Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident

sf.curbed.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 204 posts

Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident

#101

Post by 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 »

beefalo wrote: post #83
3fe9a03ccd14ca5 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the housing crisis when the problem is one of distribution, not one of supply. What’s your thesis for this? If the supply suddenly quintupled in the Bay Area and the population halved, I doubt we’d be calling it a “housing crisis”. Prices would fall dramatically because of supply.

The constricted supply is very much related to the treatment of primary residences as an investment. Quintupling the supply would definitely cause prices to fall, but any homeowner in their right mind opposes that development because they might lose $500k+ of property value.

If this were true, then it would be true for every city everywhere. Which we know it’s not. For example, look at cities with much friendlier building regulations such as Dallas.

Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident

#102

Post by martin_bech »

ryanSrich wrote: post #79
martin_bech wrote: post #27

In Denmark this would be impossible as we have “bopælspligt”. It means if you buy a home or apartment in an area like this, you are required by law to live in it.

There are several condo buildings in Portland (OR, US) that do this as well. I don't think it's city or government regulated, but it's required by certain buildings. I don't know if SF has anything like this, but I imagine it's easy to get around it.

In Denmark its hard to get around, as you have to register your official postal adress for the government using your CPR nr (kinda like social security numner).

Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident

#103

Post by Tiktaalik »

There's no real attempt here to explain what all the empty houses are about. Second homes? Pied-à-terre's for the rich that live elsewhere?

In nearby British Columbia, recently as property values were spiking there was increased scrutiny of "empty homes" amongst the fact that many new condo developments were luxury developments being explicitly marketed in international magazines and foreign cities.

Drilling down to the individual neighbourhood level, some places were more than 20% 'empty'.

When the government shifted to the social democratic NDP, the new government brought in a "Speculation Tax" which was really more of a vacancy tax. The tax essentially makes it substantially more expensive to have a secondary, empty, home in certain parts of the province. Places that are obvious tourism towns like Whistler are exempt.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/b-c-s-specul...

> Introduced Dec. 31, 2018, the tax targets homes in the most populated areas of B.C. that are not declared as a primary residence or are not rented out for at least three months a year. More than 99 per cent of British Columbians are exempt.

Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident

#104

Post by huevosabio »

earlINmeyerkeg wrote: post #78
flaque wrote: post #45

Many of these homes probably aren’t “empty” in the sense that someone’s just holding on to them long term. This article is citing the vacancy rate, which includes rentals where someone left and the landlord is trying to find a new tenant. Any city will have some % of empty rentals, if it didn’t, no one would ever move around. According to the US Census, [1] San Francisco’s vacancy rate is 5.4%, New York’s is 4.5%, an…

Isn't like 90% of the homeless population people with a significant mental illness that they cannot provide for themselves? That's because the normal competent people don't remain homeless long and just need short term temporary assistant. Whereas the large portion of homeless actually are not competent enough to support themselves.

It's about 26%

Source (pg 22, Mental Illness + Alcohol / Drug Use): http://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/FINAL-PIT-Report-201...

Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident

#105

Post by OnlineGladiator »

lkbm wrote: post #67
Reedx wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are houses throughout the Bay Area sitting empty, just being used as a relatively safe store of value. That goal is already achieved without having to deal with the overhead of managing the property and tenants. So the homes just sit... empty.

Seems strange. Surely a management company would happily handle all that hassle and provide a secondary income stream. Sign a couple forms and boost investment income by a few percent? Surely that's not significantly more burdensome than the bureaucratic hassle of purchasing the property in the first place. I guess there's some significant tax/regulatory difference between capital gains from holding property vs. an i…

SF has a lot more burdensome tenant protection laws than most places. Sometimes you can't kick out a tenant even if you want to move back in. That's why landlords sometimes pay tens of thousands of dollars to their tenants to get them agree to leave if they have a rent controlled unit. Even if the tenant stopped paying rent or broke some other part of the lease, an eviction can take over a year - and you're not getting paid for that time and you don't get to use your house.

Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident

#106

Post by klipt »

rb808 wrote: post #13
damnyou wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should different rules apply to foreigners in this context? An American billionaire buying a few condos and keeping them empty has the exact same effect as a Chinese billionaire doing so. Rules around vacant homes are good, though, and I strongly support them.

