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California bill to add more housing in single-family neighborhoods blocked

sf.curbed.com

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Re: California bill to add more housing in single-family neighborhoods blocked

#51

Post by xvedejas »

anon1m0us wrote: post #41
xvedejas wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think multiple-home-ownership is the driver of the housing crisis. In my neighborhood in San Francisco, most homes are either owner-occupied or being rented out by the owner that owns one other house. So are you suggesting that the problem is solved in my neighborhood?

Yes, I'm suggesting my proposal would solve the problem in your neighborhood. If you reduce the demand for something, the price falls. My suggestion clearly reduces demand for something, thus due to the laws of economics, prices will drop.

The thing is, my observation is true about the broader housing market in the Bay Area. Most homes are not homes owned by individuals with multiple homes. And at worst, they're homes on the rental market, and so still help to meet housing demand. Vacant houses are such a small fraction of the housing stock, that even if all of them were full of resident owners, the price problem would still exist.

Re: California bill to add more housing in single-family neighborhoods blocked

#52

Post by anon1m0us »

nomnomnom01 wrote: post #48
anon1m0us wrote: post #26

The simplest solution to all this is limiting the number of houses a person can own. You only NEED one. Two is more than enough. Three is excessive. It's not gold or silver or stocks and bonds. People need houses to live in. Other investments don't have practical value. If people want to protect their assets, do it outside real estate.

Not just limiting but banning people that don't live in the country more than 70% of the time from living here. We n2eed to ban foreign investment.

If a real estate agent in Australia helps a foreign buyer buy a house in Australia, it's a $400,000 fine, iirc. We are talking about stiff penalties.

Re: California bill to add more housing in single-family neighborhoods blocked

#53

Post by dgzl »

brianpgordon wrote: post #47
dgzl wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an example of ridiculous government overreach. Should fit right in for California.

It's drastic. I'm not taking a position either way because I don't know enough about the tradeoffs. But it's really bad out there, particularly here in SF; maybe worse than you realize. When mobs of zombies start shuffling out of the Pacific and swarming coastal cities, you call the National Guard and impose martial law, "government overreach" be damned. And when things reach this level of dysfunction in the housing…

It's my opinion that if the proposed resolution is to strip people of their rights, then the resolution isn't worth the brain power used to discuss it.

Re: California bill to add more housing in single-family neighborhoods blocked

#54

Post by magduf »

cgy1 wrote: post #22
mullingitover wrote: post #3

California's housing crisis benefits existing homeowners, and this group has the greatest sway with legislators. It seems like a ponzi scheme, even if it's not intentional: people who can't afford to live here move away, and are replaced by wealthier people who can. Eventually we're going to run out of wealthy people and the whole thing will come crashing down.

And where are we going to find teachers, nurses, baristas, garbagemen, plumbers, etc. to service the wealthy homeowners when none of these professions pay anywhere enough for people to live on in places like the Bay Area? Soon places like this will be a mix of billionaires, FAANG workers, the retired, and nobody else.

I honestly don't see the problem here.

It's simple: teachers, nurses, baristas, garbagement, plumbers, etc. won't be able to live there. Nor do they need to.

These people can live somewhere else, far away, and commute in. To entice them to make this ridiculous commute, their pay will have to be extremely high, and they'll probably want shorter hours too (so they can spend half their work-time commuting), so they'll have to hire twice as many people.

So if some wealthy homeowner needs a plumber, it's no problem. Remember, plumbers are usually contractors. They can call up the plumbing company, who will send a plumber who will drive 2-4 hours to get there, and the same amount to go home. This will result in an enormous charge just for fixing a leaking pipe. But that's OK, because the homeowner is wealthy, remember? They can afford $3k for a service call. If they can't, well maybe they need to rethink where they're living, and sell and move someplace cheaper.

Some jobs just don't even need to be done. Baristas, for instance, aren't really needed. They can be paid a fortune to drive 3 hours each way every day, and this can be reflected in the coffee prices, but will wealthy people pay $30 for a latte? If they do, fine: baristas can commute. If they don't, oh well, the coffee shop can go out of business (or maybe have self-serve lattes), and the wealthy homeowners can go without.

The same goes for teachers. If the wealthy people aren't willing to pay enough taxes for teachers to have $250k salaries to live there, then they don't really need to have teachers, and their kids can go without an education. Maybe they can send their kids to boarding school somewhere cheaper.

Seriously, I think that if people stop fretting about these lower-paid people, and just let the chips fall where they will, the problem will resolve itself one way or another. Either the wealthy people will cave in and get local government to approve more affordable housing construction, or the local real estate market will collapse because people don't really want to live in a place where there's no garbage collection.

