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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

#621

Post by loansas3424 »

fortran77 wrote: post #8

The answer _is_ building more. (I'll say this before the people on Hacker News who are opposed to all private property suggest that "prop 13" is the problem. It's not.) The problem is they don't build enough. Build build build! They need the California State Government to overrule local zoning limits. We need to allow dense housing near rail lines and major roads. And I think that anywhere a single-family detached ho…

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

#622

Post by rcpt »

mlyle wrote: post #560
rcpt wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really not a bad problem to have.

As a purely economic position, sure, it's not awful... But if you're going to chase retirees out of communities they've lived their entire life that's kinda unfortunate.

Meh. We chase old renters out all the time and they don't get hundreds of thousands of dollars in windfall profits along the way.

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

#623

Post by VintageCool »

tathougies wrote: post #366
bluGill wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prop 13 also has the perverse incentive that once you are in you should vote for tax increases and high spend policies - you won't have to pay for them. I'm surprised Republicans have not latch onto this as a reason to repeal it - they already like to point out it is easy to spend other people's money as an argument against socialism.

There are no republicans in california. Like, the CA republican party is completely defunct at this point, and I am a (former) California republican; now a republican in another liberal state.

Donald Trump received more votes in 2016 from California than any other state except Florida and Texas.

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

#624

Post by ScottBurson »

DataWorker wrote: post #600
imtringued wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These "wealthy residents" are poorer in their hometowns. They don't migrate out of fun. In middle of nowhere they may get 40k per year and in the bay area it may be 160k or more.

Your point is the same one I’m making. People come here because FANG and tech generally subsidize that movement. It’s great for tech profits and great for that one guy from Russia or wherever who can make 140k salary, but it’s a net negative for society. The housing crisis is the result. A greedy growth at any cost business culture, not senior citizens trying to avoid displacement in their golden years; that’s what c…

> The housing problem is a problem of demand

Prices are set by the balance of demand and supply. The demand isn't going away. The supply is what we can do something about.

Even building expensive luxury apartments helps, unless no one can afford them at all (which is not what the builder wants to happen). The people who rent those aren't taking up spaces others could have afforded.

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

#625

Post by tlb »

usaar333 wrote: post #598
tlb wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that ending rent control increases prices does not support the claim that building more homes increases prices. They should have opposite effects according to basic supply and demand theory.

Ending rent control also should lead to lower prices in non rent controlled housing according to supply and demand. The sequence of events that lead to a rise in prices are similar - that is there is evidence that more affluent people moving in to a local area can result in rents going up for others in that same area.

Raising the price of one good usually causes the price of substitute goods to go up. For example, if the price of wheat goes up because of import duties, the price of rice will also go up as people switch from wheat to rice.

In the rent control example, many people held on to RC apartments because they were a great deal, even though they weren't where they wanted to live. After RC ended, they moved to apartments they preferred (since there was no longer a big price differential), increasing demand (and thus price) for the originally non-RC apartments.

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

#626

Post by [deleted] »

cnst wrote: post #534

> In backing every single project in the development pipeline that day, Ms. Trauss laid out a platform that would make her a celebrity of Bay Area politics: how expensive new housing today would become affordable old housing tomorrow, how San Francisco was blowing its chance to harness the energy of an economic boom to mass-build homes that generations of residents could enjoy. She didn’t care if a proposal was for a…

[deleted]

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

#627

Post by jelliclesfarm »

bbreier wrote: post #605
jelliclesfarm wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you been to either cities?

Yes, I've lived in both.

Ok. How do you think they are ‘far more affordable’ than tier 1 American cities?

http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20171119000242

[..] Purchasing a residence in Seoul is now roughly on the same playing field as New York City, where the median price is about 443.4 million won. However, because average income levels in both the United States and Japan surpass Korea, the report states Koreans take on average three to five more years to purchase a house over those in New York or Tokyo.

According to the data, it takes the people of New York an average 5.7 years to purchase a home, followed by 4.8 years for Singaporeans and 4.7 years for Tokyo residents. As for Seoulites, those with an average income of 47.28 million won require some 9.2 years to purchase a home. [..]

How is their population density creating ‘affordable housing’ as you claim?

Re Tokyo: the birth rate is on the decline and in the country side they re giving away homes for free to repopulate it. The public transport is excellent. None of these parameters apply to San Francisco Bay Area.

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

#628

Post by danans »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #479
danans wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This repeal effort is specifically motivated by the desire to increase education funding, not to reduce income taxes. It may also have the Georgist side effect of pushing more expensive commercial property into productive uses vs idling as financial instruments. I'm not saying you have to agree with that cause, but if lowering state income taxes is your goal, then there are plenty of groups in CA advocating for that…

My goal is for California to have a more stable revenue story so the state doesn't enter crisis mode every 10 years. California revenue is volatile because of the heavy reliance on income taxes, which are volatile due to the stock market. Property taxes are a much more stable source of revenue to rely upon. Backing out prop 13 to fund certain ventures is just going to create even more problems down the road. Revenue…

> California revenue is volatile because of the heavy reliance on income taxes, which are volatile due to the stock market. Property taxes are a much more stable source of revenue to rely upon.

If that's true, and more of the education budget is funded from property taxes, then how can the following be true:

> Backing out prop 13 to fund certain ventures is just going to create even more problems down the road. Revenue will still be volatile. Then in the next downturn education will get screwed again, like what happened in the last recession.

A recession will hit everything, but if property tax revenues are earmarked for education, its funding should be less volatile than more income tax dependent programs.

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

#629

Post by mlyle »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #520
rcpt wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Landlords all over make approximately the same returns as one another In California long time landlords get Prop 13 tax cuts. New ones don't. They compete for the same tenants and charge the same rent. Long time landlords have much bigger profit margins because of that law. Other states have property tax restrictions but I don't know as much about them.

> In California long time landlords get Prop 13 tax cuts. New ones don't. They compete for the same tenants and charge the same rent. "Long time landlords" and "new landlords" are not inherently different people, they're the same people at different points in time. It's like saying a landlord which has paid off the mortgage on their building makes more money because they don't have to make mortgage payments. The valu…

> "Long time landlords" and "new landlords" are not inherently different people, they're the same people at different points in time.

With the way you can inherit property and keep its valuation, there may be a class of "long-time landlords"-- individuals and organizations-- emerging in major cities. Especially, as you note, since Prop 13 discourages transactions.

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

#630

Post by goatinaboat »

kelnos wrote: post #294
goatinaboat wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its NIMBYism at its finest People whose wealth is in company stock say that people whose wealth is in other asset classes should give it up, for their benefit. How about we pay for all this new housing by a 90% tax on RSUs? No?

If people are actually investing in housing, then I see nothing weird or hypocritical with wanting the value of those investments to go up. But a primary home is not an investment. Many many many people mistake it for one, or try to treat it like one, but it's not. Often it works out in the end as if it was one, but it's not. There's a reason why we call non-primary homes "investment properties"... because your prima…

But a primary home is not an investment

I don’t know how you can say this because for 9/10 people their primary home is de facto their single biggest asset and a significant part of their retirement planning. This is how it actually is in the real world outside the bubble.

It’s easy to sneer at nimby-ism but what you’re actually proposing is to make ordinary people destitute so techbros can have an easy ride. That’s why voters are pushing back and why tech is hated.

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