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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

#151

Post by ahelwer »

pcwalton wrote: post #144
ahelwer wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 obviously isn't enough housing for everybody. How many people do you think want to live in San Francisco (including those displaced by housing prices), but can't, and therefore live out of town, out of state, etc.? The statistic about vacancies is only meaningful if you assume that the only demand for housing in SF comes from the homeless, which is clearly absurd.

How much extra housing would have to be built to reduce housing costs to the point that all people experiencing homelessness can afford them? Thinking you can build your way out of this housing crisis is the definition of insanity. So long as homes are commodities, people will be homeless and wealthy people will own a multiple of the number of houses that they need.

In a society with decommodified housing, some amount of housing will need to be built to keep up with local immigration. That is massively below the amount that would need to be built to try to prod second-order market effects to do what we want.

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

#152

Post by pcwalton »

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.

My preferred policy would be to repeal Prop 13 entirely and end the mortgage interest deduction. Couple that with a statewide ban on rent control, zoning reform, and greatly increased spending on affordable housing, and we'd be in a much better place.

Of course, none of that is going to happen anytime soon…

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

#153

Post by pcwalton »

ahelwer wrote: post #151
pcwalton wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There obviously isn't enough housing for everybody. How many people do you think want to live in San Francisco (including those displaced by housing prices), but can't, and therefore live out of town, out of state, etc.? The statistic about vacancies is only meaningful if you assume that the only demand for housing in SF comes from the homeless, which is clearly absurd.

How much extra housing would have to be built to reduce housing costs to the point that all people experiencing homelessness can afford them? Thinking you can build your way out of this housing crisis is the definition of insanity. So long as homes are commodities, people will be homeless and wealthy people will own a multiple of the number of houses that they need. In a society with decommodified housing, some amoun…

> How much extra housing would have to be built to reduce housing costs to the point that all people experiencing homelessness can afford them?

We don't need all people experiencing homelessness to be able to afford market-rate housing. That's what subsidized affordable housing is for. If market rate housing were much cheaper, though, many people who are homeless would be able to afford market-rate housing, and then the scarce affordable housing dollars that we have would be sufficient to cover the rest.

> Thinking you can build your way out of this housing crisis is the definition of insanity.

No, it's what cities that don't have housing crises like Houston do. Objectively, Houston is doing everything better than San Francisco when it comes to housing. What do they do? Allow a lot more building, with less red tape and restrictive zoning.

San Franciscans need to take a long hard look at what cities like Chicago and Dallas are doing when it comes to housing, and have the humility to recognize that their policies have failed and that they must change. I say this as a San Franciscan who's proud of his city in a lot of other ways.

> In a society with decommodified housing, some amount of housing will need to be built to keep up with local immigration. That is massively below the amount that would need to be built to try to prod second-order market effects to do what we want.

That doesn't make sense to me. Demand is demand; you need a lot of housing no matter what. Unless you try to curb that demand by instituting a hukou system (which a lot of Californians seem to want to do).

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

#154

Post by martin_bech »

earlINmeyerkeg wrote: post #126
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.

No no, you can buy an apartment, and rent it out, and then the renter registers the apartment as official address etc. So the apartment isnt empty. There are some laws you have to follow, but its pretty easy to do. I dont know the details of Germany, but mostly what i have seen here is not enough supply, and big demand.

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

#155

Post by notJim »

flaque wrote: post #131
notJim wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> build more housing and put them in it This is exactly what they want. Their contention is that SB50 doesn't place enough emphasis on affordability, so developers will mostly build market-rate housing. If you build enough market rate housing, the prices do eventually come down, but that takes a while to happen. During that time, a lot of people can lose their homes, especially since lower-income areas can be the mos…

Agreed that SB50 will not fix the immediate homelessness problem; though I disagree with their belief you can't pass SB50 until it also has affordable housing units. You can have multiple bills, we shouldn't shoot ourselves in the foot just because we have only a solution to one part of the problem.

In principle I agree with you, but in practice what often happens is that it takes a herculean effort to pass any bill at all, and politicians are more inclined to declare victory than to pass a follow-up bill. Even if they pass a follow-up bill, it may take until the next legislative session, which could mean a huge delay. This creates incentives to get the bill modified before passage.

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

#156

Post by LorenPechtel »

cmclaughlin wrote: post #110
aaronbwebber wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I call bullshit. Say what tower it was, and when it was built, and what time frame you are actually talking about so we can verify for ourselves whether it was actually empty or not, or even if it was empty whether it was empty for a good reason (e.g. not having it's habitability permit). Otherwise this is the worst kind of anecdata - not even enough detail to verify that the anecdote is true, nevermind whether it is…

I'm all for backing up claims, but drive through Pac Heights and Cow Hollow at night - you won't see many lights on in those mansions. Drive by during the day and all you see is construction workers and gardeners tending to the properties there. It's pretty obvious people don't live there more than a couple months a year. These are the ultra rich with property in the most expensive cities all over the world.

If they live there a couple of months a year it's a vacation home, not a vacant home.

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

#157

Post by cameldrv »

refurb wrote: post #98
vonmoltke wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Repeal it for everything. Just do what Texas does and allow deferred property tax payments for when the owner dies or sells. Why should we be giving tax breaks to people who have seen incredible appreciation of their homes. Those are the last people who should be getting tax breaks.

This. The original stated intent of Prop 13 was people not being able to afford to stay in their homes due to rising property taxes. OK fine, but when you sell your house for $2 million, you most definitely can afford it, and you should pay up, with interest.

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

#158

Post by LorenPechtel »

refurb wrote: post #98
vonmoltke wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Repeal it for everything. Just do what Texas does and allow deferred property tax payments for when the owner dies or sells. Why should we be giving tax breaks to people who have seen incredible appreciation of their homes. Those are the last people who should be getting tax breaks.

This is what I've been saying for years. I didn't know anyone had implemented it.....looks like they have an 8% interest rate, that's crazy high for the situation.

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

#159

Post by erik_seaberg »

sidlls wrote: post #65
macinjosh wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The rise of foreign money parking money in real estate has screwed things up on a global level. If the property tax is paid and the maintenance is kept up what is the problem created solely by the fact some homes are empty? The only reason these properties have such high values is because there is a demand that is not being supplied. Supplying more housing makes this a non-issue. > San Francisco has felt the brunt…

The fact that there are so many empty homes should be a bright, shining clue that basic supply vs. demand isn't the only factor at work.

When it's pretty much not legally possible to increase supply, runaway demand explains the problem pretty well.

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

#160

Post by LorenPechtel »

api wrote: post #43
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…

A few starter ideas: (1) Repealing prop-13 is probably a non-starter but we could probably get away with repealing it for non-owner-occupied homes. Prop-13 was meant to prevent people from being driven from their homes by property tax increases, not to protect speculators from being taxed. (2) Levy a substantial additional property tax on residential properties that are not currently occupied by either the owner or a…

Make it a year, not six months. The problem is investors, not vacation homes or snowbird homes.
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