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San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident

sf.curbed.com

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Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident

#121

Post by samferguson »

damnyou wrote: post #34
GrayTextIsTruth wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a lot of money in real estate. It’s better staying in the country than going to Chinese firms. If it makes no difference to you, why not favor your own country?

Because I am a committed internationalist and believe that national borders are the greatest moral atrocity that exists today.

> national borders are the greatest moral atrocity that exists today

I think this a fairly superficial claim. I agree that there are reasons to question the moral basis of national borders (why should someone be given additional rights based on where they were born?) but there are immense practical benefits that arise from having national borders. From a utilitarian perspective, these practical benefits likely outweigh the costs.

In the case of placing additional taxes and restrictions on foreign investment in real estate - yes, this may restrict the freedom of foreigners, but the overall benefit of these laws could be sufficient moral justification.

Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident

#122

Post by frandroid »

flaque wrote: post #45

Many of these homes probably aren’t “empty” in the sense that someone’s just holding on to them long term. This article is citing the vacancy rate, which includes rentals where someone left and the landlord is trying to find a new tenant. Any city will have some % of empty rentals, if it didn’t, no one would ever move around. According to the US Census, [1] San Francisco’s vacancy rate is 5.4%, New York’s is 4.5%, an…

> Any city will have some % of empty rentals, if it didn’t, no one would ever move around.

You do understand that people advertise apartments available for rent before the previous tenant has moved out...

In Québec, the majority of leases end on July 1st and you have a number of people moving on that day which is quite greater than the vacancy rate. You can sign a lease for a new apartment months ahead of time.

Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident

#123

Post by frandroid »

gradys wrote: post #7

> The census’ annual American Communities Survey defines a home as vacant if there is either no occupant or a temporary occupant—temporary meaning “people who will be there for two months or less.” So this is counting AirBnBs and other short-term rental spaces as vacant. > Vacancy rates are estimated by in-person visits to properties or by interviews via mail, email, or phone. I clicked through to the definition from…

> So this is counting AirBnBs and other short-term rental spaces as vacant.

Exactly. Particularly during a housing crisis, people shouldn't transform apartments into illegal hotels.

Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident

#124

Post by narag »

mschuster91 wrote: post #60
biznickman wrote: post #4

When I lived in San Francisco, the newly built condo building across from me was fully empty (but fully sold) for all the years I lived there. This is a tower in SOMA. There was only one apartment which appeared to be a corporate one that was occasionally utilized. The rise of foreign money parking money in real estate has screwed things up on a global level. San Francisco has felt the brunt of this due to their insa…

There is an easy solution preventing empty homes in markets with a high rate of vacant homes combined with a high rate of involuntary homeless: a tax of 40% of the value as recorded at deed transfer per year of emptiness. Exceptions only given in case of reasonable vacancy (e.g. due to construction works or damages). If the property ends up vacant for 2 years, government appoints random renters - for a maximum rent n…

Some questions:

Was this system intended for the homeless?

Were there many vacants before?

How has the offer responded to such measures?

How difficult is to evict a grossly negligent or misbehaved tenant?

Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident

#125

Post by ahelwer »

harryh wrote: post #93
ahelwer wrote: post #14

You can't build yourself out of the housing crisis when the problem is one of distribution, not one of supply. The idea that housing should be treated as an investment is, itself , the problem. How can you want housing to be affordable while also wanting housing to gain in value, i.e. increase in cost? These are completely contradictory aims. Zoom out for a second and consider how wild it is that we turned a life nec…

You can't build yourself out of the housing crisis when the problem is one of distribution, not one of supply. This is wrong. There is no distribution problem with housing. It's not that people can't find a house to live in, or a house has to be shipped across the country and the rail line is broken. The problem is that people can't afford housing. And they can't afford it because demand has increased dramatically wh…

I think you misunderstand what I mean by "distribution" - there is already enough housing for everybody (see article), it is just not distributed in an equitable way among people who need it. Nothing to do with shipping houses.

Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident

#126

Post by earlINmeyerkeg »

martin_bech wrote: post #27

In Denmark this would be impossible as we have “bopælspligt”. It means if you buy a home or apartment in an area like this, you are required by law to live in it.

Does Europe (more or less as whole) have a philosophy that rental properties are a regulated enterprise that is solely to be managed by a established company?

I mean I really do like the idea but I've heard of incredibly long waiting lists for apartments in places like Germany simply because there just isn't enough supply to meet demand.

Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident

#127

Post by earlINmeyerkeg »

human_banana wrote: post #9

Maybe they should build something other than luxury condos. But that would require SF to change their insane zoning laws. And SF cares more about zoning laws than they do about people.

God forbid NIMBY has to deal with a better house than theirs a block away...

Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident

#128

Post by pmoriarty »

rayiner wrote: post #52
ahelwer wrote: post #14

You can't build yourself out of the housing crisis when the problem is one of distribution, not one of supply. The idea that housing should be treated as an investment is, itself , the problem. How can you want housing to be affordable while also wanting housing to gain in value, i.e. increase in cost? These are completely contradictory aims. Zoom out for a second and consider how wild it is that we turned a life nec…

The premise isn’t that housing is treated as an investment. The premise is that housing is personal property. (Just like bread, etc., and many other things necessary for life.) It’s cities that are turning housing into an investment through laws turning it into a scarce resource. (Not just laws against building, but laws against short term rentals, boarding houses, tenements, etc.). It’s unsurprising that homelessnes…

San Francisco also has survivable winter temperatures, many shelters and other infrastructure to help the homeless, etc.

I remember being in Penn Station in NYC on many nights when homeless people slept in the waiting rooms. Police would routinely come by and kick them out. When this happened during the winters in sub-zero temperatures this meant a very real risk of death for the homeless who were forced to sleep outside.

I wonder if it's the same in other parts of the nation, and if the reason there are only 25 homeless per 10,000 nationwide is that the rest have died of exposure during their winters (or from other types of neglect).

Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident

#129

Post by harryh »

ahelwer wrote: post #125
harryh wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't build yourself out of the housing crisis when the problem is one of distribution, not one of supply. This is wrong. There is no distribution problem with housing. It's not that people can't find a house to live in, or a house has to be shipped across the country and the rail line is broken. The problem is that people can't afford housing. And they can't afford it because demand has increased dramatically wh…

I think you misunderstand what I mean by "distribution" - there is already enough housing for everybody (see article), it is just not distributed in an equitable way among people who need it. Nothing to do with shipping houses.

there is already enough housing for everybody

This is not true because you aren't counting the vast number of people who want to relocate to the Bay Area.

The article also ignores the fact that you will always have some % of empty homes. People move out and it takes time to find new tenants. People want to remodel. New buildings take time to fill up. People have second homes. Overall vacancy rates in SF and the Bay Area in general are TINY.

https://sf.curbed.com/2019/3/21/18276227/vacancy-rate-san-jo...

The idea that 0% vacancy is achievable (or even desirable) is wrong.

Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident

#130

Post by 1024core »

vonmoltke wrote: post #20
jayd16 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should really just repeal prop 13 for commercial and non-primary home real-estate. edit: forgot to add non-primary home.

Repeal it for everything except owner-occupied residences. That's the way homestead works in Florida.

Wait till you see what Props 50 and 68 do.

Prop 50: pass your current tax rate on to your children.

Prop 68: pass your current tax rate on to your grandchildren.

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