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Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

latimes.com

181–190 of 278 posts

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#181
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He can't just sell it tomorrow but I could easily choose another rental. At worst, the landlord loses money. At worst, the tenant is on the streets. Emotionally, finding a new tenant is business (maslow level.. 4?). Emotionally, finding a new home touches on your core safety and wellbeing (maslow level 2). Switching tenants means a new contract and new risk to lose money. Switching neighbourhoods means losing your…

> Make no mistake about it: landlords have a massive advantage in any negotiation with a tenant. This isn't a very strong argument because it applies to, eg, purchasing food at a supermarket. Worst case for a supermarket; wasted produce. Worst case for consumers; literal death. Yet the supermarkets are generally famous for being very low margin and cut-throat competitive. A tenant is only forced to move neighborhoods…

Going grocery shopping is not similar to moving. If you can't shop at one grocery store, you can go to the next. Finding a new place to live and moving is a major undertaking.

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately, rent control will have the opposite effect of what Oregon thinks, and only make housing scarcity worse. I always found it odd that rent control always seems to be an all-or-nothing policy: either things are tamped down on, or it's a laissez faire system. Does any locality have a "hybrid" approached. Something like: * buildings 0-5 years old, allow up to 3x inflation rent increases * buildings 5-10 ye…

Out of curiosity, have you ever owned a building? I might suggest that your opinions might change once you have. Owning rental property isn’t a tidy math problem. Newer buildings have more predictable costs, definitely not older buildings. It’s pretty much the opposite of what you said in the real world. Newer buildings can lease to higher quality tenants at higher rates with lower eviction/non-payment/damage risk. O…

> Owning rental property isn’t a tidy math problem.

I'm not talking about owning, but about encouragement of building. If income is limited to CPI, regardless market characteristics, what incentive is there to take a risk and build?

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#183
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in SF, there is a cap on maintenance pass through, something like $60 per month. If you’re maintaining a 100 year old building, it would be very easy for costs to exceed that cap.

Older buildings should sell for less, to compensate for this risk. If the mortgage payments eat up too much of the rental income then the owner overpaid, and should sell at a price that's more appropriate for the risk associated with the building.

Problem is that laws change even when homes don’t change ownership.

Your building might be worth$2M, then a rent control law is passed and suddenly it’s worth $1.5M.

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#184
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He can't just sell it tomorrow but I could easily choose another rental. At worst, the landlord loses money. At worst, the tenant is on the streets. Emotionally, finding a new tenant is business (maslow level.. 4?). Emotionally, finding a new home touches on your core safety and wellbeing (maslow level 2). Switching tenants means a new contract and new risk to lose money. Switching neighbourhoods means losing your…

> Make no mistake about it: landlords have a massive advantage in any negotiation with a tenant. This isn't a very strong argument because it applies to, eg, purchasing food at a supermarket. Worst case for a supermarket; wasted produce. Worst case for consumers; literal death. Yet the supermarkets are generally famous for being very low margin and cut-throat competitive. A tenant is only forced to move neighborhoods…

I’m pretty sure you lost track of your own analogy there. If there are better deals at a different supermarket, people will just go there. They might even go to multiple supermarkets in pursuit of deals. Literal death is not a realistic consequence of switching supermarkets (thanks in part to food safety regulations!). There’s a very efficient market here.

On the other hand, if there’s a better deal on a different apartment, (1) it probably won’t be available; (2) even if it’s available, it probably won’t really be cheaper after accounting for the huge direct and indirect costs of moving; and (3) even if it’s really cheaper, people will still rightly be reluctant to upend their life to take advantage of it. It’s not “charity” when you’re paying through the nose for something that you don’t have a realistic choice about.

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prevent? No. Alleviate? Yes. You can't just say "I don't think it will work" without saying why. Allowing for smaller home forms would mean affordable options in desirable neighborhoods. Do you have a reason to believe poorer families would still universally avoid those options?

It seems to me that stratification of neighborhoods is extreme whether single family housing regulations are in place or not. These types of regulations probably do make it more extreme. But I also question the base motive. Is de-stratisfying neighborhoods actually a worthwhile goal? I can certainly see some benefit- its nice to live in a diverse neighborhood. I wonder if that might happen anyways if we address the u…

Come to Munich. I find it very difficult to tell how rich most neighborhoods are here, whether city or suburb, whereas in the US I usually noticed easily without even thinking.

> Is de-stratisfying neighborhoods actually a worthwhile goal?

Well, that depends on how you feel about social mobility and segregation, I suppose. If you support the rich and poor being kept separate from each other, if you want to keep social mobility low, then sure it makes sense to support these regulations.

> rather than just throwing up our hands and giving up on these underserviced 'bad' neighborhoods.

Giving up? In practice, the result is evening out of neighborhood quality and desirability, not some neighborhoods just being randomly abandoned.

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#188
post #94

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…

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.

Until they collude with each other.

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#190
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…

Why abet this perception of a “housing crisis?”

It’s not as if the country is physically full. People behave as though it’s a human right to pile on top of one another in a few places. Why pander to that, and reduce people’s chance to live in a house?

No housing? Then go where there is housing or space to build it!

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