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Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

latimes.com

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Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#91

Post by TulliusCicero »

Misdicorl wrote: post #82
TulliusCicero wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With respect, you have it exactly backwards. It's the US, with its predominately low density, car-dominant building style that has vastly more traffic fatalities than higher-density Germany or Japan. It's true that low-density SFH areas often seem more peaceful, but in practice cars there usually travel much faster than they do in higher-density neighborhoods, and it's speed that kills.

Those traffic fatalities are vastly more vehicle-vehicle collisions. I believe the EU even in the last decade legislated car design changes to address the risks of vehicle-pedestrian accidents that are far more prevalent there.

Of course they're more vehicle-vehicle in the US; hardly anyone walks in America. Just look at the stats. Even the walk-iest big city in the US, NYC, only has like 6% walk mode share.

However, controlled for number of trips/distance, being a pedestrian in the US is generally quite dangerous compared to elsewhere.

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#92

Post by bassman9000 »

wpietri wrote: post #31
sampo wrote: post #2

> Lawmakers passed a first-in-the-nation cap on rent increases Unfortunately, rent control will have the opposite effect of what Oregon thinks, and only make housing scarcity worse. https://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/07/opinion/reckonings-a-rent... https://www.governing.com/gov-institute/voices/col-rent-cont... > in an effort to spur new homebuilding, became the only state to eliminate single-family-only zoning in many…

> Unfortunately, rent control will have the opposite effect of what Oregon thinks, and only make housing scarcity worse. It depends on the kind of rent control. Housing has important asymmetries it's reasonable to address through legislation. One is asymmetry in scale: you have one unit; landlords have many more. This gives them stronger negotiating power. Another is cost of change. It's much more expensive for me in…

That means a landlord can extract money well above a true market rate.

The market rate IS what the landlord extracts from it, which is what the market, you, is willing to pay.

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#93

Post by spoonie »

caymanjim wrote: post #66
spoonie wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should be able to build whatever I want on my private property. Whether it’s a house or an apartment building.

Are you also going to build the infrastructure to support your apartment building in a neighborhood of single-family homes? Are you going widen the streets, create parking, improve sewer and water lines, add traffic lights, build larger parks, route mass transit, hire more school bus drivers, hire more police? Urban planning and zoning exist for a reason.

Yes in Toronto these are called Development Charges and are charged to the buyer/builder proportional to what they are building.

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#94

Post by schalab »

BurningFrog wrote: post #61
wpietri wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately, rent control will have the opposite effect of what Oregon thinks, and only make housing scarcity worse. It depends on the kind of rent control. Housing has important asymmetries it's reasonable to address through legislation. One is asymmetry in scale: you have one unit; landlords have many more. This gives them stronger negotiating power. Another is cost of change. It's much more expensive for me in…

> One is asymmetry in scale: you have one unit; landlords have many more. This gives them stronger negotiating power. This is one of those theoretical arguments that sounds good but have no empirical foundation at all. If it was true the gigantic Walmart could completely dick me around when buying socks and toilet paper. In reality prices are very competitive. It also completely ignores that fact that most landlords…

Yep. The idea that you have one unit while the landlord has multiple units is not true.

You have the choice of a hundred units. And its their responsibility to fight with each other to make you choose one of them. Thats what keeps them honest and gives you bargaining power.

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#95

Post by spoonie »

pbourke wrote: post #77
spoonie wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should be able to build whatever I want on my private property. Whether it’s a house or an apartment building.

And I assume that you’d be fine with your neighbour doing the same, irrespective of the impact on the value and enjoyment of your property?

If I'm happy to have gains when I do nothing but my neighbours improve their properties, then I’m also happy to risk losses when I do nothing but my neighbours make changes.

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#96

Post by eropple »

Misdicorl wrote: post #49
danharaj wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reasons you will get will all be euphemisms for "I think black people are criminals".

This is disingenuous. Lets admit that there are racist people who use and/or co-opt these types of regulations and address the genuine arguments in their favor. Then maybe we can find compromises that help both `sides`.

Assuming that one "side"--the one inventing things about people with more melanin--is in any way deserving of compromise is immediate and irrevocable surrender.

The white-supremacist contingent understands this and are not looking to compromise. They'll take whatever compromise is handed to them and immediately refuse to change their behavior at all.

