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

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

#531

Post by chii »

TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #148
TrackerFF wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having lived on another island, with the same woes of SF (limited land, high growth), the problem is always the same - even though it's been on a much smaller scale. The people that have owned for the past 30-50 years, are completely unwilling to give up on their single family homes, gardens, etc. They basically demand to live a nice and cushy suburban life, in the middle of a big city. It then takes forever to build…

I was having a conversation with a person in my HoA. She complained that, when THEY moved in, the "big" houses (gesturing at my 2-story) didn't exist, and they had a lovely view of the fields past my side of the street. Well, lady, if you wanted the view, you should have bought my lot.

The concept of air-rights is a good one - if a developer wants to build higher, they can acquire the air rights of the properties close by, at a price the residents find acceptable (for losing their unobstructed views etc).

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

#532

Post by epistasis »

chii wrote: post #528
epistasis wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, and imagine that if instead of all your money going to the profits of the previous owner, your money could be used productively to pay labor to build new housing for you! Instead of your wealth being transferred to a laborer who has less wealthy, it was transferred to somebody who is likely quite a bit more wealthy. And instead of your wealth being used to improve the city, it was all used for the profits of s…

> pay labor to build new housing for you! good luck using labour to generate a piece of land to which you can build on that's near where you want it.

Exactly, that's what I am griping about. There's more than enough land to accommodate more housing to be built, but existing neighbors to that land have forbidden that through regulatory capture of city zoning laws.

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

#533

Post by epistasis »

smegger001 wrote: post #522
epistasis wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prop 13 gives huge tax benefits to using land less than productively. Both selling land, and building on it will massively increase taxes. Property values are rising at 5%-10% per year, but bulidings themselves only depreciate without dumping more money into the building. So that 5%-10% is all land value gain. As a property owner, why increase taxes by using the land more productively with new buildings, when you can…

> As a property owner, why increase taxes by using the land more productively with new buildings, when you can continue to profit just as much without that? because the bubble will pop eventually.

Is it really a bubble if the overvaluation is created by law? The only way to pop the bubble would be to change the laws. And with Prop 13 being untouchable politically, and homeowners have an iron grip over city councils to keep cities underzoned, there's little chance of the systematic problem being eliminated any time soon.

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

#534

Post by chii »

flaque wrote: post #199
WhompingWindows wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a rural area, so I'm no expert...but how do you weigh the value of private property of San Fransiscans vs. the communal good of more apartment units? Surely you wouldn't "knock down" old houses, or would you? Just curious as to your thoughts.

Rezoning doesn’t force anyone out of their homes. It just lets someone sell their homes to someone who will turn around and build a larger building. Buildings in the old zone are grandfathered in. But folks who want to live in a single family home in the middle of san francisco can still do so. Just don’t sell the house.

and you end up with a house surrounded by hi-rises : https://www.oddee.com/wp-content/uploads/_media/imgs/article...

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

#535

Post by epistasis »

abalone wrote: post #410
SllX wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both. I spent the last decade having these conversations with people who also grew up here and can’t afford to remain here without staying with their parents, with some of the stranger conversations devolving into my counter parties brainstorming ways to kick tech people out of the City and stop new people from moving in altogether, as if freedom of movement in the United States wasn’t really a thing. It’s not “suppl…

You’re mischaracterizing the left-wing / long term renter position here. This is a very common tactic among local SF “YIMBYs” for some reason. Progressives are not objecting solely on the basis of “character of the city” and in fact regularly poll in favor of development. What they fight for is affordable housing development. Underlying this problem is a massive income disparity between techies and working class folk…

This is a heavy mischaracterization of Progressives. When it's 100% unit that are below market rate, it gets blocked. When it's 50% BMR, it gets blocked. When it's 20%, it gets blocked.

This is because the true position of Progressives is that any development has a chance to cause harm, and they prefer the current situation to any harm, in a messed up form of the trolley problem.

I would also urge you to capitalize the P, as the Progressive positions in SF are not really recognizable as progressive in most of the US or world. It's more of a factional battle in the culture war than about what are more generally agreed to be progressive values.

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

#536

Post by chii »

pearjuice wrote: post #316

So if you want to live in SF with kids you'll have to pay at least 3000$ per month. Is the pay scale there just completely inflated for non-tech jobs due to the tech jobs and if not, where do the policemen, teachers, cleaners and so forth live? I can't imagine them earning a salary in which paying 3000$ per month is sustainable? Where do all people with "normal" jobs live?

So those jobs gets un-filled and whoever that hires/pays for those jobs will need to raise the price for said jobs. This will re-attract people back because it is now possible to live off the higher pay for such jobs. Ad-infinitum as the market determines the price.

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

#537

Post by LurkersWillLurk »

tdaltonc wrote: post #512
sagarm wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prefab won't be a solution for housing shortages in California because of trade union opposition. The fact that there is more than enough work to go around doesn't stop them from opposing efficiency improvements and extracting rents in the form of union labour requirements in housing bills.

What levers do construction trade unions have to stop prefab?

Campaign finance, presumably.

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

#538

Post by jeffe »

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #468
lumost wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CT went this way as well, eventually the businesses look to follow residents - particularly younger residents who can't afford the inflated rent or down payments.

I grew up in southeastern CT and visit there occasionally. It's hard to describe how dead it is for commercial software development, even compared to Boston. Even if one was inclined to open a good software shop in CT, you'd have neither low property prices nor an existing pool of highly skilled labor.

doesn't Greenwich have a good amount of quant shops?

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

#539

Post by whakim »

abalone wrote: post #524
whakim wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a mischaracterization of the YIMBY position. Most YIMBYs are not opposed to raising taxes so that the city can pay for the construction of affordable housing units. (Note that the city doesn't build housing even if they pay for it - developers still do!) YIMBYs also believe, however, that we need housing of all kinds, including market rate housing. That is where YIMBYs and progressives disagree. Separately, d…

> This is a mischaracterization of the YIMBY position. Most YIMBYs are not opposed to raising taxes so that the city can pay for the construction of affordable housing units. This is false. YIMBYs opposed the recent prop I to tax >$10M real estate sales to fund “emergency rent relief and permanently affordable housing.”[1] [1] https://ballotpedia.org/San_Francisco,_California,_Propositi...

You stated that "progressive supervisors are focused on public investment in affordable housing and taxing the rich to fund it." This is not what Prop I does.

Instead, the >$10M real estate tax would mostly be paid by developers, not homeowners, because most property sales in San Francisco that are >$10M are apartment buildings rather than houses owned by rich people. Not only that, but it would be a tax paid twice by developers, because they have to buy the land and then sell the finished development.

The reason YIMBYs opposed that proposition is for exactly this reason. It wouldn't be a tax on rich people, but yet another obstacle to the construction of housing, both affordable and market-rate.

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

#540

Post by CalRobert »

imtringued wrote: post #354
CalRobert wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should we subsidize homes for firefighters?

I don't know about firefighters but some public services are dependent on workers who commute from outside of San Francisco.

More broadly, if housing is so expensive people with full time jobs can't easily afford it, build more housing. Subsidizing it for certain groups is NIMBY-enabling tokenism.
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