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California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

nytimes.com

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Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#111

Post by mpg33 »

jeffbee wrote: post #22
asdff wrote: post #4

Nowhere is building enough housing for growth. In low cost of living places, chances are if you look at population data, the metro region has been stagnant for decades which has alleviated pressure on supply. In any area with growth at all, prices rise because we don't build actual dense housing like we did before WWII (when row houses and mixed use development in walking distance to frequent public transit were the…

It's handy to say "nowhere is building" but it's not really supported by the data. Look at Dallas and Houston compared to San Francisco. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=B6Tc

Texas is also a good example of that density only matters if there is a land scarcity problem.

There are areas in Canada where building massive towers has been premature and also led to increase in costs.

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#112

Post by Supermancho »

spamizbad wrote: post #6
slowmovintarget wrote: post #3

Thesis of the article: Californians are fleeing California and causing the same housing pressure in the spots they flee to. The real question is whether these other locations can avoid the high-density housing NIMBY response that became entrenched in California. It isn't just a matter of income disparity, which the article pivots to. It's also a matter of density and demand.

The challenge you have is that people view housing as an investment . Americans expect their home values to keep pace with inflation. And because housing values are so expensive, there's a tremendous amount of psychological pressure to "preserve" what they've purchased beyond their own property line (eg: "Neighborhood character"). For these reason, they're going to oppose any new supply entering the market. The only…

> For these reason, they're going to oppose any new supply entering the market.

Nobody is opposed to new supply entering the market. The opposition is 100% about the devaluation of the area, which is not about the supply per se. If you wanted to build a block up with 500 units which had adequate parking and everyone's homes/land would increase in value 5%, you would have widespread support. The problem of density is solved with substandard buildings that cut corners, alongside the increased density in Southern California.

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#113

Post by pessimizer »

asdff wrote: post #4

Nowhere is building enough housing for growth. In low cost of living places, chances are if you look at population data, the metro region has been stagnant for decades which has alleviated pressure on supply. In any area with growth at all, prices rise because we don't build actual dense housing like we did before WWII (when row houses and mixed use development in walking distance to frequent public transit were the…

Prices climb because real estate is a vehicle for financial speculation, tax tricks, and the exfiltration of pilfered wealth by world oligarchs.

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#114

Post by nutshell89 »

rayiner wrote: post #85

People focus on the supply side, which is important, but has anyone looked at the demand side? How do people have so much money to drive up these prices? I grew up in an 1,100 square foot house, built in 1950, my parents bought for $175,000 in 1989. Today Redfin has it at $660,000. Its a drab house in a drab suburb of DC. It's no boom town--the population of the town has grown just 10% in 30 years. But everyone just…

The access to cheap credit drives up the price of the underlying asset. You can see it in auto loans, where the average price of a new vehicle has ballooned to over $40,000 in recent years while loan payment periods stretch to 5, 6 and even 7 years.

Part of the increase is no doubt because new cars are getting larger, safer, and more technologically complex — but I think that part of it is that auto-makers have less of an incentive to control costs if their margins increase.

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#115

Post by shuckles »

lisper wrote: post #106
shuckles wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I live in the foothills of the Santa Cruz mountains...If all of Silicon Valley were depopulated I think my neighborhood would still be a perfectly fine place to live. Humboldt Country is a beautiful and high poverty part of the state with poor municipal services. I have no reason to believe the Santa Cruz wouldn't be the same without expensive urban infrastructure, not to mention the money we do and need to continu…

> I have no reason to believe the Santa Cruz wouldn't be the same without expensive urban infrastructure Like I said, my neighborhood began as a vacation destination for rich San Franciscans in the late 1800s. It has been affluent for over 100 years, long before Silicon Valley was a thing, in fact, before electricity was a thing. There are rich urban areas and there are poor urban areas, and there are rich rural area…

You can't both say "I would be happy if home prices in my neighborhood went down" and "I am confident that my area will always be one where rich people want to visit." The former will only happen if the types of amenities which make rich people want to visit go away, at which point you likely will want to go away as well.

