Approaching Peak Housing Dysfunction in California • Hacker News Board

Re: Approaching Peak Housing Dysfunction in California

#111

Post by almost_usual » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 9:44 PM UTC

option wrote: post #90

i_am_proteus wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps it's something to do with how California has lower property taxes (partially due to Prop. 13) and higher income taxes-- but those income taxes go to Sacramento, not to municipalities. In other parts of the country, municipal treasuries grow as volume and prices of residential units grow.

California does not have low property taxes. Tax = rate * assessed_value. assessed_value is huge if you purchased during last 7 years and goes up 2% every year

Purchased in the last 7 years is pretty recent. Most home owners bought 15+ years ago. If you're buying within the last decade you're probably paying a transplant premium.

Re: Approaching Peak Housing Dysfunction in California

#112

Post by mktmkr » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 9:44 PM UTC

aeternus wrote: post #10

burlesona wrote: post #2

I shared this because it's the best concise summary of many things that are going wrong with housing in the bay area that I've read in a while. I'm on the Strong Towns board (though I didn't write the article). Happy to answer questions if anyone has them.

Is housing "going wrong" simply because it is expensive? Maybe it is overall a good thing that tech companies are now expanding into cities outside the bay area due to high housing costs. At least housing prices are transparent to those thinking about moving in to the bay area, allowing them to make an informed decision. High traffic, insufficient public transit capacity, and over-capacity public services are less tr…

Here's an idea we can adopt from literally every other aspect of American society: let the market work. We venerate the free market in all matters except housing, where we've erected a complex system of legal protections for incumbent landlords. The solution to high housing prices is more supply but it is illegal to build housing almost anywhere in the state of California. In SF it is illegal to build a duplex on 90% of the lots. Why? That just exists to enrich incumbents.

Re: Approaching Peak Housing Dysfunction in California

#113

Post by bobthepanda » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 9:46 PM UTC

btilly wrote: post #51

I have suggested this before, and I'll suggest this again. The whole problem could be solved if we gave people the choice of voting where they work rather than where they live. Currently every city wants all the businesses that they can get because businesses generate lots of tax revenues. Cities do not want apartments because that doesn't generate revenue, and locals object on the basis of NIMBYism. But when everyon…

I don't know if this would work as well as you might think it does.

1. People don't necessarily want to live immediately next door to where they work. Maybe someone who works in Mountain View wants to live in Palo Alto, but this doesn't help them.

2. A lot of highways bulldozing inner cities were stopped by residents protesting. Under your proposal office workers could just vote in a highway that gets them from A to B quickly while screwing over everyone who lives next to it. I don't know that going back to this model is a good idea.

3. Mixed use housing does not really 'solve' traffic in that people don't actually live close to work even when it is available. Especially if you consider multiple income households. Tokyo is pretty much all mixed use and still people suffer from long commutes.

Re: Approaching Peak Housing Dysfunction in California

#114

Post by logfromblammo » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 9:46 PM UTC

pcwalton wrote: post #36

throwawaysea wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does humanity need to grow in population? That doesn't make sense and is an invalid assumption underlying what you're asking for here.

Because someone is going to have to care for an aging population. You can look at Japan for what happens when you have zero or negative population growth.

Exactly why student loan debts, insufficient housing, and the gig economy are larger problems than they appear at first glance.

Indebted, underemployed people with just a rented bedroom and dysfunctional social safety nets are, for some odd reason, less eager to procreate.

If you don't have enough grandkids, there won't be enough able-bodied people around to wipe the drool off your generation's collective chin and push your age cohort's wheelchair out to the common room. That's the real cost of pulling up the ladder after yourself. You break the generational compact by denying opportunities to young folks, and they not only won't take care of you in your sunset years, but they won't even exist to do anything for you at any price.

Re: Approaching Peak Housing Dysfunction in California

#115

Post by mktmkr » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 9:48 PM UTC

inferiorhuman wrote: post #108

r00fus wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in CA - Prop13 + corporate shell board of director transfers means the tax rate never increases, and after 40+ years, that means a lot of properties essentially pay a fraction of the taxes they should. Prop13 has had a LOT of unintended consequences.

Prop13 has had a LOT of unintended consequences. No, those were intended consequences.

Right. Howard Jarvis, the face of Prop 13, was a lobbyist for the Apartment Owners' Association. Prop. 13 was for landlords by landlords.

Re: Approaching Peak Housing Dysfunction in California

#116

Post by i_am_proteus » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 9:48 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #84

ProblemFactory wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If zoning restrictions were relaxed, could house prices collapse? I don't see how that could be the case. The property value of a plot of land on which a 50, or even 5 story building can be built is much higher than the property value of a single-family home.

