California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one • Hacker News Board

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

#171

Post by xenadu02 » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 11:21 PM UTC

mpg33 wrote: post #111

jeffbee wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not really. Dallas is an example of a metro area that has extended sprawl as far as it can go. A ton of new highways have been built out but growth in car usage and population have eaten back all the gains. There will never be enough land to make the sprawl work. As a result home prices there are jumping just like everywhere else. No one wants a 2 hour commute.

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

#172

Post by gwright » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 11:22 PM UTC

gonehome wrote: post #136

jeffbee wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's a cool site, I made a graph that I think illustrates my point more clearly: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=B6ZP It's the change in population vs. the change in new housing with a separate line for each. It's not super easy to understand because the population change is in thousands of people and housing is just in individual units, but I think it's clear from the graph (if I'm reading it correctly) that…

Wouldn't you have to have some sort of adjustment for singles vs families over time? and for average number of people in a household? Number of people in a household has a cultural factor and age factor also (young single people often share households, more young people => higher density).

I have no idea impactful those numbers would be, just pointing out that there are lots of confounding factors to consider.

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

#173

Post by tqi » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 11:25 PM UTC

jayd16 wrote: post #167

tqi wrote: post #141

Why is this always framed as a problem caused by people looking for a place to live? I moved to SF for a job. I'm not the one who decided to not build enough new housing for 30 years. I'm not the one who decided to approve all those new office buildings. Yet I was the problem for renting an overpriced apartment from an SF native who bought in the 90s, and now pays less than $8K/yr in taxes on a place worth over $1M.…

Why is it everyone else's problem to accommodate you? >I'm not the one who decided to not build enough new housing for 30 years. California's population has increased 4x since 1950 vs 2x for the country as a whole, more so in SF. To say there is no new housing is just ignoring the (finally waning) population boom.

It's not everyone else's problem. No one owes me new housing. But it's also not my fucking fault that housing prices are going up.

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

#174

Post by rayiner » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 11:25 PM UTC

harryh wrote: post #157

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…

175k to 660k in 32 years is only a 4.25% increase per year. That's really not much at all.

It’s true it’s less than some other places, but it’s almost double the headline rate of inflation over that time. For a town that—let me tell you—truly has nothing going on.

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

#175

Post by nine_k » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 11:27 PM UTC

jayd16 wrote: post #167

tqi wrote: post #141

Why is this always framed as a problem caused by people looking for a place to live? I moved to SF for a job. I'm not the one who decided to not build enough new housing for 30 years. I'm not the one who decided to approve all those new office buildings. Yet I was the problem for renting an overpriced apartment from an SF native who bought in the 90s, and now pays less than $8K/yr in taxes on a place worth over $1M.…

Why is it everyone else's problem to accommodate you? >I'm not the one who decided to not build enough new housing for 30 years. California's population has increased 4x since 1950 vs 2x for the country as a whole, more so in SF. To say there is no new housing is just ignoring the (finally waning) population boom.

The OP pays a market-rate rent and local taxes for the accommodation.

What "everybody else" is doing?

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

#176

Post by davidw » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 11:28 PM UTC

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #134

wonder_er wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a lovely article! Thanks for sharing. I feel like the US would be better off looking at cities around the world that are pleasent, and pattern-matching off of that. Vienna is beautiful. We should do more of what Vienna does. Clearly tweaking the US's "process" is just moving deck chairs on the titanic.

I've never been to Vienna so I can't speak to it but my experience in traveling around the world is that many cities have incredible central cities but also have sprawling medium to high density suburbs that everyone turns a blind eye to. The low density automobile focused suburbs of North America might not exist around those cities but the denser suburbs still have poor livability, especially compared to the central…

I lived in a suburb of Padova, Italy, for many years. Still quite walkable and nice, even if it didn't have the old, historic buildings.

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

#177

Post by sologoub » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 11:28 PM UTC

nutshell89 wrote: post #100

The problem is that not only is there zero appetite to phase out housing-as-investment boosting policies like the mortgage interest deduction, imputed rent exemption, and cap gains exemption at the federal level, en vogue affordable housing strategies have focused on keeping interest rates low, providing 1st time home-buyer tax credits, and strengthening fair lending regulations. The U.S.(western nations with high ho…

Without additional supply, you might succeed at dampening demand and temporarily decreasing prices - most US homebuyers are shopping a payment similar to rent (and accounting for their downpayment amount). However for places that have more desirable properties (employment, weather, etc), all else being equal, you will still get an influx of people over the less desirable and will still be in a supply shortage.

Bay Area in particular you have a crazy imbalance that basically absorbed the high salaries of those working there. For many, the issue could be fairly easily solved with some additional height and/or townhome density. It’s happening slowly. The pandemic has created other dynamics though, so who knows.

EDIT: just a closing thought on the policy side, you are basically making affordability problem worse by reducing incentives. Those already in the real estate market/ownership will be fine, but price of entry will be a lot higher.

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

#178

Post by jayd16 » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 11:29 PM UTC

tqi wrote: post #173

jayd16 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it everyone else's problem to accommodate you? >I'm not the one who decided to not build enough new housing for 30 years. California's population has increased 4x since 1950 vs 2x for the country as a whole, more so in SF. To say there is no new housing is just ignoring the (finally waning) population boom.

It's not everyone else's problem. No one owes me new housing. But it's also not my fucking fault that housing prices are going up.

Indeed, its a byproduct of rapid growth. For whatever reason people seem to need to find a specific population to demonize.

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

#179

Post by gautamcgoel » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 11:30 PM UTC

offtop5 wrote: post #169

California is uniquely messed up because of Prop 13. There's way too much regulation to getting anything built, unless somehow less land starts to exist in States like Texas which don't cripple housing developers, it'll always be much cheaper to leave the Golden State. From my time in LA I found there to be a very nasty spiral. Whereas young adults will never be able to get their own places to live, this impedes thei…

This comment is pretty gross, even by HN standards. Me and my friends are all in our twenties living just outside LA (Pasadena). They are some of the kindest and hardest-working people I know. Don't blame the city for your poor choice in acquaintances.

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

#180

Post by ashtonkem » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 11:30 PM UTC

zippergz wrote: post #170

ashtonkem wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d say that another constant is the belief that living in a place for a certain period of time confers a sense of ownership over a city, along with the right to decide who should and should not live there. You obviously see that in states where Californians are moving, but you even see that in California against those who moved there recently for a job. Frankly I find it completely bizarre.

I know this is kind of the opposite of the (mostly joking) point I made that you replied to. But the thing I find bizarre is that people can't understand why other people oppose change in the place they live in. Most people choose places to live because they like those places. I think it's safe to say that the things they like extend beyond the four walls of the residence they buy or rent. They might like the walkabi…

> How can you possibly be surprised that people don't want the things they like about the place they live to change?

People can and should obviously get upset (or excited!) about specific changes. What I'm more surprised at is the idea that some people have that any change at all is unacceptable. It's not like the town that one loved sprung up into existence as is, it took change to get the parts that you like in the first place! No one has an affirmative right for their town to remain as-is from their favorite point in time, as that's just not how life works.

I'm specifically thinking of my time in Santa Monica, with the residents thinking that they should be able to keep their small town vibe despite living close to one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States. It struck me as neigh upon delusional to think that one can live near a major city and demand that the city halt expansion wherever it might be convenient to you. That's just not how humanity has ever worked, ever. Cities expand, live too close to them at your own peril.