Re: California bill to add more housing in single-family neighborhoods blocked

#55

Post by magduf »

mullingitover wrote: post #9
i_am_nomad wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does "crashing down" mean, exactly? Do you mean economic development will stall? Then that would imply that home prices will decline and/or people will start leaving the state. If so, then that's the market at work, solving the problem without government intervention.

By 'crashing down' I mean a stiff housing price correction. There's already heavy government intervention in the housing markets, that's the problem: developers can't simply buy land and develop it to it's maximum potential. There are regulations that prevent the market from meeting demand, hence the skyrocketing prices that can't be addressed by increasing supply.

>By 'crashing down' I mean a stiff housing price correction.

I don't see how that's a problem, in fact it sounds like a solution. I'm certainly not going to cry over a bunch of rich people losing their shirts on overpriced real estate.

Re: California bill to add more housing in single-family neighborhoods blocked

#56

Post by ars »

anon1m0us wrote: post #26

The simplest solution to all this is limiting the number of houses a person can own. You only NEED one. Two is more than enough. Three is excessive. It's not gold or silver or stocks and bonds. People need houses to live in. Other investments don't have practical value. If people want to protect their assets, do it outside real estate.

> limiting the number of houses a person can own

So your plan is to outlaw ..... renting??

Why?

Re: California bill to add more housing in single-family neighborhoods blocked

#57

Post by magduf »

brianpgordon wrote: post #47
dgzl wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an example of ridiculous government overreach. Should fit right in for California.

It's drastic. I'm not taking a position either way because I don't know enough about the tradeoffs. But it's really bad out there, particularly here in SF; maybe worse than you realize. When mobs of zombies start shuffling out of the Pacific and swarming coastal cities, you call the National Guard and impose martial law, "government overreach" be damned. And when things reach this level of dysfunction in the housing…

I don't see why it's the government's job (at state/federal levels) to fix a local problem like this.

If anything, I think if the state government is going to do anything, it should help service workers relocate to more affordable places and find good work there. Let the Bay Area real estate market collapse.

Re: California bill to add more housing in single-family neighborhoods blocked

#58

Post by yholio »

anon1m0us wrote: post #26

The simplest solution to all this is limiting the number of houses a person can own. You only NEED one. Two is more than enough. Three is excessive. It's not gold or silver or stocks and bonds. People need houses to live in. Other investments don't have practical value. If people want to protect their assets, do it outside real estate.

> People need houses to live in

I'm sure very few owners of multiples houses let them empty and not rent them out so that people can live in them.

Houses are expensive, even outside their speculative value, in terms of raw materials, workmanship etc. So expensive that few people can afford to buy houses with cash.

If someone is paying that cash to build a house, then offering it for an affordable rent so that other people can live in them, they are providing a valuable service.

Re: California bill to add more housing in single-family neighborhoods blocked

#59

Post by glitchc »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #20
glitchc wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hasn’t happened in London yet, or Hong Kong or Bombay or any other world class city open to the elite. The wealth my change hands, but the number of elites is monotonically increasing. It doesn’t matter if none of the locals can afford it.

Property crashes do happen from time to time. Even in HK, Mumbai, London, etc...

Other than minor blips, long-term trend is positive. Check out the ten year trend at [1]

[1] https://tradingeconomics.com/hong-kong/housing-index

It may be an unpopular notion or maybe folks in SF are hoping to time the market, but the general trend across the globe is increasing price in desirable locales, barring natural disasters. So, yes, if a major earthquake hit SF, there would be a price correction :)

Re: California bill to add more housing in single-family neighborhoods blocked

#60

Post by magduf »

anon1m0us wrote: post #50
BlackRing wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly my thought. This isn't about needs, it's about economic rights. If I can afford two homes and choose to buy them, I'm within my rights to do so. Attempting to limit the rights of people isn't going to go very well.

I think access to shelter is a human right. I think access to an empty house is not a human right. If your family sits down for dinner and one person gobbles up all the food before anyone else eats, were they within their rights? Will the rest of the family ever invite that person to dinner again? No. We implement these controls on consumption in all areas of life. "Limit 2" when there's a coupon, for example. "All y…

No, because there's nothing requiring people to live in the Bay Area. They can live in other, cheaper locales. You do realize there's an entire continent out there, don't you?

If lesser-paid people would just leave the area, leaving that area without service workers (or having to pay ridiculous wages for them, driving prices way up for the wealthy homeowners there), the problem will solve itself.

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