The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It • Hacker News Board

Re: The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It

#221

Post by Grishnakh » Fri, Apr 08, 2016, 3:08 PM UTC

ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #52

zt wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I'm the author) Even putting aside the ethical and moral arguments, which carry a lot of weight for me: (1) There are network effects in urban environments. (2) Globally, specific industries often concentrate in specific cities. A lot of tech has concentrated in the Valley up to the San Francisco. The effects are getting stronger as that migration occurs. That's a great thing: it allows for people to move between co…

And yet there's nothing inherent with software development that makes SF and the Bay Area any different from lots of other cities, other than inertia. It's amazing that an industry that prides itself on being non traditional is so tied to a specific geographical location, as if there's some valuable mineral that can only be mined in SOMA and downtown Palo Alto.

Actually, there is: non-compete clauses. They're unenforceable in California. Everywhere else, they are. That makes it an attractive place to be a tech worker, since tech workers tend to change jobs relatively quickly. In the Bay Area, you can easily switch jobs, even going to a competitor; this isn't the case in other states.

And then you get the chicken-and-egg problem: with all those workers there, companies want to locate there to have access to that talent pool. And then the workers want to stay there so they have access to all those jobs that they can hop between.

Re: The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It

#222

Post by dv_dt » Fri, Apr 08, 2016, 3:57 PM UTC

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #210

dv_dt wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the people railing against prop 13 have ever lived in states where property tax rates are out of control to the point the people lose their homes... it's not pretty.

Do they lose their house in the sense of selling it at a massive profit? Or are the taxes rising irrespective of property prices?

I'm not sure what it used to look like in CA pre prop 13, but I get the sense that many people lose homes due to even fairly short periods of cashflow problems, leading to tax leins leading to forclosure (and possible loss of much more equity):

http://money.cnn.com/2012/07/10/real_estate/tax-liens/

Seniors in those kind of conditions, would be unlikely do better selling off their homes and subject themselves to a more volatile rent for their homes.. which would likely lead to even higher societal financial supports needed so seniors don't end up on the street.

Re: The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It

#223

Post by Renevith » Fri, Apr 08, 2016, 4:30 PM UTC

khuey wrote: post #127

Renevith wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you have a job that pays $100,000 and the taxes on your $250,000 house is $7,500 (3% property tax) and the tax quadruples to $30,000 in five years; why would you want the market fluctuations to be able to force an individual to leave their house? I shed exactly zero tears for someone whose $250k property quadruples in value to $1m in five years. Sell the house and dance with joy at your (untaxed!) $750k capital…

Technically you would pay capital gains taxes on around 250k of the gain, and 500k if you're not married. You can deduct improvements/maintenance from the gain, but capital gains from owner-occupied real estate are taxed in the US if they're large enough.

Ah, I did not realize that. Thanks for the info! Still, $250/500k untaxed is nothing to sneeze at. And long-term capital gains are taxed at a lower rate than income for someone who's making $100k.

Re: The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It

#224

Post by SonjaKT » Fri, Apr 08, 2016, 4:45 PM UTC

simulate wrote: post #153

If you live in San Francisco, you can vote on May 10 to make some of Zac Townsend's suggested fixes a reality. Here's the slate card to see how: http://www.sfyimby.org/slate/

Yeah and if you don't live in San Francisco, you can tell one friend who does live there to vote.

Seriously, we don't need that many people to make a big difference this time. It's worth it for you to get _one_ more person to vote.

Re: The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It

#225

Post by SonjaKT » Fri, Apr 08, 2016, 4:46 PM UTC

capkutay wrote: post #123

mdb333 wrote: post #28

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_%281... Good thoughts. You failed to mention Prop 13 which was put into place a long time ago and simply doesn't make sense anymore. It's at least part of the reason it is so affordable (in relative terms) for rich people to keep second homes here when they bought them years ago. We live in a building of 60 units where probably at least a third of those are abse…

If you care about SF housing, please just show up to Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors meetings. Talking about policy on hacker news is useless. Better yet, start or join a grassroots group of at least 10-15 people and thoughtfully present all your ideas without coming off as insensitive towards the homeless or low-income individuals. There's TONS of room for public input in SF, it's what makes our plannin…

---> And, YOU CAN VOTE MAY 10th! www.sfyimby.org/slate/

TELL A FRIEND ALSO

Re: The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It

#226

Post by iolothebard » Fri, Apr 08, 2016, 6:12 PM UTC

ChiCommTroll wrote: post #157

iolothebard wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

70 story high rise in Atherton and Belmont! That will be the day :-) I quite liked the Peninsula. SF wasn't really my cup of tea. God forbid people like me that lived on the Cliffs of Despair (Pacifica) and were relatively happy.

