The Housing Market With Nowhere to Go but Up • Hacker News Board

Re: The Housing Market With Nowhere to Go but Up

#71

Post by jarek » Mon, Mar 03, 2014, 3:55 PM UTC

dfc wrote: post #48

LogicX wrote: post #7

I'm hoping some people start to wake up and realize they don't have to be in SF or Silicon Valley to be successful entrepreneurs or technologists. Between the harsh northeastern winter, and whats happening in San Francisco, we're making a big push to attract folks with low cost of living and high quality of life in Myrtle Beach, SC through http://WhyNotTheBeach.com . With so many companies becoming more and more open…

WhyNotTheBeach.com? Answer: * The first link in the list of what you "offer" is broken * Hurricane Hugo * Hurricane Hazel

Oh, good thing SF doesn't have any upcoming natural disasters it is ill-prepared to deal with.

Re: The Housing Market With Nowhere to Go but Up

#72

Post by dllthomas » Mon, Mar 03, 2014, 4:18 PM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #23

dllthomas wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The best cure for high housing prices are high housing prices." Provided you have the possibility of actually building more (and/or denser) housing at a sufficient rate.

That's one solution. The other is that housing becomes such a huge liability to local commerce that people will just leave. Housing prices are like high taxes or burdensome regulation - they add to the cost of doing business, and in the extreme case people will just get out. The end game if the Bay Area won't allow more housing to be built is that the industry will move out of necessity. This is already happening, th…

Hm, sure, that's conceivably a way it could reduce demand, I guess.

Re: The Housing Market With Nowhere to Go but Up

#73

Post by muzz » Wed, Mar 05, 2014, 12:32 AM UTC

Oculus wrote: post #24

dllthomas wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The best cure for high housing prices are high housing prices." Provided you have the possibility of actually building more (and/or denser) housing at a sufficient rate.

From my limited understanding, I take that this is the issue in SF. There is a lot of regulation issues with building denser housing thus the shortage in supply.

Your understanding is certainly limited. Housing prices all over the Bay Area have increased similarly. SF is not an outlier in terms of percentage appreciation compared to nearby cities.

Re: The Housing Market With Nowhere to Go but Up

#74

Post by muzz » Wed, Mar 05, 2014, 12:36 AM UTC

greenyoda wrote: post #31

repsilat wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Nowhere to go but up"? How quickly we forget the last housing bubble. The title was an obvious pun, referring to the need for high-rise development (which was touched on in the article, though it wasn't the focus.)

I did understand the pun, but most of the article was actually about how quickly the prices in the area were rising, how people were paying rapidly increasing amounts of money for crappy real estate, how they were offering cash payments, payments above the asking price, etc. In other words, he was writing about a real estate bubble.

The last real estate bubble was fueled by the ready availability of credit (subprime loans, Alt-A, etc).

These buyers today are often paying cash-- i.e. they are on the opposite end of the risk spectrum. They have no incentive to walk away if their house value falls 10%, 20%, 30%, etc.

Re: The Housing Market With Nowhere to Go but Up

#75

Post by muzz » Wed, Mar 05, 2014, 12:39 AM UTC

kiba wrote: post #4

At the end of the day, the solution is straightforward and clear: build more houses. The only problem is that humans in SF don't want more houses, especially high rise housing.

The only problem with your comment is that construction is under way at a record pace (well, since 1906)