Average Rent in San Francisco Has Dropped $1k This Year • Hacker News Board

Re: Average Rent in San Francisco Has Dropped $1k This Year

#241

Post by imtringued » Mon, Dec 28, 2020, 5:25 PM UTC

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #157

AmVess wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Raising taxes on the land owner will result in increased rents. Land owners are not in the business of giving money away.

Taxing unoccupied homes lower rents, obviously. Also taxing income progressively discourages landlordism. On top of that, taxing income in order to build public public housing lowers rents even more.

The government could just guarantee housing for a fixed price. That fixed price becomes the upper bound and all private market participants would have to bid lower than this upper bound.

This doesn't happen because those who have a political say don't actually want more housing. My proposed idea would force the government to actually solve the problem after all. If there is not enough housing the government would be forced to build it as a last resort and if the government can't do so because of the laws it has enacted then it can change those laws but that's exactly what must be avoided at all costs if you were to ask existing homeowners.

Re: Average Rent in San Francisco Has Dropped $1k This Year

#242

Post by bernawil » Mon, Dec 28, 2020, 5:25 PM UTC

ProblemFactory wrote: post #159

oblio wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is: what if they don't sell it, at all? Kids move out of the house, parents retire at 65 and live to 85+. That's 20 years, a whole generation.

If the developer can get permission to build 3-5 story apartments on the lot, then their land suddenly becomes way more valuable than the single home ever was. Most retirees will gladly sell and live in luxury elsewhere. If a few don't, it won't make a difference.

  If the developer can get permission to build 3-5 story apartments on the lot

wouldn't that only work for a single unit? Like, yes, if inside a single-family-zoned block a unit would get a special permission to be the only one to build high density, sure that piece of land would be more valuable than before.

But if the whole block gets rezoned, then there's a race to the bottom.

Re: Average Rent in San Francisco Has Dropped $1k This Year

#243

Post by hedora » Mon, Dec 28, 2020, 5:26 PM UTC

runarberg wrote: post #219

fennecfoxen wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dear SF, More apartments built are the only thing to make housing more affordable for normal people. But, when you think of them, you're thinking way too small. You need to think in terms of, like, literally doubling the number of apartments available, and they may then be in reach of normal people once more. You also need to get yourself together and reverse that trend where your transit system has carried fewer peo…

> More apartments built are the only thing to make housing more affordable for normal people What? No! Rent control is among other something that can lower the rent for normal people. I know SF has rent control, but currently it only applies as long as you don’t move.

Rent control increases market rates for rent by constricting available supply.

It can decrease your rent if you never move, but that decreases the liquidity of the market, and traps you in a crappy small apartment for longer than you’d live in it otherwise.

Re: Average Rent in San Francisco Has Dropped $1k This Year

#244

Post by ChuckNorris89 » Mon, Dec 28, 2020, 5:26 PM UTC

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #228

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, Paris aint cheap. Most big European cities have huge rents as well but no Bay Area salaries to make up for it.

Yeah but you can buy an apartment 25 miles / 30 min from the city center with a minimum wage salary (I know, I have friends who did it). Try doing that in the Bay.

Do you have any more details on that? I'd like to know more.

Either apartments outside of Paris are dirt cheap or minimum wage in France is really high.

A dev from Paris I met in Germany said he left due to how unaffordable housing was so something doesn't add up.

Re: Average Rent in San Francisco Has Dropped $1k This Year

#245

Post by inetknght » Mon, Dec 28, 2020, 5:27 PM UTC

kenneth wrote: post #237

runarberg wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> More apartments built are the only thing to make housing more affordable for normal people What? No! Rent control is among other something that can lower the rent for normal people. I know SF has rent control, but currently it only applies as long as you don’t move.

Missed economics class? It's basic supply and demand. Rent control doesn't do anything to make housing affordable for people trying to get an apartment in the city, all it does is make it near impossible to find an affordable unit (because people who are under rent control are unwilling to move), and push up the price of non controlled units.

This argument thread about high or low rent misses the mark.

Rent doesn't make housing affordable at all. Ownership does.

Re: Average Rent in San Francisco Has Dropped $1k This Year

#246

Post by entee » Mon, Dec 28, 2020, 5:27 PM UTC

cogman10 wrote: post #109

shortandsweet wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What should we do robbyt?

Taxing unoccupied homes and apartments will fix things real fast.

Really hard to do. Not because it’s a bad idea but because it’s hard to identify a vacant apartment. One example using utility bills as proof of residence can be gamed by paying people to go turn on the lights for a while. How can you tell that the property is actually empty?

