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San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

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Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's only so much demand for airbnb, and most of those kept houses would be rented out which still improves supply.

> there's only so much demand Yet SoCal suburbs are full of them. And it doesn't necessarily add supply, since most people seek leases longer than the maximum 90 days set by Airbnb. Unused short-term rentals offer significant tax writeoffs. The owners don't need demand, they just need the plot's assessed value to continue increasing. It's surreal that orange site seriously thinks rich people would ever liquidate the…

> Yet SoCal suburbs are full of them.

According to google results there's around 10k airbnb listings in san diego, around 1% of households or maybe "less than 2%" by one article.

Even if 30% of new houses ended up causing a bad use like airbnb, all the rest would be still be significantly improving the situation. And you would not be able to balloon the airbnb supply for long until the price drops and a lot of those houses switch to normal rental.

And that's still playing into the "nobody sells a house" situation. Many people would sell houses.

> Unused short-term rentals offer significant tax writeoffs.

Losing money sucks even if you don't pay taxes on it. But what kind of writeoffs in particular?

> The owners don't need demand, they just need the plot's assessed value to continue increasing.

Which it would not be doing in a situation with significant building. A self-reinforcing supply constriction going to airbnb can't absorb that many houses. I don't think it would survive a doubling in the number of airbnb listings.

And even if the value keeps rising, not having renters loses you a lot of money. Many of those empty houses are going to turn into long-term housing.

> It's surreal that orange site seriously thinks rich people would ever liquidate the most inflationary asset in the West.

There's a lot of people in 5 million (or 4,3,2,1 million) dollar houses that cannot afford a second one.

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the levels of density seen in Paris, San Diego could house 16 million people. That's city proper. The metro area could house 226 million people. You're gonna have to do a lot better job convincing me that 16 million people would move to San Diego if they just built more housing. Let alone 226 million.

Twist do you think happens to every city that has reached 16 million people? Did they become more popular or less? Given that I’ve lived in a city of that size, my answer will differ from yours (they become more expensive, not less). I’m confused on why you think paris is affordable and San Diego metro could somehow have enough water to grow to 220 million. The nearest comparison I can think of is south China Bay Are…

> Twist do you think happens to every city that has reached 16 million people?

It's not about the exact number, it's that one city is not going to 10x in population from getting the price of housing down to "still a city but not skyrocketing".

> I’m confused on why you think paris is affordable

Compared to San Diego, it does seem to be significantly more affordable, and mainly because of rent.

> and San Diego metro could somehow have enough water

The most expensive source of water, desalination, should be under $1 per day per person. And there's probably better options.

> to grow to 220 million.

That number is a silly number to explain density, not a proposal.

> and if you think that those cities are affordable…

No, the only comparison point was Paris, and the density of Paris.

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#153
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easily. Many of those people have a correct observation in that new construction is just luxury housing, which is obviously unaffordable for people struggling with rent. What they fail to miss is that for every luxury unit that's built and is occupied, some well-off person moved into it... And out of a shitty, cheap unit that's now on the market.

As someone who grew up in San Diego and now lives in Dubai, I point towards how much of the construction companies in Dubai are partly government owned and were at once fully owned before the government sold shares in their IPOs. I really don’t understand why the California government doesn’t just build luxury condos at a large scale for profit. The state will get revenue and lower housing costs overall.

Because that's communism

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#154
post #142
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With good reason: https://www.cfmeuinquiry.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0... I have paid between $3,000 and $6,000 personally to organized crime so a bunch of bogans can buy American suvs to kill cyclists more efficiently.

Meanwhile, nobody bats an eye when housing prices inflate $300,000 because existing homeowners are doing their fucking hardest to make sure that no new homes get built.

Yes, home owners: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/12/canada-migrati...

Funny how when you hit the breaks on pupulation growth house prices also freeze.

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#155

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 problem with roads is that cars are really really inefficient and drivers don't have to pay for the road, so a driver can extract government subsidies by driving more.

