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California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

nytimes.com

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Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#51
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think housing is one of the few (if any) goods where increased supply drives up cost, nor do I think there is any evidence this is the case.

Out of curiosity, what would be a good where increased supply drives up cost? I can't reason any off the top of my head.

That would be Giffen good, which may not exist at all.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giffen_good

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#52
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying building isn't the problem but how do you solve for someone who is in a loan at $1.2M and in one year it is worth $500K on the open market due to all the building. This is something that has to happen incrementally and why people dig in so hard. That property is the main store of wealth for a lot of people. The wrong scheme could bankrupt them and destroy their retirement. Additionally, super dense hou…

Show me where any house would be worth 40% of its current nominal value because of nearby building. That's completely unrealistic conjecture.

Econ 101, more supply same demand lower prices.

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#53
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from Texas, and I don't understand the stigma against developers building more housing. It drives down prices, and increases competition. Why would California citizens ever be against this? Edit: The reason is because homeowners are competing with developers, so their own asset depreciates when supply increases. I was just thinking from the perspective of renters.

It drives down prices. When you bought a house back in 2008 for $300k and now its worth $2M you really dont want anything to touch your nest egg. Its NIMBYism at its finest. Everyone says, "just build affordable housing!" Just as long as its not in _my_ neighborhood.

> When you bought a house back in 2008 for $300k and now its worth $2M

Do you have any examples of this? The Bay Area housing market has had a nice run, but it hasn't grow 666% percent in the last 12 years.

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another beneficial change would be repealing proposition 13. Because proposition 13 essentially bans property tax increases for property owners, it creates a perverse incentive to drive property values as high as possible with restrictive zoning. Without proposition 13, property taxes would rise along with the land's economic value, creating an additional incentive for property owners to let the market naturally shif…

There's good reasons to keep part of it. I figure: You get to have the Prop 13 effect on one property - notionally, your home, but since it's difficult / gameable to determine which place is "your home", fuggedaboutit, and just say "pick one". Because yeah, it'd suck to lose your home that you're supposed to own because your neighborhood got pricey.

I think your point is an important one to consider and mitigate if property tax reform ever comes to the west coast (Oregon has a similar system). However: giving people an incentive to make sure their neighborhood doesn't get too pricey (build more!) is probably not bad, either.

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#55

How about we talk about building infrastructure? The whole Bay Area is building like crazy, and yet the roads are getting worse (more building? more traffic lights!). Public transportation is a big joke around here. Caltrain from South San Jose to Mountain View? We have the tracks, we have the train... the train just does not go this route on weekends. We have the same situation as a startup focused on developing a p…

Not to mention water, sewer, electrical capacity, schools, parks, police and fire services... You can’t just plop a 100-unit apartment down and then say you helped with the housing problem.

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#56

I completely agree with the sentiment to build more, much more housing. But, in order to make that happen, we also need to: - get rid of or modify zoning laws (at least in places where growth will happen) - reduce regulations on builders - ensure that there are plenty of builders for health competition (so that consumers don't get ripped off) - provide protections for builders from Sue happy NIMBYs (some kind of lega…

Not that this detracts from your points, but transportation is responsible for 29% of CO2 emissions[0]. It's the single largest sector, but not a majority contributor. [0]: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...

In California, transportation by itself is 41% of GHG emissions and oil production and refining are another 11% so it is a supportable statement that transportation is the majority of this state's CO2 production.

https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/cc/inventory/pubs/reports/2000_2017/g...

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#57
post #16
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it doesn’t drive down prices.

Simple economics tells me it does. Care to explain?

Best you are going to get on here is something like "increased supply doesn't lower prices in the housing market duhhh" without any actual reasons.

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#58

How about we talk about building infrastructure? The whole Bay Area is building like crazy, and yet the roads are getting worse (more building? more traffic lights!). Public transportation is a big joke around here. Caltrain from South San Jose to Mountain View? We have the tracks, we have the train... the train just does not go this route on weekends. We have the same situation as a startup focused on developing a p…

> We have the tracks, we have the train... the train just does not go this route on weekends.

This is the easy one to fix — when there is demand, they can just run more trains.

Much harder is the transbay commute at rush hours. There is almost no spare capacity, and it’s not clear how those extra thousands of people in Lafayette will make it in to SF every morning before we build a second transbay tube for Bart — and that’s at least a decade away.

I say this as someone who loves development: for the Bay Area to significantly increase its population, we need a ton more transit and we need to start building it now.

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It drives down prices. When you bought a house back in 2008 for $300k and now its worth $2M you really dont want anything to touch your nest egg. Its NIMBYism at its finest. Everyone says, "just build affordable housing!" Just as long as its not in _my_ neighborhood.

> When you bought a house back in 2008 for $300k and now its worth $2M Do you have any examples of this? The Bay Area housing market has had a nice run, but it hasn't grow 666% percent in the last 12 years.

FWIW, Personal anecdote:

My parents bought a house on the Peninsula in the SF Bay Area for $500k in 2000 and it is now worth at least $2m.

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#60

How about we talk about building infrastructure? The whole Bay Area is building like crazy, and yet the roads are getting worse (more building? more traffic lights!). Public transportation is a big joke around here. Caltrain from South San Jose to Mountain View? We have the tracks, we have the train... the train just does not go this route on weekends. We have the same situation as a startup focused on developing a p…

Not to mention water, sewer, electrical capacity, schools, parks, police and fire services... You can’t just plop a 100-unit apartment down and then say you helped with the housing problem.

The reason Bay Area cities can't afford their water and sewer and roads is because they are not dense enough. Apartment dwellers demand far less water, and drive on roads much less than people who live in detached homes. Density is the _solution_ to infrastructure funding.
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