There's a substitution effect. If zoning restrictions are relaxed and developer turns an acre into a 50 unit condo complex, that developer reaps a huge windfall. But everyone else who owns an Eichler on a 1/4 acre has fewer buyers competing for their property. It's sorta like when labor unions go away. The company that hires non-unionized labor at half the price and double the productivity reaps an enormous windfall.…

Is this correct?

Or is this correct: As housing prices rise, it becomes cost effective to replace simplexes with duplexes, threeplexes, etc., causing the value of all simplexes to rise.

Re: Approaching Peak Housing Dysfunction in California

#117

Post by sien » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 9:48 PM UTC

esotericn wrote: post #14

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #11

I've noticed an increasing trend in West Coast cities where people complain that there's "just too many people". "Tell them to move elsewhere, we're full". It's as if the lessons of Malthusian limits were lost on us. For humanity to continue growing as a species we have to become more efficient with land use.

> For humanity to continue growing as a species I'm pretty young. Since my birth, the population has expanded by over 40%, and we've increased global temperature by approximately 1 degree Celsius. The inevitable conclusion of forever-growth is, indeed, that everyone piles in to microscopic communal living spaces, that everything becomes factory farmed, that everything has to be as efficient as possible because we'll…

Look at this map of total fertility :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-replacement_fertility#/med...

If fertility is below 2.1 it's below replacement.

There are not many rich countries with replacement level fertility rates.

Japan's population is decreasing at ~300K a year because they don't allow much immigration. As countries become rich people leave in lower numbers.

There are quite a few countries in the world that are already experiencing population decline :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_decline

Re: Approaching Peak Housing Dysfunction in California

#118

Post by opportune » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 9:49 PM UTC

inferiorhuman wrote: post #108

r00fus wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in CA - Prop13 + corporate shell board of director transfers means the tax rate never increases, and after 40+ years, that means a lot of properties essentially pay a fraction of the taxes they should. Prop13 has had a LOT of unintended consequences.

Prop13 has had a LOT of unintended consequences. No, those were intended consequences.

Yes, true. But it had a lot of hidden consequences that most actual voters didn't think of. The spirit of the law could be sustainably maintained by closing up applicability to businesses, only letting it apply to primary residences, and reassessing on inheritance

Re: Approaching Peak Housing Dysfunction in California

#119

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 9:49 PM UTC

jacobolus wrote: post #48

ctdonath wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just spent 3 weeks in the US Midwest. There is plenty of land to use, thousands of square miles of empty rolling grassy plains. (Ex.: South Dakota averages 11 people per square mile.) Apply a little modern technology (solar/wind, water storage/purification, insulation, Starlink satellite internet) and nobody need complain of population density. There's a startup waiting to happen: self-sufficient high-tech prefab h…

If people are going to live anything resembling a modern American lifestyle, then gathering people together in cities has much lower environmental impact and lower infrastructure costs than spreading them around South Dakota. People don’t expect just electricity and plumbing, they also expect modern construction techniques, roads, police, fire suppression, emergency response, schools, full-service hospitals, telecomm…

[deleted]

Re: Approaching Peak Housing Dysfunction in California

#120

Post by inferiorhuman » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 9:50 PM UTC

canuelaborate wrote: post #105

i_am_proteus wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps it's something to do with how California has lower property taxes (partially due to Prop. 13) and higher income taxes-- but those income taxes go to Sacramento, not to municipalities. In other parts of the country, municipal treasuries grow as volume and prices of residential units grow.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by "those income taxes go to Scaramento"? I mean the state has to coordinate the money it collects, but doesn't it use that money for state-wide projects like roads, dams, and other infrastructure? I live in Los Angeles and pay CA income tax. I'm perfectly fine with the state using some of that money outside of Los Angeles. I often travel outside of Los Angeles, so I'm getting use o…

Can you elaborate on what you mean by "those income taxes go to Scaramento"? I mean the state has to coordinate the money it collects, but doesn't it use that money for state-wide projects like roads, dams, and other infrastructure? I live in Los Angeles and pay CA income tax. I'm perfectly fine with the state using some of that money outside of Los Angeles. I often travel outside of Los Angeles, so I'm getting use out of whatever they make with it (assuming it's not just put into politicians' pockets). What is Sacramento doing with the income tax revenue that you don't like?

The big issue is that cities and counties don't typically collect taxes in California. There are a few statewide organizations (Franchise Tax Board, Board of Equalization) that do instead. There are also tight limits on sales tax (cities can levy up to ~2% beyond the base rate for specific things). Essentially what happens is that the state collects taxes and doles the monies out to cities and counties at their discretion.