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Priced out of Paris

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Re: Priced out of Paris

#141

Post by justincormack »

VLM wrote: post #130
gman99 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who went to Uni in Durham and loves the countryside; (but still loved his two year stay in London), I can give you another reason: The sheer variety in cheap cultural things to do. I'm not saying Newcastle lacks decent culture, just that it's not cheap. When living in London, I used to make frequent trips to The Globe (£7 tickets), National Theatre (£12), Sadler's Wells (£15), Museums (free) plus other gre…

I believe you are missing a substantial scalability issue. From an article in The Telegraph "the Globe has played to 480,000 people this year". It seems to seat somewhere around 2000, so I am willing to believe that they have about 200 performances per year. Living in the US I'm well aware of urban sprawl and the near inability to define imaginary borders. However for the sake of argument, wikipedia claims a bit over…

It is actually pretty easy to find another 8000 cultural activities in London. There are probably 1500 permanent art galleries, largely free for a start.

But we are getting to one of those points where more of the benefits of a city should be transferable remotely. I would like to live outside London but the developer community is a massive draw. As well as culture. Also I am a native Londoner so it is home. But the cost of property is a huge issue.

Re: Priced out of Paris

#142

Post by mseebach »

subsystem wrote: post #34
rdouble wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 1% buy multiple properties in many different cities. There have been articles about how the City of London has neighborhoods of empty luxury apartment developments owned by various sheikhs and russian/central asian commodities oligarchs. In SF when you buy a house you are also competing with dozens of investors from overseas paying cash who don't have any intention of ever living there. I believe that the Vancouv…

Note that the City of London is in some ways a tax haven and a neighborhood in London itself.

It's not a tax haven. It's a deeply idiosyncratic entity with a 1000 year long history, but not a tax haven.

Re: Priced out of Paris

#143

Post by michaelochurch »

Jacqued wrote: post #132
michaelochurch wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of those buildings are still considered ugly and time hasn't made them any prettier, trust me. Aesthetics are for the comfortable. I don't think most New Yorkers know (or care) what the exteriors of their buildings look like. I'd rather have ugly buildings and lower rent so I can save. Yes, I'm a dick because I care about my future more than whether bored rich people like the looks of the city. I live here, I wo…

The thing is, new constructions tend to make rents higher, because they are usually of higher standards than what they replace. Typically, a newly build building will sell flats at 14k€/m² where as the surroundings sell for 10k, because it is newer, more comfortable and consumes less electricity for heating. And rents go up accordingly. Also, I think most people do care what their place looks like ; it's a combinatio…

The painful truth about it is that we're both right.

Those luxury condos aren't built by landlords wanting to bring down the rent, obviously. They're built with full intention of taking advantage of clueless yuppie transplants who haven't a clue what things should actually cost, or whose monstrous senses of suburban entitlement leave them thinking they need a 2500 SF (232 m^2) space in the city. In the short term, they actually do drive up rents. The opportunities and bargains come out in the long term.

What then happens is that the developers overbuild, and a few years later a large quantity of housing stock comes on to the market, depressing price. Look at what has happened in Florida, Nevada, and even California. It can happen again, and it's ugly but still far better than the alternative (Manhattan rent levels).

Also, most "luxury" housing is not of a quality that real rich people would accept. "Luxury" means there's a small gym and a doorman, but the quality of this housing/renovation is usually low-- which is fine given that you're just using it as a crash-pad while you work a 60+ hour job that requires living close to work. (Rent if you can; don't buy.) "Luxury apartments" are for people making upper-middle incomes in their professional jobs who need college-like pampering because of their insane work schedules, rather than genuine rich.

That said, you have to be extremely careful in playing this sort of game. Manhattan "luxury condos" are selling at 40-50 times annual rent for a variety of reasons, so you'll actually lose a lot of money if you buy one and try to rent it out. Trying to time the crashes caused by overbuilding is not something most people can afford to do. However, it is abstractly and also obviously good for society when more housing is created.

Re: Priced out of Paris

#144

Post by ChuckMcM »

Does anyone know the property tax uplift? Basically if you're paying $1M for a property in New York City and stay their 2 weeks a year you get end up paying taxes for 52 weeks and consuming city services for 2, so that would be a ~25x the tax per service rendered. Is this noticeable to cities or in the noise?

