71–80 of 84 posts
I get it, for this author the loudest squeak is housing cost. But he really needs to also work for a big picture.
Any way you look at it, the government has to kick existing owners in the teeth to fix this crisis. Housing prices need to return to a reasonable multiple of wages, and that can only be done with supply. Everyone is going to have to get over the idea that they are "building wealth" and "getting ahead" by merely owning a box.
If you can avoid population loss, it's still going to work out, because a great approach to increasing housing supply is more density. Grab 3 adjacent houses, demolish, turn them into 24 condos that are only a little bit cheaper, and once you account for the costs of construction, it still works out for everyone. So what happened to the owners of those three houses? Well, their land, which before could only had 3 dwe…
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Saw that directly. Everyone talks about the tax cuts , but my taxes went up as a result of the SALT changes. There was a real effect on people, especially those in high cost of living areas, when they could no longer deduct mortgage interest. I wonder if it will be allowed to expire on schedule and my taxes will go back down. Probably too much to hope for.
My first order ignorant analysis is this feels like something done to make people dislike higher tax or progressive states. It increases the indigestion/frustration with taxes & the state. Makes the payments compound. But I'm also willing to admit there may be some very solid policy reasons why this is a good idea. I have tried to imagine some, but no luck so far! What kind of impact did making SALT tax no longer ded…
You hit it on the nail. That was even part of the pitch, that it would hit blue states harder than red ones.
Even then, I expect the real goal was just catering to the folks with deep pockets. No attempt was made to hide that -- half the tax 'cuts' expire, but the other half are permanent. Guess which half...
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Zoning and parking minimums are the real problem. Ensure houses are safe (fire, collapse, etc.) and let the market decide where, when and what should be built.
parking minimums are a red herring. zoning, absolutely. however, in a lot of places we have homeowners' associations as well. random density doesn't help much, need to build density near existing and planned infrastructure.
Care to explain more? I hard disagree, and I think the research is on my side.
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Please don't ask for the goverent to have full control over the entire life cycle of our wealth. They already print the money and set rates that largely define what loans cost us. If the government also directly owns our bank accounts as well we really are entirely at their whims. Not only could the government implement austerity to pay of debt or attempt to reduce inflation, they could directly control approval over…
We’re talking about checking/debit accounts for people who are unhoused/unbanked not “the government having full control over the entire life cycle of our wealth”.
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We’re talking about checking/debit accounts for people who are unhoused/unbanked not “the government having full control over the entire life cycle of our wealth”.
I was talking about that as well. If the government is your direct banking provider, they own everything from money creation to base rates that largely set cost of your debt to access to your wealth. If the government provides your debit/checking accounts they can't deny charges they don't want you to make or completely block you from your money.
Just scratching my head on this "great" economy. Brutal food prices, energy prices, car prices, commodity prices. Lots of "jobs" that pay less with fewer or no benefits. All the side streets and park-n-ride lots with campers. And the federal debt around $35 trillion with debt service bigger than our bloated military budget? I get it, for this author the loudest squeak is housing cost. But he really needs to also work…
for the average joe they're working more and getting less, and getting absolutely clobbered by housing. you can do with out a new computer or a netflix subscription, but you gotta live somewhere
Any way you look at it, the government has to kick existing owners in the teeth to fix this crisis. Housing prices need to return to a reasonable multiple of wages, and that can only be done with supply. Everyone is going to have to get over the idea that they are "building wealth" and "getting ahead" by merely owning a box.
As someone who wants higher density, I see very little progress of this happening. Voters consistently vote against it. The one exception is California state has passed some good laws around ADUs and parking minimums. People will keep voting for rent control and affordable units to prevent construction. The other side of the equation is that wages could increase relative to the price of housing.
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The weird thing is that you could have written that same sentence 20 years ago. I remember around 2005 the Union Tribune ran a map of San Diego showing the percentage of household income spent on housing, with the entire coast red even in the rich neighborhoods where people were getting interest-only mortgages on multi-million dollar homes. At the time I remember being amazed at how many people would take such risky…
I was interviewed by the Union Trib in the late 80's about home affordability. Between the Sunshine Tax and thin strip of land that everyone wants to live in, and there is no solution to affordability. (Except the usual go So Cal go east until the price drops)
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Barring unlimited immigration, we could build enough high-density housing in cities to meet demand. (At least, we could if we fixed zoning.) (Or, we could in most cities. A few, like New York and San Francisco, are very limited in terms of available land.)
I feel like immigration is effectively unlimited from the perspective of big cities. There's friction moving states, and some things keep people anchored, but the market is nationwide. If you built enough in NYC to make rent comparable to other major cities, then significantly more people would want to move to NYC.