTC

astura wrote: post #123

sulam wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me a "great" system would be independently verifiable. As in, you appraise your house and you then find you can sell it within 5% of that number. This is not how it actually works, though. The appraisal is often spot on the offer you got for your house, because the appraiser clearly knows the number they need to hit for the loan to go through. Maybe the system is great for some slice of the market, but for owner o…

>The appraisal is often spot on the offer you got for your house, because the appraiser clearly knows the number they need to hit for the loan to go through. You're talking about the appraiser hired by the lending bank (at your expenses). Their job is not so much "blindly come up with an independent valuation", their job is more to justify the selling price already agreed upon to the lending bank. It also makes sense…

The appraiser's real job is to protect the bank's money by ensuring that the house is sufficiently valuable to serve as collateral for the loan you are taking out.

Re: The Bay Area’s tech boom in historical and social context

#128

Post by astura » Sun, Jul 08, 2018, 4:28 PM UTC

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #127

astura wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The appraisal is often spot on the offer you got for your house, because the appraiser clearly knows the number they need to hit for the loan to go through. You're talking about the appraiser hired by the lending bank (at your expenses). Their job is not so much "blindly come up with an independent valuation", their job is more to justify the selling price already agreed upon to the lending bank. It also makes sense…

The appraiser's real job is to protect the bank's money by ensuring that the house is sufficiently valuable to serve as collateral for the loan you are taking out.

Right, exactly. And they use real data to make that justification.

We are saying the same thing.

Re: The Bay Area’s tech boom in historical and social context

#129

Post by astura » Sun, Jul 08, 2018, 4:30 PM UTC

nerfhammer wrote: post #50

almost_usual wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the transferring of the low tax basis is bogus but Prop 13 does protect blue collar families. I personally know someone who works for a low hourly wage and now owns his home he bought in the 1970s. If he did not have those tax protections he would lose the home he raised his family in and have to move immediately. I understand it's frustrating to outsiders who are new to the city and are trying to "make it" b…

on average prop 13 overwhelmingly benefits wealthy homeowners. So why not add an income level qualification to prop 13 so that it only benefits people that actually need it?

Someone with little to no income can still be very wealthy. You're also discouraging people from getting better paying jobs. You also gotta deal with properties deeded in trusts and stuff.

Re: The Bay Area’s tech boom in historical and social context

#130

Post by eli_gottlieb » Mon, Jul 09, 2018, 2:30 PM UTC

claydavisss wrote: post #76

almost_usual wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are "productive members of the community"? People who seek profit, hide their wealth, and flip houses to make more money?

Oh be serious...is this the new reasoning, homeowners are mustache-twirling villains?

Yes? I mean, as a perma-renter who's continually demonized for being a renter and suggesting the construction of more housing so I can afford to live somewhere in commuting distance from work, most of the people yacking in city meetings about how I "ruin the community" are, well, homeowners. And usually really nativist ones with a nasty undercurrent of racism, which doesn't even make any sense since I'm usually the same race as them.