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#97

Post by AnthonyMouse »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #83
BurningFrog wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One is asymmetry in scale: you have one unit; landlords have many more. This gives them stronger negotiating power. This is one of those theoretical arguments that sounds good but have no empirical foundation at all. If it was true the gigantic Walmart could completely dick me around when buying socks and toilet paper. In reality prices are very competitive. It also completely ignores that fact that most landlords…

It’s not theoretical at all, and Walmart does dick you around, albeit indirectly. They dick around the supplier and force them to make cuts in quality to meet the price. And if Target/Amazon/Dollar General weren’t around, there’s no reason they wouldn’t increase prices and pad their margins. In a landlord situation, their cost of goods is so small that they can afford to sit on an empty apartment while prospective re…

> It’s not theoretical at all, and Walmart does dick you around, albeit indirectly. They dick around the supplier and force them to make cuts in quality to meet the price.

People are aware of this, and purposely choose products that are 80% as good for 20% of the cost. Other people shop at Whole Foods and Apple. None of them is ripping you off. They all provide options that you knowingly and willfully choose over your other options.

> And if Target/Amazon/Dollar General weren’t around, there’s no reason they wouldn’t increase prices and pad their margins.

The comparison to landlords being that if one of them had a monopoly on local housing they could charge really high prices. But that seems pretty fantastical considering that a local housing monopoly hasn't happened basically anywhere and would presumably yield antitrust scrutiny besides.

> In a landlord situation, their cost of goods is so small that they can afford to sit on an empty apartment while prospective renters need to put a roof over their family or business.

The cost of goods is the cost to buy housing (and the opportunity cost of the interest you could have had on that money), plus that of maintaining the property. If that is so cheap then why is anybody renting?

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#98

Post by LaserToy »

So, I probably drastically misunderstanding how rent control works, but I don’t see how it is going to help. I would argue it will push house prices even higher as you will have less people trying to rent places. Why?

I was reading a bit about renting as a business (plus I have 1 house in Bay Area I rent) and there is so-called rule of 1%, which means for cash flow to be positive you should rent your house for at least 1% of its market price. But it is just not the case in the SF area, you can get 0.3-0.4% at best. House with 1M price can be rented for 4K, which can’t even cover mortgage + tax, I’m not talking about repairs. Based on rule it should be 10k to make it interesting for the investors (buy and rent to make some profit). The only reason I didn’t sell it is the hope that prices will go up in x years, but right now I technically subsidizing people living there + waiting on possible rent increase in couple years. With rent control in place I would’ve been pressured to sell or live there myself. And as I moved out for an interesting opportunity, in a different market I would’ve just stayed in Bay Area. Which will not lead to drop in prices, But to decrease of available housing.

In supply/demand problem, the only way to decrease price is by increasing supply, not caping the price.

And the reason I would’ve stayed in Bay Area is cause I can’t afford to rent a place for a true market price. I’m right now paying 5k for the house which is around 1.5M (should be 15k, right?), which is mind blowing. The only reason it is possible is that the owner bought it long time ago and had the opportunity to pay it off. Buying it right now would require 300k in cash + 5.7k mortgage + 1.5k for taxes. + maintenance

So, to me, market rent control already there. And it is already on the verge of what financially feasible.

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#99

Post by [deleted] »

LaserToy wrote: post #98

So, I probably drastically misunderstanding how rent control works, but I don’t see how it is going to help. I would argue it will push house prices even higher as you will have less people trying to rent places. Why? I was reading a bit about renting as a business (plus I have 1 house in Bay Area I rent) and there is so-called rule of 1%, which means for cash flow to be positive you should rent your house for at lea…

[deleted]

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#100

Post by LargeWu »

pmoriarty wrote: post #65
bko wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It depends on the kind of rent control. Housing has important asymmetries it's reasonable to address through legislation. One is asymmetry in scale: you have one unit; landlords have many more. Not necessarily true. Sure , the landlord knows more about the apartment but you know more about yourself as a tenant. Landlord takes a huge risk in terms of allowing someone rent, especially given protections afforded to th…

"Its very expensive to fill a rental. A landlord usually needs at least a month to find another tenant. That's a month of foregone rent" If a month of foregone rent was such a huge burden to landlords then it wouldn't be so common for them to keep their properties vacant. Just recently, Los Angeles lawmakers have proposed a vacancy tax on the 111,000 vacant homes in the area.[1] [1] - https://www.latimes.com/local/la…

We had to rent our former home for 4 years after we moved, but couldn't sell because the market value was too low after the real estate crash. It's really hard to find tenants that aren't total deadbeats. Raise your rent and it's almost impossible to fill the vacancy. Lower the rent and get nothing but unqualified applicants with terrible credit and criminal records. So sure, maybe I could lower the rent to get someone in there, but that means there's a high chance they'll either a) not pay their rent, b) damage the property, or c) both.
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