San Diego rents declined following surge in supply • Hacker News Board

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#131

Post by bombcar » Wed, Apr 22, 2026, 5:07 AM UTC

BrenBarn wrote: post #102

mpyne wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of those are really pertinent because it doesn't change the fact that the well-off person is going to occupy an additional housing unit in this scenario no matter what. The question is whether it's going to be new construction that they occupy or existing construction. If you're not well-off you'd want that decision to end up with "new construction" so you can move into "existing construction" at a lower rent/mo…

I don't think that is necessarily true. I believe there are, for instance, many reasonably wealthy people who live somewhere outside California and would not move into a dumpy old apartment in LA or SF but might move into a fancy new one. In other words, they will not occupy an additional housing unit (in a given market) unless it is "nice" enough. I am in favor of building new housing, but I'm even more in favor of…

Taken to extremes you'll have all wealthy people living in California, and the rest of the country available to us plebs.

The greatest tool we have to reduce wealth inequality is make it so people can buy homes - and the biggest levers we seem to have there are making supply available in general, and making jobs available where there's already supply.

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#132

Post by bombcar » Wed, Apr 22, 2026, 5:08 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #66

WillPostForFood wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the alleged people actually said this, and they wanted to "maintain high prices", then why would they oppose more building? If they believed "supply and demand don't work at all", then more supply wouldn't hurt their goal of maintaining high prices.

A former trustee in the inner-ring suburb in which I live owns and manages rental housing throughout the municipality and is a vocal opponent of building new housing, and of the argument that supply and demand functions in the housing market. I could screenshot him for you, but you have no idea who he is, so: just take my word for it, these aren't "alleged" people. They're a major force in local politics around the c…

Leveraged investors in real estate become incredibly "conservative" really fast - not politically but in the "don't ever change anything holy shit I'm on a knife edge" even if the changes would be a net benefit for them.

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#133

Post by bombcar » Wed, Apr 22, 2026, 5:10 AM UTC

bruce511 wrote: post #121

noosphr wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being a NIMBY I want to live in the neighbourhood I bought a house in, not the one someone who can leave with a months notice feels like turning it into.

I think this us a fair feeling. One chooses a house based in part on the area as the specifics of the house itself. Wanting the neighborhood to remain unchanged is a reasonable desire. Unfortunately, as much as you desire it, it's not something you can control. Neighborhoods change all the time. That good school you moved to be close to can decline, people with the wrong politics can move in next door, the convenient…

Part of the problem (or the solution depending on what side you stand on) is that only residents get a say, and often you find that the renters become just as nimby as the owners, especially if rent controls or other advantages are in place.

And those outside have a very hard time voting where they want to live but don't.

(The old solution was to make a new city that was like you wanted, with blackjack and hookers, hell forget the city we'll just build the strip!)

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#134

Post by bombcar » Wed, Apr 22, 2026, 5:14 AM UTC

nostrebored wrote: post #123

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short term. Long term the market will change to equilibrium. If you are buying, just lock in lower housing prices now. If you are renting without rent control, you get one or two years of reasonable rates and then it will go nuts again.

This is an obviously farcical belief. If everywhere built more housing do you think the price of housing would go up? Where are these people bringing up housing prices coming from?

Housing prices always go up (they seem to believe this)

Houses can be built (this seems obvious)

Ergo, we can remove the national debt by building between 59 million and 121 million houses (depending on if you count the value of the land there).

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#135

Post by bombcar » Wed, Apr 22, 2026, 5:16 AM UTC

umeshunni wrote: post #125

bix6 wrote: post #41

> San Francisco led the nation in annual rent growth this month, with both one and two-bedroom prices hitting new all-time highs, marking the highest levels in over a decade of Zumper data. One-bedroom rent climbed 18.4% to $3,790, surpassing its previous peak of $3,720 set in June 2019, while two-bedrooms rose 22.6% to $5,270, exceeding the prior high of $5,120 recorded in September 2025. From the Zumper report. 22%…

San Francisco is notoriously the most anti-new-housing city in the country.

Frisco (come at me) rent and housing prices have way more to do with the valuation of the latest startup darling than with much else.

