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San Francisco Landlords may lose everything [video]

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Re: San Francisco Landlords may lose everything [video]

#61

Post by AnthonyMouse »

th0ma5 wrote: post #47
readthenotes1 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buy what? If rent were illegal, there would be far less housing because most people cannot (or will not) save enough capital to create or buy their own.

You need to challenge your assumptions more, why couldn't you just make single family dwellings illegal in high demand areas? And have the state in charge of housing? Unless you mean to argue about current laws and situations, the main point of these discussions and this post is that they are not working.

The existing problem is that multi-family dwellings are illegal in many high demand areas. Otherwise it would be highly profitable to build them there. If you fix that you don't need to do anything else.

Putting the state in charge of housing is the cause of the existing problem. They become captured by landlords, or favor higher property values because they increase property tax revenues.

What you need is some constitutional restraint on local zoning rules.

Re: San Francisco Landlords may lose everything [video]

#63

Post by rufus_foreman »

nix666 wrote: post #15

if you have a vacant unit that you're having trouble filling and you don't want to be taxed, the free market is telling you to lower the price. it's not complicated.

If you've got landlords who would rather leave units vacant rather than renting them out, the free market is also telling you something about your regulations on renting out those units.

I mean they would rather take zero money than some money. Why is that?

Re: San Francisco Landlords may lose everything [video]

#64

Post by AnimalMuppet »

breakyerself wrote: post #55
Duwensatzaj wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong. Housing is unaffordable because demand outstrips supply. Economic illiterates who blame “greed” making public policy tend to make it even worse.

Demand is outstripping supply because policy makers have left it up to the market to supply the need and the market has failed. The reason supply used to meet demand is that the government didn't just pray to the almighty free hand, it acted with policy to ensure there was housing for everyone. A large portion of the supply is being held by investors like landlords which restricts the supply. Removing them from the e…

> The reason supply used to meet demand is that the government didn't just pray to the almighty free hand, it acted with policy to ensure there was housing for everyone.

The free market used to work better before it got handcuffed by zoning laws everywhere. If you prohibit the free market from working, don't then mock the free market because it's not working.

> A large portion of the supply is being held by investors like landlords which restricts the supply. Removing them from the equation would increase supply and decrease prices.

True - if you mean landlords who hold but don't allow occupancy.

Re: San Francisco Landlords may lose everything [video]

#65

Post by dave333 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #45
dave333 wrote: post #36

There are other options that are better than a simple rental such as a lease option or a land contract sale. The renter /purchaser ends up owning the property and the seller/landlord can get rid of his property at a decent price in a falling market.

That's effectively what a mortgage is. But then the "rent" would have to be higher by the amount that buys out the existing owner's principal, which is generally higher than a mortgage payment when you also expect the existing owner to pay to maintain the property in the meantime.

Yes on a lease option the sale happens at the end so seller pays maintenance but on a land contract the sale is up front and seller just finances it so doesn't have to maintain.

Re: San Francisco Landlords may lose everything [video]

#66

Post by UncleEntity »

th0ma5 wrote: post #47
readthenotes1 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buy what? If rent were illegal, there would be far less housing because most people cannot (or will not) save enough capital to create or buy their own.

You need to challenge your assumptions more, why couldn't you just make single family dwellings illegal in high demand areas? And have the state in charge of housing? Unless you mean to argue about current laws and situations, the main point of these discussions and this post is that they are not working.

> ...why couldn't you just make single family dwellings illegal in high demand areas?

Because this isn't how things work in civil society.

They can't just decree that all single family homes in San Jose are now illegal and you have to vacate by the end of the month.

Re: San Francisco Landlords may lose everything [video]

#67

Post by philsquared_ »

siliconc0w wrote: post #19

I'm totally in favor of a vacancy tax, every city should have them. Dude is like, "People are just leaving to live cheaper elsewhere, we can't fill these units!". Have you tried lowering the rent? Of course not.

Landlords are surprised when they have to deal with what every other business has to. Supply and Demand, and changing market conditions... He has the supply and not enough demand. Sit on your thumbs or lower your price?

Re: San Francisco Landlords may lose everything [video]

#68

Post by AnthonyMouse »

breakyerself wrote: post #55
Duwensatzaj wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong. Housing is unaffordable because demand outstrips supply. Economic illiterates who blame “greed” making public policy tend to make it even worse.

Demand is outstripping supply because policy makers have left it up to the market to supply the need and the market has failed. The reason supply used to meet demand is that the government didn't just pray to the almighty free hand, it acted with policy to ensure there was housing for everyone. A large portion of the supply is being held by investors like landlords which restricts the supply. Removing them from the e…

Demand is outstripping supply because the government prohibits high density housing from being built in existing low density areas and imposes rules that make new construction more expensive.

> A large portion of the supply is being held by investors like landlords which restricts the supply.

Because they expect the value tomorrow will be higher than the value today, because they expect demand to increase over time while the government continues to inhibit new construction. Stop inhibiting new construction and they'll want to sell now before the price comes down. (Which will make the price come down sooner.)

The incentive to not rent existing units is also a predictable consequence of things like rent control and laws that make it hard to evict non-paying tenants. Don't increase the risk of providing a thing and expect that to lower the price.

Re: San Francisco Landlords may lose everything [video]

#69

Post by jdenning »

monkaiju wrote: post #28
achates wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if you fulfill basic human needs you aren't allowed to make a profit but every other industry can?

Yes. You arent just like born into 'fulfilling' a basic human need. These services, think healthcare, food, and housing, should be public services that are guaranteed not delivered by the market. You cannot look at the market-based solutions to literally any of these objectively and think it is performing well. At least, not if you value human life.

The problem, as always is about the definitions and the power associated with controlling those definitions. Does a fine wine count as food? What about an imported fruit? If the US made it illegal to profit on food I think we'd see rapid regulatory capture that supported some of the worst agri-business behemoths. (e.g. what happens to the local farmers that I prefer to support? They probably need a bigger profit margin than they have already, and can't even hope to compete at scale)

I agree with your intent here, but the devil is in the details.

Re: San Francisco Landlords may lose everything [video]

#70

Post by AnthonyMouse »

dave333 wrote: post #65
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's effectively what a mortgage is. But then the "rent" would have to be higher by the amount that buys out the existing owner's principal, which is generally higher than a mortgage payment when you also expect the existing owner to pay to maintain the property in the meantime.

Yes on a lease option the sale happens at the end so seller pays maintenance but on a land contract the sale is up front and seller just finances it so doesn't have to maintain.

So then the tenant has to maintain the property, which increases their costs.

The point is that all of these options are already available, but there are trade offs inherent in them that make them a worse option than renting for many people. If they were actually better, why aren't they doing that now?

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