Re: Average Rent in San Francisco Has Dropped $1k This Year

#247

Post by fennecfoxen » Mon, Dec 28, 2020, 5:28 PM UTC

runarberg wrote: post #219

fennecfoxen wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dear SF, More apartments built are the only thing to make housing more affordable for normal people. But, when you think of them, you're thinking way too small. You need to think in terms of, like, literally doubling the number of apartments available, and they may then be in reach of normal people once more. You also need to get yourself together and reverse that trend where your transit system has carried fewer peo…

> More apartments built are the only thing to make housing more affordable for normal people What? No! Rent control is among other something that can lower the rent for normal people. I know SF has rent control, but currently it only applies as long as you don’t move.

Rent control as implemented can only make housing just-as-expensive, and rent control cannot make housing affordable for normal people.

Put a plain 2BR in the Mission at, idk, $1500 a month (which Google tells me is a bit over the US median), and you'll have to hold a lottery to figure out which of the ten thousand families trying to get it, actually get it.

Maybe you don't always have a lottery, maybe the big winners are people who were in the right place at the right time as an accident of history. Either way these people are anything but normal. The normal people are the tens of thousands who can't get an apartment at that price. In the end it fails for the same reason that you can't "solve" poverty by running a state lottery and seeing a "normal" person win.

And even if we don't have a problem with this as inherently inequitable, it's just ... such tiny, tiny, small-scale thinking.

Re: Average Rent in San Francisco Has Dropped $1k This Year

#248

Post by hexedpackets » Mon, Dec 28, 2020, 5:30 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #65

ihaveajob wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I'm surprised no other city in the bay area has taken the baton and aimed to overtake SF in terms of relevance by becoming the densest, most thriving city in the region. Oakland is at least trying to cope with demand in some neighborhoods. I'm rooting for that.

I would say it’s basically impossible to recreate a dense city based on today’s codes of construction requiring numerous safety/ADA measures in the US. In an existing city, the cost to purchase land and buildings that would need to demolished, rezoned, and rebuilt as a higher density area with accompanying infrastructure is astronomical and wouldn’t be possibly by anyone other than the federal government only because…

> In an existing city, the cost to purchase land and buildings that would need to demolished, rezoned, and rebuilt as a higher density area with accompanying infrastructure is astronomical

This happens all the time in NYC, though. Anywhere from a several-story small/medium apartment building to a large skyscraper.

I think the limiting factor is much more likely to be air rights and zoning than safety standards.

Re: Average Rent in San Francisco Has Dropped $1k This Year

#249

Post by centimeter » Mon, Dec 28, 2020, 5:31 PM UTC

bastawhiz wrote: post #231

centimeter wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is mostly from quality-of-life reductions, like inferior showers, toilets, washing machines, etc. You can only reduce quality of life so much.

You're going to need to present some evidence for this, I think. I don't even know what an "inferior toilet" is. I've pooped in a lot of SF toilets and can assure you that they've all gotten the job done satisfactorily.

This is a brief summary: https://www.aier.org/article/trump-is-right-american-toilets...

TL;DR: Toilets clog more with lower GPF. Showers clean less effectively - you only need to go to a country with no "eco" pressure or flow rate limitations to notice this yourself. Washing machines and dishwashers perform poorly with low flow rate and no TSP.

Basically any appliance that people complain about and have a bad time with is only that way because of environmental regulations.

> I don't even know what an "inferior toilet" is

That's because you're used to using garbage and you've never experienced anything better.

Toilets are probably the least acute example, since they have mostly gotten them almost back up to their former reliability. Cleaning appliances, like showers and dishwashers, are the most acute.

Re: Average Rent in San Francisco Has Dropped $1k This Year

#250

Post by kenneth » Mon, Dec 28, 2020, 5:31 PM UTC

technofiend wrote: post #225

onei wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it common for Japanese apartments to be super tiny though? As in enough space for a mattress and not much more.

I'm no expert, just a virtual tourist via YouTube. According to (1) average Tokyo apartment size is 20 square meters or a little over 400 square feet vs 700 square feet in San Francisco as found from a quick Google search. Considering some Japanese rent and live in Cyber cafe cubes that are even smaller I'm not sure how fair a comparison really is between the two. Japan in particular seems to have small appliances ge…

Japanese people are also smaller than Americans!

Joking aside, the lifestyle is also different. Tokyo and HK where I live are known for tiny apartments, but they're also cities where residents spend far less time at home, offering cheap options for eating out, many places to hang out outside home, reliable transit, and extreme safety from crime at all times of the day. I'm far more comfortable in a tiny HK flat than I would be in the same size in SF. Thankfully I have the luxury of a decent sized space in both now.