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#136

Post by darksaints » Wed, Apr 22, 2026, 5:17 AM UTC

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #129

darksaints wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the density of Kowloon Walled City, the entire population of India could fit within the city limits of San Diego. Nobody is asking for that, silly. We could 1.5x the density of San Diego and still have the livability of Copenhagen. We could 3x the density of San Diego and still have the livability of Vienna. We could 5x the density and still have the livability of Paris. 8x and still have the livability of Tokyo.…

Paris [1] and Copenhagen [2] have similar housing issues. Both are some of the most expensive cities in Europe [3]. Vienna has a large municipally owned and non-profit housing stock [4]. The situation in Tokyo was okay while it was growing its stock like crazy, it is facing an intensifying affordability crisis right now [5]. If there is a bliss point at which the housing crisis is solved with density before Kowloon W…

Housing price is a function of supply and demand and your argument had nothing to do with price of housing, you were only talking about density and its effect on livability. And it's very clear that people value living in cities that are much denser than San Diego. If people genuinely do not want a denser San Diego, there wouldn't be any point to restricting that growth.

I personally would love to live in a city like Tokyo. People have different preferences. Don't force your preferences on me. If people "generally prefer" midrise cities, they will move there. There's a reason why so many people live in Tokyo when there are plenty of less dense cities in Japan. The great thing about allowing density is that people will stop moving in when they don't like it anymore.

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#137

Post by bombcar » Wed, Apr 22, 2026, 5:18 AM UTC

guelo wrote: post #85

Apreche wrote: post #21

But what about the desirability of San Diego? Was the decrease in rent only because of the increase in supply, or is there also lower demand?

Right. What the reporter calls a "surge in supply" is an increase in "active listings", which doesn't differentiate from listings due to new construction vs listings due to people leaving. Also, I could not find the "active listings" data in Zumper's report[1]. And then I noticed the chart with the active listing data says it was made by Brenden Tuccinardi/KPBS, so this was done by a reporter, not a Zumper data analy…

San Diego also has the strange property of being on an international border!

TJ and SD are really two parts of the same metropolis - any investigation has to see how population ebbs and flows across that border, and what the housing prices did on both sides.

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#138

Post by seanmcdirmid » Wed, Apr 22, 2026, 5:18 AM UTC

someperson wrote: post #70

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If demand picks up because supply increases, you will reach the previous equilibrium even with more supply. It isn’t rocket science, there is a price people are willing to pay to live in SD, and the market will keep gravitating to that price unless demand is somehow limited. The price people are willing to pay can even increase as density makes brings in things (eg culture, job opportunities) that make the city more…

There a lot of desirable areas in a country and a fixed amount of people. The equilibrium between demand and supply has the supply curve impacted by a whole host of policy choices. Eg housing is impacted by cost of permitting, regulations, cost of materials and labor etc. All of these things can be improved by policy. There's a strong argument that especially infrastructure but housing should be built with people on…

Water is the primary limiter on city population sizes in the west. I wouldn’t be surprised if San Diego wasn’t at its limit already with respect to water resources, but I haven’t looked into it. Desalination could improve that.

If we could have Chinese work crews come in and build housing, especially 30 story concrete towers that are popular in Asia, we could build fairly cheaply, that isn’t really the limitation (it’s easier to solve than getting water to those new units for expanded population).

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#139

Post by bombcar » Wed, Apr 22, 2026, 5:21 AM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #50

crooked-v wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, it's not actually obvious. There are heaps of people, even and especially in the most expensive housing markets in the US, who will outright argue that supply and demand doesn't apply to housing.

I have to guess it’s along similar lines to the claim that additional road capacity leads to more congestion.

The concept of "pent up demand" seems to be incomprehensible to some.

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#140

Post by seanmcdirmid » Wed, Apr 22, 2026, 5:21 AM UTC

nostrebored wrote: post #123

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short term. Long term the market will change to equilibrium. If you are buying, just lock in lower housing prices now. If you are renting without rent control, you get one or two years of reasonable rates and then it will go nuts again.

This is an obviously farcical belief. If everywhere built more housing do you think the price of housing would go up? Where are these people bringing up housing prices coming from?

Buffalo has 50% as much housing now as it did at its peak, since demand dropped and housing was just razed rather than maintained. There are lots and lots of cities in the USA that aren’t San Diego, LA, SF, Portland, Seattle, NYC, Boston, … and they have plenty of supply that there is no demand for. You can buy a house for cheap in Toledo. For some reason, people would rather pay $3000/month to live in San Diego than $700/month to live in Buffalo or Toledo. It shouldn’t be a mystery why.

I lived in Beijing for 9 years so I get a different perspective. But ya, the market for people who want to live in Beijing rather than Chengde or Langfang is surprisingly vast, and Beijing has a resident system to prevent at will migrations.