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San Francisco Landlords may lose everything [video]

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Re: San Francisco Landlords may lose everything [video]

#111

Post by kcplate »

breakyerself wrote: post #88
kcplate wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sure the chance for success is much greater in a society that is fairly homogenous.

This is a gross way of saying we have too many minorities here to provide public services.

No, that is not a fair characterization of what I said.

Our diversity is a complexity that is not addressed for in the working model, so it’s not that we shouldn’t try…but we shouldn’t assume that a model that works well in one environment will work well in another, significantly different, environment.

Re: San Francisco Landlords may lose everything [video]

#113

Post by AnthonyMouse »

th0ma5 wrote: post #104
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of people do, but zoning rules make it expensive. Suppose you want to build a 20 story condo. The most efficient thing to do is to find an empty plot of land or a single family home and build it there, but that's prohibited by zoning. 20 story buildings aren't allowed there. Now what you have to do is find an existing 10 story condo and knock that down, because it's in a place zoned for tall buildings. But tha…

You're trying to make some kind of libertarian point, I'm talking about what real people are saying is really actually happening and what is needed. https://thehill.com/opinion/congress-blog/3499112-solving-th... ... You're saying that demand isn't high enough for them to justify spending the money? That's exactly my point but you're saying they are beholden to do nothing and blame the government when by your own log…

> You're saying that demand isn't high enough for them to justify spending the money?

What I'm saying is that they passed laws that make increasing supply so outrageously expensive that demand has to remain at outrageously high levels to trigger construction. You can't get to reasonable housing costs that way because construction companies can't sustainably operate at a loss. You have to make it sustainable by not prohibiting construction where it's the most cost effective.

> by your own logic they just want more money.

Of course they want money. They have to pay for land and construction crews. But if you increase their costs by prohibiting them from building on the most cost effective sites, the amount they want before they'll be willing to do it goes up.

Construction companies don't make anything by not building. But they also don't make anything if government regulations increase their costs above real estate prices. So every time you increase their costs with a new regulation, real estate prices go up -- and stay there until you remove the rule that keeps their costs high. (Or something causes demand to go down, which is typically only something bad.)

Re: San Francisco Landlords may lose everything [video]

#114

Post by AnthonyMouse »

pandaman wrote: post #110
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 const…

>The existing problem is that multi-family dwellings are illegal in many high demand areas This is technically correct but the areas mentioned are the size of a block or a subdivision so it's hardly the limiting factor. You can build high rise apartments in any big city and multi-family anywhere. The reason prices on housing go up is that it costs a lot to build housing and it's pretty hard to secure financing for a…

> You can build high rise apartments in any big city and multi-family anywhere.

You can't build them except in the places they already are. Converting existing high density housing to even higher density housing is prohibitively expensive. What you need to do is go to the edge of the high density area where it meets the low density area and convert the low density housing to high density. But that area is only zoned for low density, so you can't.

> The reason prices on housing go up is that it costs a lot to build housing and it's pretty hard to secure financing for a housing project which you plan to sell/rent below cost.

Who is requiring them to sell below cost? Just build more housing at the market rate as long as the market rate is above your construction costs. If you want a lower market rate, find a way to lower construction costs.

> If it costs $300 to build a square foot

But what causes that?

Re: San Francisco Landlords may lose everything [video]

#115

Post by thunky »

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.

> I'm totally in favor of a vacancy tax

There already is a "vacancy tax": the landlord is losing money when the property is vacant. They can't do that forever so that "tax" will naturally force them to adapt to the market (lower rents or sell).

Re: San Francisco Landlords may lose everything [video]

#116

Post by pandaman »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #114
pandaman wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The existing problem is that multi-family dwellings are illegal in many high demand areas This is technically correct but the areas mentioned are the size of a block or a subdivision so it's hardly the limiting factor. You can build high rise apartments in any big city and multi-family anywhere. The reason prices on housing go up is that it costs a lot to build housing and it's pretty hard to secure financing for a…

> You can build high rise apartments in any big city and multi-family anywhere. You can't build them except in the places they already are. Converting existing high density housing to even higher density housing is prohibitively expensive. What you need to do is go to the edge of the high density area where it meets the low density area and convert the low density housing to high density. But that area is only zoned…

>You can't build them except in the places they already are.

I.e. in all big cities? So are you really arguing that the rent in SF goes up because you cannot build a residential tower in Redding, CA?

> Converting existing high density housing to even higher density housing is prohibitively expensive.

You don't need to convert. You can change zoning on existing lots, it happens all the time.

>Just build more housing at the market rate as long as the market rate is above your construction costs.

But it is not in most places. This is why developers are trying to get into prestigious areas where it's still possible. Nobody prevents you from building a residential tower in the East LA, you just won't be able to sell it. But yes, nobody will let you to build one in Malibu, where you'd be able to move units. The issue is that as soon as you filled Malibu with commie blocks the area won't be prestigious anymore so somebody will be left holding the bag, developers are desperate enough to enter this game anyways.

> If it costs $300 to build a square foot

Just read the message, I've explained what.

Re: San Francisco Landlords may lose everything [video]

#117

Post by readthenotes1 »

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? And have the state in charge of housing? "

Because I've seen Soviet era housing and War on Poverty projects.

Challenge my assumptions? I think the burden is on you to show that somehow next time will be different

Re: San Francisco Landlords may lose everything [video]

#118

Post by mistrial9 »

zapdrive wrote: post #18
mistrial9 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nice defense, but you realize that edit many landlords are not like that at all.. the court system here in Alameda County California has a backlog of a decade+ for extremely abusive landlords

And some tenants are sucky too. Courts are backed up for evictions due to non payment of rent too.

"A recent report detailing the dismal housing conditions faced by 150,000 people in unincorporated Alameda County estimated that up to one-third of renters could be living in buildings that should legally be deemed uninhabitable. But according to Alameda County’s Healthy Homes Department, the county has millions of dollars from the federal government to address exactly these concerns ..."
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