At least an American billionaire pays some American taxes. If a foreign speculator makes a lot of money they aren't even paying any income or capital gains taxes here.

> if a foreign speculator makes a lot of money they aren't even paying any income or capital gains taxes here.

False, even if you're not US resident, you still have to file non-resident tax returns and pay taxes on all US sourced income.

https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/nonr...

> A nonresident alien (NRA) usually is subject to U.S. income tax only on U.S. source income.

Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident

#107

Post by trickstra »

biznickman wrote: post #4

When I lived in San Francisco, the newly built condo building across from me was fully empty (but fully sold) for all the years I lived there. This is a tower in SOMA. There was only one apartment which appeared to be a corporate one that was occasionally utilized. The rise of foreign money parking money in real estate has screwed things up on a global level. San Francisco has felt the brunt of this due to their insa…

The next financial crisis will take them all like a tsunami. I really wouldn't want to be in their shoes.

Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident

#108

Post by jlmorton »

earlINmeyerkeg wrote: post #78
flaque wrote: post #45

Many of these homes probably aren’t “empty” in the sense that someone’s just holding on to them long term. This article is citing the vacancy rate, which includes rentals where someone left and the landlord is trying to find a new tenant. Any city will have some % of empty rentals, if it didn’t, no one would ever move around. According to the US Census, [1] San Francisco’s vacancy rate is 5.4%, New York’s is 4.5%, an…

Isn't like 90% of the homeless population people with a significant mental illness that they cannot provide for themselves? That's because the normal competent people don't remain homeless long and just need short term temporary assistant. Whereas the large portion of homeless actually are not competent enough to support themselves.

No [1].

Only 8% of the currently homeless population became homeless because of mental illness. People with mental illnesses are by far the most visible of the homeless, because they are crazy. But they make up a minority of the population.

18% became homeless because of drug, or alcohol abuse. 42% report drug, or alcohol usage, even if that might not be the cause of their homelessness. 39% report psychiatric issues, even if that might not be the cause of their homelessness.

[1] http://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/FINAL-PIT-Report-201...

Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident

#109

Post by forwhomst »

earlINmeyerkeg wrote: post #78
flaque wrote: post #45

Many of these homes probably aren’t “empty” in the sense that someone’s just holding on to them long term. This article is citing the vacancy rate, which includes rentals where someone left and the landlord is trying to find a new tenant. Any city will have some % of empty rentals, if it didn’t, no one would ever move around. According to the US Census, [1] San Francisco’s vacancy rate is 5.4%, New York’s is 4.5%, an…

Isn't like 90% of the homeless population people with a significant mental illness that they cannot provide for themselves? That's because the normal competent people don't remain homeless long and just need short term temporary assistant. Whereas the large portion of homeless actually are not competent enough to support themselves.

No, not even close. The nationwide rate of mental illness among homeless people is about one in four, or quadruple the rate of all people. But in the Bay Area where housing pressure is more severe the rate of mental illness among the homeless is actually lower, because there are just more “normal people” among them.

Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident

#110

Post by cmclaughlin »

aaronbwebber wrote: post #92
biznickman wrote: post #4

When I lived in San Francisco, the newly built condo building across from me was fully empty (but fully sold) for all the years I lived there. This is a tower in SOMA. There was only one apartment which appeared to be a corporate one that was occasionally utilized. The rise of foreign money parking money in real estate has screwed things up on a global level. San Francisco has felt the brunt of this due to their insa…

I call bullshit. Say what tower it was, and when it was built, and what time frame you are actually talking about so we can verify for ourselves whether it was actually empty or not, or even if it was empty whether it was empty for a good reason (e.g. not having it's habitability permit). Otherwise this is the worst kind of anecdata - not even enough detail to verify that the anecdote is true, nevermind whether it is…

I'm all for backing up claims, but drive through Pac Heights and Cow Hollow at night - you won't see many lights on in those mansions. Drive by during the day and all you see is construction workers and gardeners tending to the properties there. It's pretty obvious people don't live there more than a couple months a year. These are the ultra rich with property in the most expensive cities all over the world.
Post reply on HN