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San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

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31–40 of 253 posts

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#31

Lots of people quoting basic supply and demand. People in the year 1500 could pretty reliably tell you that a rock would fall down if you released it from a height. People would also tell you that if you threw it up and away, it would go up in an arc and fall down. The innovation that Newtown and friends brought about was they made quantitative predictions about the rate at which the rock would fall down, or the arc…

Notably, though, a significant fraction of people seem to believe that building more housing will cause rents to increase. So it seems like it is still important to point to data suggesting the opposite.

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A mainstream view on one side of the political spectrum that increase in new home supply(especially if high end) does not lower prices or reduce shortage. > One well-worn refrain of progressive urban politics is that new, “luxury” housing will not help solve the housing shortage. A 2024 study of U.S. voters found that 30 to 40 percent believed more housing would, instead, increase prices, and another 30 percent belie…

Well, building luxury housing still helps, to some degree: the richest residents of the area would buy it, and they would sell their old house to someone slightly less rich, who in turn would sell their old house… At the end of this chain you get affordable housing.

> and they would sell their old house

lol

in reality they just keep their "investment" and, in some cases, decide to convert their old house to an airbnb for extra passive income

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#35

Lots of people quoting basic supply and demand. People in the year 1500 could pretty reliably tell you that a rock would fall down if you released it from a height. People would also tell you that if you threw it up and away, it would go up in an arc and fall down. The innovation that Newtown and friends brought about was they made quantitative predictions about the rate at which the rock would fall down, or the arc…

We don't need quantitative models if we want the rock to fall. It might be nice to have them, but one of the great things about market economies is that we don't micromanage according to overly complex estimates, and get better results.

Zoning and homeowners are holding on to the rock with a death grip, all while saying "the rock won't fall if we let go, that's fake science, it's far more nuanced you see" as they lie through their teeth to make big profits and immiserate those who don't own land.

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, building luxury housing still helps, to some degree: the richest residents of the area would buy it, and they would sell their old house to someone slightly less rich, who in turn would sell their old house… At the end of this chain you get affordable housing.

I think the steelman argument is that maybe you induce demand and it's a wash on housing costs as rich people move into the city or etc to use the new condos But you do at least get more property taxes?

There is at least some truth to induced demand with new housing driving an influx of new residents, especially in cities with economic opportunity.

Just like transportation induced demand, the solution is different style of infrastructure. High capacity metros, bus lanes, and regional rail to get people out of cars and use limited transportation corridors more efficiently than single occupancy vehicles. One more lane bro doesn’t work, but adding new forms of more efficient transportation does.

New, denser housing with mid rise and high rise buildings and a mixture of unit sizes in walkable neighbourhoods with good transit access absorbs new residents and drives down housing costs for everyone. Single family sprawl doesn’t work, but density can.

We have under-built for decades, so it’s easy to misunderstand the signals. More housing gets built and prices still go up, and many people are concluding more housing just increases prices, leading to people with good intentions decrying “luxury housing”. There are plenty of nimby actors in the mix too, tossing in all sorts of misinformation and bad faith arguments, muddying the water.

The reality is areas with strong economic growth are all failing to add enough new housing and demand continues to outstrip supply, leading to higher prices. Many studies have shown even new high end housing helps manage prices, as someone rich enough upgrades, leaving their unit empty for someone else to upgrade into. That chain continues all the way down into the lower cost units, each time freeing up space someone else can afford. Large migration into a region can mess with how much prices can be affected, but studies still show even high priced new units do slow down growth in prices. Supply and demand does apply, we have just massively underestimated how far behind supply is for the demand and need to add so much more housing.

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#37

Lots of people quoting basic supply and demand. People in the year 1500 could pretty reliably tell you that a rock would fall down if you released it from a height. People would also tell you that if you threw it up and away, it would go up in an arc and fall down. The innovation that Newtown and friends brought about was they made quantitative predictions about the rate at which the rock would fall down, or the arc…

I don't think the predominant factor causing pollies to shy away from increasing housing supply is a lack of understanding that supply decreases prices, it's a lack of political will to decrease prices.

It's harder than you think to argue for a house price decrease when it's the singular asset that most older adults have most of their wealth tied up in.

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#38
post #5
post #2

Increase in supply lowers equilibrium price? Somebody, pinch me!

That part is the obvious part. I want to know how they got all the entrenched landowners to let new builds in their neighborhoods and drive down values. The NIMBYs are usually the problem.

California passed a number of laws protecting landowners’ ability to build ADUs, and the San Diego council super-charged those:

https://calmatters.org/housing/2023/11/adu-san-diego/

Tons of San Diego houses have a ton of land thanks to the mid-20th century lawn fetish back when everyone was pretending that there was enough water so there are a lot of places where someone can turn some dead grass into as many as 5 ADUs.

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#39

What is this country's allergy with public housing? Not pursuing that feels like jumping in water with our hands tied behind our backs

It's not just public housing it's all housing. Even some public housing advocates argue against housing reforms that would make it possible to build public housing!

I've been supporting an advocacy group looking to build social housing and at least half the pushback is from anti-housing "tenant advocates" that work for non-profits funded by extremely foundations with boards that are all very wealthy with multiple homes, and don't see the need for more housing. The "tenant advocates" seem to view housing similarly and only support public housing to the extent that it doesn't actually get built.

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were historically used, at least most notoriously, for selling crack and sniper fortresses for organized gangs. Your average American envisions something like Cabrini Green when you say public housing.

[flagged]

> Wow are americans actually stupid enough to eat this bait?

Yes. That “bait” has been raised to the level of propaganda that people, of some age groups at least (e.g. boomers) have been exposed to their whole lives. It doesn’t help that the US is quite geographically isolated, so most people never get much first-hand experience of anything else.

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