You run into the same problem with free or heavily subsidized public transit. The trains were crowded in Germany when the government instated a temporary 9€ ticket for all public transit (buses, subway, tram, regional trains, etc) in all cities.

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#156
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do. It's called zoning.

I'd be willing to bet you every last dollar on the planet that if you read your deed, you will find zero claims to any particular zoning. Zoning is not a transferable property right. It can be changed for any reason at any time.

... with a vote. And subject to the takings clause.

The government can also just take your deed and property, again subject to the takings clause, so long as they pay you back. Or claim someone was slinging crack there or something and not pay you back.

If you're including things subject to the democratic process all the above is on the table.

Also plenty of things written into the deed don't mean shit. It's quite common to read a deed that says something like, in more fluffed terms "no black people allowed." This got baked into lots of deeds back in the day and never got changed because removing covenants to a deed is usually next to impossible. It doesn't mean dick because again the government can simply add or subtract by fiat what your deed actually means.

What your deed is and isn't is a lot closer to how zoning works than you think. Ranchers found this out when their transferrable private property grazing rights tracing back to the very founding era of the USA got usurped by the government and ultimately the BLM who turned around and actually said they're public federal property (which resulted in things like, the Bundy standoff).

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

They thought Vegas was at it's limit years ago, but no they found efficiency upon efficiency.

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#158
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easily. Many of those people have a correct observation in that new construction is just luxury housing, which is obviously unaffordable for people struggling with rent. What they fail to miss is that for every luxury unit that's built and is occupied, some well-off person moved into it... And out of a shitty, cheap unit that's now on the market.

As someone who grew up in San Diego and now lives in Dubai, I point towards how much of the construction companies in Dubai are partly government owned and were at once fully owned before the government sold shares in their IPOs. I really don’t understand why the California government doesn’t just build luxury condos at a large scale for profit. The state will get revenue and lower housing costs overall.

Why? The level of graft would be breathtaking. No doubt some major builders would get preference for cost plus budgets on inflated numbers. Politicians would steer money to their supporters.

They’d like be building at 1.5 to 2 times what private does.

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#159
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who grew up in San Diego and now lives in Dubai, I point towards how much of the construction companies in Dubai are partly government owned and were at once fully owned before the government sold shares in their IPOs. I really don’t understand why the California government doesn’t just build luxury condos at a large scale for profit. The state will get revenue and lower housing costs overall.

Why? The level of graft would be breathtaking. No doubt some major builders would get preference for cost plus budgets on inflated numbers. Politicians would steer money to their supporters. They’d like be building at 1.5 to 2 times what private does.

Because government bureaucrats need to be let in on the take to make it worth their time. Graft is how that gets done. Otherwise they usually just stonewall housing.

Paying $1 to government shills and corrupt capitalists for every $1 spent on actual housing is still a hell of a deal compared to not being able to build anything, which is the status quo in many locked up parcels. A moral standoff and resting on your principles of not funding graft sounds nice, but doesn't accomplish anything.

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#160
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zoning is the hobby horse of property developers. They're endlessly frustrated by the way zoning prevents them from building the most profitable construction - no matter whether there is a good or a bad reason for it (sometimes it's good sometimes it's not). This inspires a lobbying and public outreach effort to try and convince people that relaxing zoning rules will fix everything . As with many corporate lobbied fo…

This is empirically not supported. Relaxing zoning rules works extremely well. Look at Japan, look at any metropolitan U.S. city that has actually leaned into it. Europe has had mixed use zones for effectively centuries and is not the dystopia that NIMBYs proclaim will appear in the absence of zoning. It is unpopular because we subsidize the lives and assets of people who “have things” through zoning policy that they…

Up to a point. Yes, it is nice to mix housing and retail and the like, and some zoning laws prevent this. But you have to look back into the 19th century before zoning laws existed and you had things like slaughterhouses opening in residential neighborhoods. Zoning has good reasons to exist.
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