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#116

Post by pessimizer »

shuckles wrote: post #73
majormajor wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's where the government aspect comes in. But again, what you decry as "non-sensical" instead seems like it could also just be called "response of a community towards potential market failure modes." You are ascribing moral blame to just one side of a more complicated situation. It would be like if all I was talking about is how big developers bribe local governments to get permits to build their shit - neith…

I really don't understand your both sides argument. One side takes advantage of the fact that zoning is a local matter to advantage incumbents at huge expense to society at large. It also creates the bureaucratic infrastructure that favors large developers who can pay bribes informally (literal bribes) or formally (impact fees). The other side is all future residents who might want to live in a quadplex where a SFH e…

> huge expense to society at large.

I'm not aware of this. I thought it was a huge expense to people who wanted to move to an area at any price, and the absence of a huge windfall to people who want to build massive apartment buildings in neighborhoods where the vast majority of the residents don't want them.

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#117

Post by asdff »

throwawayboise wrote: post #96
asdff wrote: post #4

Nowhere is building enough housing for growth. In low cost of living places, chances are if you look at population data, the metro region has been stagnant for decades which has alleviated pressure on supply. In any area with growth at all, prices rise because we don't build actual dense housing like we did before WWII (when row houses and mixed use development in walking distance to frequent public transit were the…

> we don't build actual dense housing like we did before WWII Because that's not what is profitable for new construction. Builders will build what they can make the most money on. It's not a bad thing -- it's still an increase in housing and every new home sold or rented opens up an older home somewhere for a (probably) less wealthy person, and so on down the line.

Builders will build what they are allowed to build, and often what is zoned are variances for these massive structures with expensive parking structures and requirements like a mandatory 100sqft balcony for every single unit, and not piecemeal small lot apartments like what was built decades ago. Los Angeles in 1920 had a higher zoning capacity than it does today. I mean, it was a celebration when the city recently let you convert your garage into a tiny studio apartment (after a byzantine permitting process), in neighborhoods where 50 years ago homeowners were tearing down their single family home to be a landlord of a 6 unit dingbat apartment spanning the entire 90ft parcel, which is probably illegal today according to the zoning code.

If we loosen zoning code, builders would be able to turn a profit on a lot more types of housing and would be able to meet a lot more market demand. Instead, what they are able to make a profit on with the current review and permitting process is that bog standard 4 floor apartment above a subterranean parking lot with a balcony for each and every unit.

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#118

Post by lotsofpulp »

kodah wrote: post #103
lotsofpulp wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The outcome is that communities that have seen decades of development will soon price out the resident who paid for its development in taxes only to reward people who are taking advantage of inequality. Sounds like the plight of poor people from developing/poor nations who have to contend with people from developed/rich nations.

> Sounds like the plight of poor people from developing/poor nations who have to contend with people from developed/rich nations. Could be. What's your suggestion?

Nothing. Might makes right is the way nature works. People that harvest cocoa in Africa can't afford to eat chocolate. It's the same situation between rich/poor in the US.

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#119

Post by jeffbee »

gonehome wrote: post #59
jeffbee wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, population _is_ pretty good evidence of growth. 20 years ago Houston MSA was 15% larger than SF MSA and today it's 50% larger. What other evidence of "building for growth" can you demand?

A ratio of new housing vs. new population. You can expand sprawl via single family homes and still not build nearly enough housing to meet population growth requirements. You can have a lot more population and still build little. It just forces people to live in shared housing with roommates at very expensive rents. I'm not arguing that you're wrong about Houston - maybe they did build enough. I'm just saying that po…

Here you go: new housing units per 1000s of new population for Houston MSA, 2000-present.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=B6Yd

I exist to serve.

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#120

Post by Supermancho »

majormajor wrote: post #29
spamizbad wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The challenge you have is that people view housing as an investment . Americans expect their home values to keep pace with inflation. And because housing values are so expensive, there's a tremendous amount of psychological pressure to "preserve" what they've purchased beyond their own property line (eg: "Neighborhood character"). For these reason, they're going to oppose any new supply entering the market. The only…

That's not the big challenge. Upzoning and higher density increases the value of the land. That's why developers want to do it in the first place. Cashing out when someone wants to buy up your neighborhood's land, and getting something nicer somewhere else, would be the purely-financial play. The big challenge is that people chose to live in a certain place because it had certain features. And people don't want to ha…

> higher density increases the value of the land.

That's a very short curve that quickly inverts. Density of commercial land is what converts the sprawl to an unprecedented explosion of high-rises in an epicenter. The residential density decreases the value of the land after it's been fully developed, which is then purchased for commercial use and "redeveloped". This happens in most cities at some point, where downtown is converted to the new "hip" redevelopment of the previous slums.

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