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Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

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Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#161

Post by gojomo »

ktothemc wrote: post #85

I was the person who wrote that super-long take on the San Francisco housing crisis in spring on TechCrunch. http://www.techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/ I'll just say this. It's four issues compounded. 1) Growth controls enacted in the 1960s and 1970s: Beginning in the late 1960s, the California Supreme Court started making a series of anti-development rulings: for example, one decision ruled that cities didn't…

The city doesn't know how to police this [absentee ownership].

The world wants to pay our property taxes, but use a negligible amount of our local services? That doesn't require policing – just wise exploitation.

Allow as much high-density luxury housing as possible. (Let the world pay us to build and hold!)

But then also, make it easier for absentee owners to casually lease out their holdings, so the marginal incentives are to open vacant units up to residents or tourists.

The world wanting to move-to, visit, or even just invest-in your jurisdiction only becomes a problem, rather than a boon, with stubborn mismanagement.

Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#162

Post by ktothemc »

gojomo wrote: post #159
ktothemc wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but how do you prove that? That is the dilemma all these prospective piece of legislation in Vancouver, NYC are running up against? What would you do? How would you enforce it? Water bills? Electricity? Which you could fake. Phone presence? A rebate program, which no one would vote for anyway.

Occasional random door-to-door checks? (Miss too many, and you lose your local-resident exemption.)

I'm sure voters would vote for that.

Any additional property tax in any city in the state of California has to go before a vote of the affected property owners per Prop. 218, passed in 1996. God bless our direct democracy system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_218_(199...

Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#163

Post by ktothemc »

gojomo wrote: post #161
ktothemc wrote: post #85

I was the person who wrote that super-long take on the San Francisco housing crisis in spring on TechCrunch. http://www.techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/ I'll just say this. It's four issues compounded. 1) Growth controls enacted in the 1960s and 1970s: Beginning in the late 1960s, the California Supreme Court started making a series of anti-development rulings: for example, one decision ruled that cities didn't…

The city doesn't know how to police this [absentee ownership]. The world wants to pay our property taxes, but use a negligible amount of our local services? That doesn't require policing – just wise exploitation. Allow as much high-density luxury housing as possible. (Let the world pay us to build and hold!) But then also, make it easier for absentee owners to casually lease out their holdings, so the marginal incent…

Our property taxes stay relatively constant via Prop. 13, while price appreciation is great given all the growth control.

We do not make it easy for absentee owners to "casually lease" out their holdings. Our tenant laws are some of the more stringent in the entire country and if we were to relax them, all the longtime middle or low-income residents protected by them would might washed out immediately. Furthermore, it just wouldn't happen politically because no one would vote for it. We are a city of 2/3s renters.

Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#165

Post by gojomo »

ktothemc wrote: post #163
gojomo wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The city doesn't know how to police this [absentee ownership]. The world wants to pay our property taxes, but use a negligible amount of our local services? That doesn't require policing – just wise exploitation. Allow as much high-density luxury housing as possible. (Let the world pay us to build and hold!) But then also, make it easier for absentee owners to casually lease out their holdings, so the marginal incent…

Our property taxes stay relatively constant via Prop. 13, while price appreciation is great given all the growth control. We do not make it easy for absentee owners to "casually lease" out their holdings. Our tenant laws are some of the more stringent in the entire country and if we were to relax them, all the longtime middle or low-income residents protected by them would might washed out immediately. Furthermore, i…

Yes, the mismanagement is popular with the incumbent renters (and many property-owners). But people need to understand the potential fixes, even if the best fixes look politically impossible in the short term. As the pain of the current mismanagement increases, big changes will become thinkable. The current setup isn't even that good for all renters (and potential renters) – just a tenured subset.

Maybe absentee landlords (and businesses and holding companies) shouldn't get Prop 13 tax protection. Maybe when the effective tax basis (Prop-13-limited) is wildly out of whack, the yearly increase should be higher than 1%, as a catch-up. (Same with rent control.)

