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California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

latimes.com

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Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#161

Post by milesvp »

mgolawala wrote: post #73
standardUser wrote: post #3

"...and rules that compel developers to meet labor and environmental standards that often exceed what’s required for luxury condominiums." It's not just rules. Funding is competitive, and if you want a competitive bid you need to promise the world. Parking, green technologies, accessibility, community space, lots of amenities for residents, landscaping, not to mention the cost of ongoing compliance. "Another is Calif…

This is so depressing to see. These are the symptoms of a system slowly grinding to a halt under its own weight. Compare the tax code in 1970 (or earlier) vs today (1). Regulations and laws keep getting more and more complex. It keeps getting slower and costlier to get anything done. Then throw in the aging infrastructure, the greater wealth inequality along with significantly decreased social mobility. Un-affordable…

I read an article last year talking about reboot cities/regions. They mentioned places like hong kong, shenzhen, silicon valley, dubai and similar places throughout history where they are given a status that allows for more freedom than surrounding areas usually with less regulation. The thesis was that these areas are essential for making big progress in science or engineering or business , and that they were sort of a double shot in that not only do they have fewer restrictions, but they also attract people who want to accomplish things. These regions never last forever, but really spark kind of a punctuated equilibrium sort of environment for a generation or two.

I’d love to see each state support a city like this. But it can be tricky to balance, especially if it sounds unfair to the rest of the populace. Also, it would require separate governmental systems that could lead to all kinds of problems. As it is the US was set up initially to allow for easier variation among the states to get some of these benefits. But it can be nearly impossible not to end up with similar regulations over time. You even see it within corporations too with similar corporate policies as scar tissue from similar problems they all experience.

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#162

Post by mleo »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #32
sambull wrote: post #21

No new house around me was sub 1500 sq ft... guess bigger is better. But all the other houses in the area built between 1950-1990 were all under that.

I would be perfectly fine with 800-1000 sqft and little yard but nobody builds this anymore. And if you have a basement for storage you need less garage too. Why do US houses rarely have usable basements?

Too expensive. The cost of building the new house is incremental to size, not proportional. And there is probably a larger market for homes with more space. Smaller space works for town homes and condos, but that doesn’t align with yard and basement.

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#163

Post by ip26 »

Robotbeat wrote: post #123
stevehawk wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ooh, I'm gonna go with "a lot". Because motorcycles are a lot cheaper to buy, own, and maintain that cars. And a lot of them don't even require licenses in the US (49cc and smaller, if I'm not mistaken).

It’s the expensive Harley’s that are the most expensive AND loud, not the little scooters.

In a quiet neighborhood you can often clearly hear a 50cc 2-stroke within about a mile range.

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#164

Post by mc32 »

algeoMA wrote: post #138
mc32 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to agree -and in principle I do, just not in practice. In my case, I didn't have a loud muffler because I liked it. It was rusted through and I could not afford the repair. It had to wait. Ordinance or not didn't influence my choice. That's different from the guy who opens the throttle on his wannabe Harley as he accelerates from every stop sign on the street at 10 and 11PM... He does it just because... he's…

Still, you must concede that the parade of "rusty muffler" arguments are a silly compared to a legitimate housing crisis. Not everything our neighbors/family/friends do makes us happy. And hey, they might have a rusty muffler, but maybe they're less snobbish and more friendly. So while it's totally reasonable to be worried about traffic and school crowding, I feel people should at least try a bit harder to shrug thei…

I can see a system where you build where land is affordable, you bring transit there and you have buckets of units. Units for families, units for college kids, units for singles and you stratify the units so that like people end up with like people. Those who like quiet get quiet neighbors, those who like noise get noisy neighbors. Mix climbers with climbers and losers with other losers. You don't need groups that drag down others dragging down people who have a chance and you want climbers helping others.

This won't work in the US for various reasons, but it may work in other places where they can move people accordingly.

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#165

Post by RHSeeger »

komali2 wrote: post #19
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OR decent mass transit. But forget that in California.

Uh, is there any state with decent mass transit in the USA? Some of the cities have "passable" mass transit, but they're an exception imo. Nothing comes close to take-your-pick medium sized town in take-your-pick European country.

Is NYC mass transit not considered decent? The subway always seemed pretty reasonable to me. Admittedly, that's a city, not a state, but states vary wildly.

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#166

Post by JamesBarney »

pchristensen wrote: post #125
JamesBarney wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems reasonable but I don't think it's a significant contributor to the price of construction. None of the developers seem to mention it as an issue, and there are plenty of employees that exist in San Francisco that are paid wages that are similar to construction workers.

But there are marginal projects that don't get built because of the higher cost of construction labor. With shortages like the Bay Area, every bit lost, for any reason, hurts.

Is it true that if the labor rates in San Francisco were lower you would have more buildings 100% agreed.

But its like your business is setting money on fire to keep the building warm.

Could you use a regular unleaded instead of premium gasoline? Sure.

Would it be better for the business? Yes at the margin.

Should you spend any time deciding what is the cheapest gasoline to use to set money on fire? Not until you decide to use something besides $10 bills as fuel.

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#167

Post by ip26 »

_-david-_ wrote: post #145
tru3_power wrote: post #115

Man this hits deep. I moved out to Southern California a few years ago from the south east. It’s crazy, I can barely afford to buy a house here with a 300k/yr income. Even then it’s gonna be some non remodeled, in need of upgrades 700k home. To get anything decent (new kitchen, windows, working hvac) it’s at-least 900k+. I don’t get how people are buying these homes.

>It’s crazy, I can barely afford to buy a house here with a 300k/yr income. How can you barely afford a house? Lets say you pay 100K in taxes and 50K in food, gas, healthcare, luxuries, etc. You could save 50K and still have an extra 100K a year to spend on the mortgage. You would be able to pay off your house in less than 10 years. Many people take out 30 year loans for their house! Its a massive investment and prob…

The houses he mentions are likely 4-6x his take-home. Coming from the south-east, he may well be used to a market where good houses are 2x your take-home.

Some parts of the country do have similar price-to-income ratios for property as California, but in general I think you're getting a much newer & better condition house at that ratio compared to California real estate. For example much of the Bay Area was built in the 60's.

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#168

Post by dionidium »

asdff wrote: post #98
stevehawk wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, don't do business with that bank. Not all banks do that.

Plenty of banks do this, it's very common. Usually if they offer some student account, they waive this fee that is present in a basic checking or savings account.

And plenty of banks don't. That's also very common. Bank with one of the ones that don't.

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#169

Post by mnm1 »

ab_testing wrote: post #4

The bullshit and nimbyism in California is truly breathtaking. That happened in the wealthy San Diego County enclave of Solana Beach, where the Pearl was cut from 18 apartments to 10 and its approval required an underground garage with 53 parking spots.

Until the state starts preempting these idiotic local laws and push builders to build, nothing will change. They have the power. Do they have the votes?

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#170

Post by bluGill »

adrianN wrote: post #44
kwillets wrote: post #6

Amongst the various human rights, the right to build a house should be fundamental, but somehow it was lost to political forces.

I like strict building codes because they prevent for example fires, or catastrophic failure in a storm or an earthquake. I'm not so much in favor of the weird zoning laws many areas in the US seem to have.

I agree with the sentiment, but I have to disagree. Strict codes need tend to strict on the wrong thing. I want your house to not spread fire, but that doesn't mean mandate brick or steel construction (and ban many other fire resistant materials that meet the intent but not the letter of the code)
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