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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

#161

Post by wallst07 »

EduardoBautista wrote: post #150
vkou wrote: 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.

Not a bad idea, should have started with a 2 family house before trying to build a high speed train.

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#162

Post by wallst07 »

mothballed wrote: post #159
refurb wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pr…

>Paying $1 to government shills and corrupt capitalists for every $1

And then some forensic accounting happens and a paper is published citing that government built homes cost twice as much as privately built, and the program stops.

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#163

Post by wallst07 »

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…

>I am in favor of building new housing, but I'm even more in favor of reducing wealth inequality. I think we can do both, but we need to be deliberate about it.

... And that's why nothing gets done.

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#164

Post by wallst07 »

tsimionescu wrote: post #149
bombcar wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Taken to extremes you'll have all wealthy people living in California, and the rest of the country available to us plebs. Which is exactly what people are afraid of happening, and what they mean by the crisis of housing affordability. You can go and buy or rent a cheap house today in probably 90% of the localities of the USA. Of course, if you already live in those places, you probably don't have the money, because…

"The problem of housing is that regular people want to live in NYC, and Chicago, and LA, and all of these places, and relatively near to where their jobs are"

It's not clear in your phrasing, but it sounds like this is a casual correlation. It's not... Many people only want to live in these cities because it's the ONLY way to get work, given a choice they would quickly move out.

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#165

Post by mothballed »

wallst07 wrote: post #162
mothballed wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pr…

>Paying $1 to government shills and corrupt capitalists for every $1 And then some forensic accounting happens and a paper is published citing that government built homes cost twice as much as privately built, and the program stops.

It doesn't seem to stop all the other graft-ridden wasteful parts of government.

Personally I despise the idea of public housing, but once something is there, it becomes easier to develop. There has to be some way of enticing all the factions stopping housing with productive greed rather than anti-productive greed. If public built housing gets something where there was nothing until the first paper gets published or whatever, maybe it's worth doing a deal with the devil.

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#166

Post by wallst07 »

darksaints wrote: post #90
noosphr wrote: 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.

So can the US constitution through amendments, but it's not easy.

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#167

Post by afpx »

vkou wrote: post #86
darksaints wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been told repeatedly by people who have a vested interest in maintaining high housing prices that supply and demand don't work at all, ever, for any reason, and high prices are no reason to build more housing. How do I reconcile these facts?!?

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.

luxury housing? I see miles and miles of $650k townhouses that look like government housing. It would be much easier to cut demand.

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#168

Post by wallst07 »

mcdeltat wrote: post #146
exabrial wrote: post #10

Incredible. So what you're saying is... we should just build more housing? Who would have thought that was the answer?

God most of the "discussion" around housing is such copium by obviously-biased people trying to convince everyone that we shouldn't have access to high quality housing. Yes, in the year 2026, despite all of humanity's achievements, it's of course IMPOSSIBLE to configure any type of society such that housing is decent and fair for all. IMPOSSIBLE, did you hear? Nope, it just won't work. Whatever your reason, you're wr…

You say this like it is such a obvious problem to solve, and from a naive point of view, maybe so.

But each of the reasons why things the way they are isn't just stupidity. It's backed by people's preferences for living. EVERYONE is extremely opinionated on housing because it affects us the most (air/food/water/shelter...) . We all have something to say about where we live or have lived and the pros/cons.

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#169

Post by anal_reactor »

EduardoBautista wrote: post #150
vkou wrote: 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.

Private companies are good at removing inefficiencies. As long as there is competition, private companies will offer better service at lower price. State-owned companies work better in cases where maintaining healthy competition is not possible, or where inefficiencies are not a concern.

In particular, Gulf states have virtually unlimited money, which means that it doesn't matter whether a new construction costs $400k or $800k or what.

It's very rare to find state-owned companies which main goal is to provide service to the citizens and they turn a profit without some form of government subsidies along the way. Let me ask - if you think there is huge market for new construction and it's easy to make profit, why don't you start a construction company?

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#170

Post by wallst07 »

rockskon wrote: post #44
mothballed wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building the house is the easiest part of building a house.

I'm not sure half the country would agree!

Texas... lots of cheap land to build and some of the least expensive new home prices in the country.
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