Maybe new tenants, in new construction, should be under a different regime (like how newer construction skips rent control), to enable healthier turnover while 'grandfathering' in the (dwindling) lower-income population.

Your writing has been excellent on causes, but fairly quick to cut short discussion of possible solutions because of current political taboos. But a deeper discussion of unpopular options – that would in fact work very well – is the only way to fix that unpopularity.

Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#166

Post by googler_314 »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #71
Kalium wrote: post #45

To those people who believe this is the fault of tech - I have a question. What is the ethical way to move to San Francisco? Or anywhere in the Bay? What do you think is a good solution to this, beyond some variant on tech people owing undefined amounts of money to everyone else?

I don't live in the US so my view is purely that of an outsider reading about this on HN over the last few years. My problem is this: a lot of tech companies, based outside San Francisco go out of their way to make it easy for employees to live in SF and get to work outside of it. This is bad for the people who have lived there for a long time as they can't compete with the money the tech industry brings to the marke…

I think that very few people strictly need to live in SF, probably no one. People desire to live there for a wide variety of reasons, such as having roots in the city, enjoying the social scene, etc.

The issue here is that the desires of tech workers are considered less important because they are considered to be inferior human beings.

Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#167

Post by ende »

ktothemc wrote: post #162
gojomo wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Occasional random door-to-door checks? (Miss too many, and you lose your local-resident exemption.)

I'm sure voters would vote for that. Any additional property tax in any city in the state of California has to go before a vote of the affected property owners per Prop. 218, passed in 1996. God bless our direct democracy system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_218_(199...

A land value tax isn't a property tax, so no problem there.

Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#168

Post by tsotha »

muzz wrote: post #140
tsotha wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh. The newer landlords will realize what the rest of us have know for years. You'd be crazy to be a landlord in SF. Which, of course, is part of the problem.

Which is why massive new rental buildings are coming up? NEMA, One Rincon Hill Tower Two, etc.

Sure, eventually you get an equilibrium. Because nobody else wants to be a landlord you can charge so much that it's worth the aggravation. I wonder how many of these new units would be needed if people were more willing to rent out unoccupied units.

The problem isn't as acute for big companies. If you have 1000 renters you have a staff to deal with problem tenants. You have lawyers on retainer. You expect some number of tenants won't be paying rent at a given time, so you charge everyone else enough that you still make money.

The people who get screwed are the duplex and fourplex owners who wanted to use rental income to supplement their retirement.

Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#169

Post by ulfw »

krigi wrote: post #101

The housing problem is real. The suppliers/property owners know there is a lack of supply, so now they're just getting greedy. Three hours ago this unit was $1600. It was updated to $1800. http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/apa/4726648527.html It doesn't even have a kitchen. It's just a room with a toilet - at nearly $10 per sq. ft.

That is just beyond ridiculous. A small room you can't even sleep in (mentions excessive noise SEVERAL times) for almost $40,000/yr pre-tax all-in. Why people move there is beyond me...

Re: Inside San Francisco's housing crisis

#170

Post by gojomo »

ktothemc wrote: post #162
gojomo wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Occasional random door-to-door checks? (Miss too many, and you lose your local-resident exemption.)

I'm sure voters would vote for that. Any additional property tax in any city in the state of California has to go before a vote of the affected property owners per Prop. 218, passed in 1996. God bless our direct democracy system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_218_(199...

If it lowers voters' taxes, but increases costs on faraway non-residents/non-voters... isn't that exactly what voters like?

Also, the Legislative Analyst's Office says Prop 218/1996 doesn't affect property taxes, but rather other kinds of property fees. See http://www.lao.ca.gov/1996/120196_prop_218/understanding_pro... – especially figure 2.

Clearly, fixes are going to have to unwind previous statewide and local law... which means convincing people of the causes and solutions, over time. It took decades to enact the bad policies; it'll take many election cycles to chip away at them as well.

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