Re: Priced out of Paris

#145

Post by Nursie »

stevoski wrote: post #4

The article talks a lot about cities now being the domain only of "one-percenters" and "global elite". This is demonstrably false. Consider the UK. UK's population: 62 million London population: 8 million 13% of the UK's population, therefore, resides in London. To say that only the "1%" can afford London is clearly not the case. In France's case, 15% of the population live in Paris. Perhaps we can't all live in Lond…

Most of the normal folks are being pushed further and further out of the city every year. Anywhere remotely central is out of reach of anyone but the very rich.

Re: Priced out of Paris

#146

Post by makomk »

epsylon wrote: post #120
michaelochurch wrote: post #104

Someone needs to publish a list of all these 11.5-month-vacant apartments that rich people buy and that take up so much space, so that burglars can get in when they're not there. There should be an app for that. I'm sure there are home security measures up the wazoo, but those are technical problems. I could never hack the criminal lifestyle-- I have enough anxiety as it is-- but there are cases in which non-violent…

There has been actually a few actions by some local associations to squat vacant buildings in Paris. One of the most famous of these squat was Rue de la Banque , nearby the prestigious Place de la Bourse , which owes its name to the Palais Brongniart, the old Paris Stock Exchange. The building had been bought by a bank and left vacant for years. By squatting it these three associations did a great thing and launched…

Don't worry, that's not going to happen in London though - the Tory government made squatting in empty residential properties a crime shortly after the recession hit, and are doing the same with empty commercial ones.

Re: Priced out of Paris

#147

Post by Nursie »

jjsz wrote: post #81
JPKab wrote: post #56

My cousin is a .01%-er. My father's brother, due to a position of political power he held in the late 1970's, met and married a woman who is an heir to an American old-money family. (if i were to name them, you would know. If you listen to NPR for more than an hour, you will hear their name mentioned as a donor) The contrast is insane, since my entire family is Appalachian coal mining stock. She NEVER visits, so the…

The old-money lifestyle is _designed_ to sit back, enjoy, and let the investment bankers handle the rest- exactly what she's doing so they're not parasites, they're living an elite's way of life. If you would get closer to her she would produce a lot of good times and memories. Just because you will travel, stay in the house and read more doesn't mean someone is going to sit down and become an inventor / iterator lik…

It's not really envious or wrong to say that people like this contribute nothing to the world, yet by accidents of birth get to enjoy the fruits of everyone else's labour.

Re: Priced out of Paris

#148

Post by CmdrKrool »

contingencies wrote: post #62
subsystem wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that the City of London is in some ways a tax haven and a neighborhood in London itself.

Interesting tangent! Any refs on the tax situation?

Here's an article: http://www.newstatesman.com/economy/2011/02/london-corporati...

Re: Priced out of Paris

#149

Post by eli_gottlieb »

sturadnidge wrote: post #77
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To say that only the "1%" can afford London is clearly not the case. ORLY. Consider the London borough of Camden. "40% of children are under the poverty line, but average house prices have just hit £1m." http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/21/mervyn-k... http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2011/05/hous-m24.html?view=p... In other words, you can afford to "live" in London so long as you pay your salary on r…

Not exactly, either the above or you can live in central London if you are on government benefits - the civic planning here is pretty messed up, I appreciate the idealism of forcibly mixing socio-economic classes by mandating council housing be placed amidst regular housing in every borough, but it seems insane that it's the workers who are getting pushed further and further out. Not suggesting the unemployed should.

In many ways, social democracy was quite a good model that has completely failed to adapt to the existence of the working poor.

Re: Priced out of Paris

#150

Post by icebraining »

salmonellaeater wrote: post #98
icebraining wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That it's not surprising doesn't mean it's not a problem. And while those classes may derive the most value from being in the city center, it doesn't necessarily mean that society as whole does. Or even those individuals themselves, in the longer term.

The questions of distorted incentives and short-term decision-making are much more interesting questions! As to whether it's a problem or not, how would you argue that it is? Is there cultural value to having bohemians or artists or people other than high-income professionals clustered in city centers, value which isn't represented in their incomes? If so, wouldn't it be more efficient to provide a subsidy for their…

More efficient than what?
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