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To ease the housing crunch, more places end single-family zoning

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Re: To ease the housing crunch, more places end single-family zoning

#181

Post by kilotaras »

Sebguer wrote: post #49
ericd wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, just needs to be more building. New luxury apartments will make the old stock cheaper. The fight over the number of affordable units in every single new development slows things down and exacerbates the affordability problem. Remove as many of the barriers to development as possible, and the problem will be solved.

This ignores the possibility of housing stock consolidating, and price-fixing, which can keep rents artificially inflated by just keeping capacity off the markets. Example: https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-rent-increase-r...

Making building more homes easier addresses this.

Price-fixing that is not done via consolidation is ultimately unstable from game theory point of view.

There's very strong incentive to defect from "optimal vacancy rate" and eat outsized profit compared to the rest of competition. Making building easier makes consolidation harder, as outsiders are now potential defectors as well. AFAIK we're not in monopoly situation (yet?) for rental properties.

Most of YieldStar value proposition on the other hand is ultimately just a price discovery mechanism. Prices raise because people *are willing* to pay that much for apartment. People are willing to pay that much, because supply doesn't keep with demand.

Re: To ease the housing crunch, more places end single-family zoning

#182

Post by osigurdson »

Retric wrote: post #162
osigurdson wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we need to lower our expectations now? Single family homes are what most people want. Why jam people into apartments if they don’t want to live in them? All houses should be cheap imo - it is just a few cheap sticks and some plastic after all. Some cities obviously have no room to expand so the only option is higher density. Where that is not the case, build single family homes en mass until anyone can afford…

Many people don’t actually want single family homes. In my 20’s I was regularly on the lookout for efficiencies but I could rarely find them. It wasn’t about cost I just liked the layout more.

That is fair, no issues as long as we are building what people want - not what city councillors believe is best for everyone other than themselves.

Re: To ease the housing crunch, more places end single-family zoning

#183

Post by epistasis »

khazhoux wrote: post #146
bgm1975 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, those are code words. What they mean is they’re terrified it might negatively affect their home value (or for some, its racially motivated). Most of these people only care about other people until they think it might negatively effect their perceived wealth. Ask a hope owner if they’d support a bill that would shave 25% of their home value to help…starving children (and we’ll assume the program is proven success…

Traffic, no room in schools, and other crowding issues are not code words. They are quite literal concerns. Rather than argue that people are being disingenuous, I would rather someone explain how traffic would be offset or how many more schools would be built. Or I guess we can just cry racism and greed and that’s that.

I would say that they are red herrings because despite directly and definitively addressing these issues with people that raise them, they simply come up with a new list of reasons to oppose.

I've been fighting this for years, and it's always the same, there is no way to address all the concerns because the list of concerns is bottomless.

You see it in this thread, we started with concerns about someone sharing a wall and here we are...

Pointing out that schools are emptying in an area due to lack of children with an agong population, and that same person that one second ago was burning with concern for school crowding now has an entirety different concern completely unrelated, and has switched gears without even acknowledging that their concern was addressed.

I don't believe a single person that says these are their actual concerns, unless they continue to show interest in their concern after their objection has been addressed.

These sorts of "concerns" are just stalling tactics, ways to avoid talking about their actual interest: stopping the housing at all costs.

Re: To ease the housing crunch, more places end single-family zoning

#184

Post by maxerickson »

osigurdson wrote: post #35

I used to think that if average income cannot afford the average home, the market must necessarily correct. I’m wrong about this obviously but I still cannot understand why. I understand that wealthier people have vacation homes, but the only reason for a wealthy person to purchase an additional non-vacation home is to rent it out to someone less wealthy. Since the less wealthy person couldn’t cover the mortgage to b…

What do you think the correction in a supply constrained market is supposed to look like?

Re: To ease the housing crunch, more places end single-family zoning

#185

Post by MuffinFlavored »

phphphphp wrote: post #134
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I agree that we’re now at the point where there is so much money at the top that the power imbalance is too influential to be ignored. Would you agree if I said the problem isn't really the billionaires when it comes to why middle class hard working people can't afford a single family house, but instead it's people making $200k/yr+?

I think the most direct responsibility for the community level impact is with the people earning $200k+ who are irresponsibly exercising the power that income brings. For example, it’s so common for families making good money to do things like buy investment properties in their local community… which is growing their wealth at the expense of their community. However, the reason we are all able to earn so much is due…

> I think the most direct responsibility for the community level impact is with the people earning $200k+ who are irresponsibly exercising the power that income brings.

