Live data from Hacker News

Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

latimes.com

211–220 of 278 posts

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#211
post #31
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…

While I appreciate your viewpoint, you did nothing to address the argument being made: putting restrictions on rent prices will result in less rentals available. You instead put forward a moral argument as to why we should have rent control, ignoring the real world effect the GP was claiming such a move would mean.

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#212
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Which isn’t happening, so what’s your point?

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#213
post #52
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…

> 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…

"The landlord owns a very expensive illiquid property. He can't just sell it tomorrow but I could easily choose another rental."

It is not necessarily easy to move. It can mean a longer or harder commute. It can mean changing which school your children go to (which can be a hardship for them). It can mean losing a connection to some social circle or religious organization (yes, this matters to some people). Trying to stay in the same neighborhood can mean dealing with the same management company, thanks to local governments giving developers effective monopolies over entire neighborhoods.

Landlords do not need to sell their property in order to enter a new market; they can use one property as collateral to take out a loan for another. That is more or less how real estate developers operate.

"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"

In the NYC region every landlord I have dealt with has included a clause in the contract requiring 60 days notice before moving out, and reserve the right to bring potential new tenants into my apartment to show it off before I even leave (while I am still paying rent and living in the unit). It is also more expensive than one month's rent to move, at least in my experience in this area, and landlords are notorious for keeping security deposits as payment for "repairs" to their units.

"Landlords also have an interest in the community as they own equity in that community that would appreciate if the neighborhood gets nicer"

I have yet to see any landlord voluntarily do anything to improve a community. In every case where a property owner has done something to improve a neighborhood, it has been because they were forced in some way by the local government. When neighborhoods decline in ways that threaten their profits, landlords seem to just demand that the government step in rather than taking any action themselves.

"I don't see your point."

It is not hard to understand. Landlords, especially larger management companies with many large properties, have built-in advantages over their tenants that are not corrected by market forces.

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really an appalling point of view. There is absolutely nothing wrong with single family neighborhoods; in fact, they are greatly desirable to most.

Sure, nothing wrong at all except for: -sedentary car-dependent lifestyle -inefficent use of arable land -carbon intense lifestyle contributing to the collapse of ecosystems -materialistic lifestyle enforced -impossible to serve economically with public transit making car ownership mandatory -energy inefficient buildings -encourages racial and economic segregation -anti-social lifestyle decreases face to face contact…

Luckily, my vote for single family houses will cancel out your vote.

A single family house in a good and expensive neighborhood is something many people want to get and when people want to get something, they put effort into that and drive the economy up. I'm one of those people and I'm putting a lot of effort to get such a house, paying high taxes on my way there. People who vote for dense multi family housing have probably never lived there. But I did, I came from a ghetto and don't want to go back. Those dense apartment complexes don't solve any of the problems you've listed, but rather introduce new, such as drunk addicts wandering around your complex when you're returning from work. Apartment complexes don't make anyone's lifestyle any less sedentary and any less car dependent, because you still need a car in such a huge country. The US has plenty (too much) land: that's obvious to anyone who's bothered to go on a road trip. Most of that land just sits around unused. The carbon intense lifestyle is caused by the disposable junk products that are intentionally made flawed so we'd have to keep buying new. There is nothing "carbon intense" in putting together a bunch of trees and calling that a house. The cause of materialistic lifestyle is caused by greed: a fundamental flaw in our mentality that humanity will take tens of thousands years to overcome. Petty housing laws aren't going to change that, just like laws aren't going to make a teen grow faster. Economic "segregation" is a good thing as it gives people a choice where to live. Anti-social lifestyle? ROFL. Like I've said, I lived in a ghetto good 20 years. That kind of lifestyle can't be any more anti social. Some people have that detached from reality idea that if we make all sorts of people live together in packed apartment complexes, the "pro-social lifestyle" would flourish, we'd get nice parks with crowds of happy people and kids running around. None of that would happen. What would happen is a bunch of depressing big apartment buildings with all sorts of sketchy folks wandering around your neighborhood, looking for something to keep themselves busy. And that something is rarely a talk about arts. In such neighborhoods you'd want a car even more, but now for safety reasons and you wouldn't dare to leave your kids alone in such places. "Increases barrier to connect with others" - gosh, I can't stop laughing. The kind of people you would have easier, with no barriers, communication are not MIT professors and you would want a car with tinted windows just to have that barrier to connect with others.

The single family house neighborhoods with HOAs, tiered by social status, is the right way to go as it gives everyone a choice where to live. If you want to build a bunch of tall apartment complexes next to the city center, so you could walk to work, fine, do it, vote for it, but please, keep your hands away from single family houses and HOAs.

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#216

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…

Wait, but someone who could pay the 1% per month for rent could save the 20% downpayment in 20 months and easily afford the mortgage payments as they are less than 1% per month. The only thing that would stop them from saving money is not having a choice, but to pay the huge rent. It's taken me almost 10 years to save for downpayment for this reason: rent keeps climbing up and eats a good chunk of my income.

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#217
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Maybe the market is telling you that SF house prices are wildly overvalued. Maybe the best move is not to wait for ev…

They are not overpriced. When eng with 10 years of expirience can make 250base + 500k in stock per year (or 4 years can get 1M in pre IPO lyft stock), it is hard not to see why Bay Area houses are so expensive. Area with money coming in will become more expensive to live in. Housing price in SF are tied to valuation of tech companies. Valuation goes up, house prices go up. I actually think houses in Bay Area are chea…

Those companies have to pay this much only because otherwise employees wouldn't be able to live there. And even then, the 750k per year is an outlier even in SF. Divide it by 2 to get the more realistic pay.

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#218
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…

Generally, when the government interferes with the market price of things, the result is a glut or a shortage, often with the emergence of a black market. If the price difference between the government price and the market price is large enough, criminal gangs step in to take advantage of the opportunity.

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the first sentence. And the last one too. However, San Francisco in particular has worse spatial constraints than NYC. That city has “run out of land.”

75% of SF is single family homes that can be redeveloped, there are 800 acres of private golf courses in SF, how has SF “run out of land”

So you’re just going to seize private property?
Post reply on HN