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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

#181

Post by jayd16 »

asdff wrote: post #113
jayd16 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure building a ghetto is the right answer. Whats stopping anyone from claiming a 10x10? Can I claim one? You're grossly oversimplifying the issue.

How is this a ghetto? This is housing that is more spacious than my dorm room. The current situation is accepting a ghetto to exist on the sidewalks where there is no plumbing or services or shelter or a lock or any semblance of safety.

If you put 10k impoverished persons in a small area then that meets the definition of a ghetto, which is a minority group living in one part of a city. It will gain a stigma, it will become under served by the commercial sector, and those with an address in that area will be treated differently.

It would be better if we could have decentralized housing for the homeless such that they are welcomed into more affluent communities and their financial status can be kept private. This is obviously more expensive.

Its not an easy problem to solve.

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#182

Post by refurb »

pascalxus wrote: post #74

I know this will be downvoted because people aren't really interested in solving the real problem. We could fix the whole SF homeless population problem in the space of one parking lot. Just build micro apartments of 10'x10' feet. Make it 150' wide at the base: 15x15 = 225 x 40 stories = 9000 inhabitants. 100' feet might not be much, but it's a hella of a lot more space to live in than hong kong, where people barely…

You want to build fifteen 10' x 10' rooms, in a 150' building?

People aren't big on walls, so it might work.

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#183

Post by komali2 »

RHSeeger wrote: post #165
komali2 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd say it's not too bad, but it's rapidly falling to pieces, and personally I haven't seen the kind of action I think necessary to ensure it functions at all 50 years from now, shit, let alone 20.

And that's a huge chunk of the US population, but still, it's one city. What of Los Angeles, with its buses stuck in permanent traffic, or its subway with, what, 15 stops? What of Houston, with a light rail that travels about the speed of a car but waits at every intersection, and serves something like 10% of the city? What about getting from one city in the US to another?

Sure, it's a big country. Sure, it industrialized the car. Sure. But still.

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#184

Post by mistrial9 »

missedthecue wrote: post #159
xnyan wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Help me understand. An average mortgage is 200k, at the average household income of 63k and a 30 year at 4.1%, thats 18.5% of your pretax income going into a mortgage. The same numbers for a 300k income and a 700k house works out to 13.5%. Seems like you are doing significant better than most? Happy to be corrected.

Yeah I'm not sure what he's talking about either. $900k home on $300k income is entirely reasonable and a better ratio than what the average person does

no employee making $300k per year in California gets to keep that amount.. tax rate is 40% + overall last I heard, differing slightly by county and tax details

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#185

Post by koheripbal »

ip26 wrote: post #167
_-david-_ wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

That's not the point of the comment above. The point is that he absolutely CAN afford it.

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#186

Post by lotsofpulp »

ip26 wrote: post #167
_-david-_ wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

>you're getting a much newer & better condition house at that ratio compared to California real estate

You can renovate and get a newer and better condition house. You can't get SoCal weather and natural features at any price. Hence the high prices.

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#187

Post by avhon1 »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #180
avhon1 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars do have more utility than motorcycles, but where I live (college town in American midwest) there are many poor people who drive small, cheap motorcycles. Speculation on why: State-minimum insurance for my cheap (KBB ~$1000) used (+200K miles) car would be about $700/year. Similarly minimal insurance for a 2010 Honda Ruckus would be $100/year. (I just checked Geico.) Small motorcycles consume a lot less gasoline…

The number of places in the US where the situation you mentioned is reasonable and public transit is not also good enough to go car-less is very small. Carrying groceries on a moped is doable but a pain. Commuting on one in the winter isn't exactly fun either. Carrying kids on a scooter is a great way to meet every cop in every place you drive through. I wish mopeds were more practical but there's a bunch of little r…

Everything you have said is generally true. My point is that there are scooters driven where I live, that most of them are driven by low-income people who are in the presumably-uncomfortable position of a scooter being their best option, and that noise regulations would be an indirect regressive tax against them.

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#188

Post by olyjohn »

idoh wrote: post #128
HighlandSpring wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No single bank should do that.

Banks are businesses, why can't they charge what they want for services?

I don't get why people pay money to put their money in the bank. What exactly is the bank giving you these days? Credit Unions are everywhere, and I don't know anybody who pays fees to the CU just to put money in there. The amount of free shit I get from my CU is absurd compared anything the big banks offer.

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#189

Post by RHSeeger »

komali2 wrote: post #183
RHSeeger wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd say it's not too bad, but it's rapidly falling to pieces, and personally I haven't seen the kind of action I think necessary to ensure it functions at all 50 years from now, shit, let alone 20. And that's a huge chunk of the US population, but still, it's one city. What of Los Angeles, with its buses stuck in permanent traffic, or its subway with, what, 15 stops? What of Houston, with a light rail that travels ab…

That's totally fair. As a rule, the US's mass transit system is a garbage fire. However, I consider NYC's to be reasonably good, specifically in response to

> Some of the cities have "passable" mass transit

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#190

Post by KozmoNau7 »

zozbot234 wrote: post #54
algeoMA wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: "“Low-income people tend to own cars that are in disrepair and ride motorcycles adding to the noise of a ‘lights out at 8 p.m. community,’” Marylyn Rinaldi, a neighboring condominium owner, wrote in 2011 in a letter to the City Council that was later cited in a lawsuit over the project." Nimbyism at its finest.

Motorbike noise is quite real. Hopefully electric motorbikes will grow more common over time and cut down on this widespread nuisance.

Stock motorcycles aren't noisy. Crack down on the fools who install straight pipes and insist on gunning it through neighborhoods at night.
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