I think irresponsible is probably a poor word choice here (in my opinion) just because it leads my mind to think the assumption "why aren't they entitled to spend the money they earned the way they want to"

But instead of splitting hairs there, I'd be more curious to potentially partner with you in the effort to accurately determine whether the effects of the group we are specifically discussing are actually having a sizable impact in "harming" (preventing) the groups below them from being able to purchase a house

Re: To ease the housing crunch, more places end single-family zoning

#186

Post by ticviking »

roenxi wrote: post #174
ticviking wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An interesting question to ask is why do we always seem to grow by increasing density rather than establishing new small towns? Leon Krier's Drawing For Architecture contrasts over-expansion both with excessive density and excessive sprawl and by duplication. It seems to me that if it were legal to do so there are plenty of tiny towns that could grow to the size of a small city like Arlington or Buffalo.

Dunno why anyone downvoted you, it is an interesting question. It also has an interesting answer - turns out we get a much more complex and pleasant society if we cram everyone in tightly in a city. The is a lesser-known branch of economics called economic geography that studies what happens when you have big concentrations of people. Turns out you get much better services and it is cheaper to support everything (eg,…

This is at least a real answer to the question.

Understanding that there is a mutual dependence between the countryside and the cites, it seems like in the past the limit on city growth has always been sanitation and the ability of the agricultural base to support the urban population with the labor that is available in the country.

I'm curious if you know any good entry-level or popular books on this topic.

Re: To ease the housing crunch, more places end single-family zoning

#187

Post by ericd »

kilotaras wrote: post #181
Sebguer wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This ignores the possibility of housing stock consolidating, and price-fixing, which can keep rents artificially inflated by just keeping capacity off the markets. Example: https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-rent-increase-r...

Making building more homes easier addresses this. Price-fixing that is not done via consolidation is ultimately unstable from game theory point of view. There's very strong incentive to defect from "optimal vacancy rate" and eat outsized profit compared to the rest of competition. Making building easier makes consolidation harder, as outsiders are now potential defectors as well. AFAIK we're not in monopoly situation…

Yep, well put. It's only able to boost rents because the market clearing rate is higher than it is. Vacancy is extremely expensive, and there are too many small market participants to make it worth taking vacancy in exchange for boosting the rents on the other units.

Re: To ease the housing crunch, more places end single-family zoning

#188

Post by Gigachad »

osigurdson wrote: post #179
resonantjacket5 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To clarify the issue isn't really shortage of single family homes by itself but single family homes nearby amenities (jobs etc...) Which while one can build massive freeways (Los Angeles, Atlanta etc...) eventually you'll run out of land a circular radius or end up having to build ever larger freeways to reach those suburbs.

I'm not sure if the massive freeways will really be needed. If a significant portion of people can work from home, I don't see much reason for it. I think the ideal future for many is single family homes in a resort like setting. If you are already where you want to be, there are fewer reasons to drive to other places.

That’s miserable for kids because they will always be too far from their friends at school and will be stuck at home with nothing but video games and tiktok.

When I was in school most of my friends lived in the inner suburbs and had good access to public transport so they could all meet up in the city and do things, while I was further out in an arguably richer area but without public transport so I was stuck inside missing out.

Re: To ease the housing crunch, more places end single-family zoning

#189

Post by hacker934 »

blululu wrote: post #173
unethical_ban wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't argue that. But in my experience in the south, that's what goes up. I'm suggesting we should be more active in calling for condos and townhomes instead of apartments.

Good point. Thank you for clarifying. The legalization of multi-family homes would not prevent this trend but zoning for owner occupied units seems like a reasonable policy to shift the outcomes.

Renting has some benefits over owning. Particularly if you are in a stage in life where it's valuable to change your city.

In America, we have policies that subsidize owning over renting, like the mortgage interest tax deduction. I don't think we need more policies to make renting more expensive.

Re: To ease the housing crunch, more places end single-family zoning

#190

Post by dragonwriter »

bdw5204 wrote: post #41
dragonwriter wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hate how that's phrased. No one is ending single-family housing. That would be a fair complaint, if the word “housing” had been used in place of “zoning”. Single-family zoning is a legal restriction that allows only single-family housing. Ending it is not the same as ending single-family housing . If you are going to complain about phrasing, you should complain about the actual phrasing.

As far as an uninformed reader is concerned (think either the typical cable news watcher or the typical apolitical person), "ending single-family zoning" reads as "banning new single-family housing". Most voters, let alone most people, are every bit as clueless about public policy details as the people who held up "keep the government out of my Medicare" signs at the protests against Obamacare so you need to be reall…

> As far as an uninformed reader is concerned (think either the typical cable news watcher or the typical apolitical person), "ending single-family zoning" reads as "banning new single-family housing".

I really don’t think that’s true. Yes, the average citizen is uninformed about the average policy issue, but that alone doesn’t support a characterization that most unsophisticated readers has the same very specific misunderstanding of a particular policy issue when identified in the usual terms. There are some issues where something like that is the case, and there is polling to suggest that, but just making the unsupported leap from “unsophisticated citizens” to “this particular misunderstanding” with no evidence is not warranted.

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