They finally demolished the cliff buildings a couple of weeks ago!

Yeah, I saw that on the NYTimes. Glad they did it before it fell into the ocean :-)

Re: The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It

#227

Post by mdb333 » Fri, Apr 08, 2016, 7:16 PM UTC

cowsandmilk wrote: post #183

Agustus wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your example, the building you describe is a condominium? If so, then what does it matter what your tax bill is and if they are absentee owners; if the owner maintains the property, pays their bills and taxes, then you should be happy to have them. Tax reassessments during the boom of 2001 to 2007 were on track to price a lot of people out of their houses based on their current economic status. Proposition 13 and…

Firstly, California property taxes are limited by Prop 13 to being 1% of assessed value, so your $30k tax bill can only happen if your property went to $3 million. A $1 million house cannot have a tax higher than $10,000. There are well-established solutions to your issue about people being forced out of housing with rising demand. Massachusetts allows tax deferrals up to 50% of a property value. (If you want to get…

It's a bit more than 1% in SF, getting close to 1.2%

http://sftreasurer.org/online-property-tax-payment-faq#taxam...

Re: The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It

#228

Post by mdb333 » Fri, Apr 08, 2016, 7:25 PM UTC

Agustus wrote: post #67

mdb333 wrote: post #28

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_%281... Good thoughts. You failed to mention Prop 13 which was put into place a long time ago and simply doesn't make sense anymore. It's at least part of the reason it is so affordable (in relative terms) for rich people to keep second homes here when they bought them years ago. We live in a building of 60 units where probably at least a third of those are abse…

In your example, the building you describe is a condominium? If so, then what does it matter what your tax bill is and if they are absentee owners; if the owner maintains the property, pays their bills and taxes, then you should be happy to have them. Tax reassessments during the boom of 2001 to 2007 were on track to price a lot of people out of their houses based on their current economic status. Proposition 13 and…

well, Prop 13 was passed way before 2001-2007, its an artifact of the late 70s. Still that's true that people can become priced out by tax increases (this was/is a problem in DC).

And you're right... as owners now we don't care and only benefit from the absentee neighbors. That's a major part of the problem. Now that we're invested, we are naturally opposed to anything that would untether our tax rates. If our neighbors (who mostly bought in the 80s/90s) were paying tax on the current valuations they would be encouraged to either sell or rent thus creating more inventory and helping bring prices toward equilibrium.

Re: The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It

#229

Post by marknutter » Fri, Apr 08, 2016, 7:37 PM UTC

tribaal wrote: post #205

marknutter wrote: post #23

The only way to fix the housing market in San Francisco without destroying what people love about living there is to reduce the number of people living in San Francisco. And the most direct and effective way of doing that is to destroy the ridiculous bias against remote working. For all the innovative, intelligent, talented people in the Valley that we haven't yet figured out how to work together to build software wi…

I'm surprised and a little saddened that this is not higher up. The root cause of the problem is that there are too many people wanting to move to San Fransisco because that's where the (tech) jobs are. Spread out the jobs to spread out the people?

I'm saddened, but not surprised. Like I said, there's a really weird bias that a lot of otherwise progressive and intelligent people have against remote work, and I've never heard any convincing arguments from people who've tried both that one way is categorically better than the other. Perhaps it will take something as extreme as a major environmental or economic catastrophe to warm people up to the idea because people seem to be clinging to the old ways for silly reasons.

Re: The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It

#230

Post by mdb333 » Fri, Apr 08, 2016, 7:38 PM UTC

rokhayakebe wrote: post #189

mdb333 wrote: post #28

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_%281... Good thoughts. You failed to mention Prop 13 which was put into place a long time ago and simply doesn't make sense anymore. It's at least part of the reason it is so affordable (in relative terms) for rich people to keep second homes here when they bought them years ago. We live in a building of 60 units where probably at least a third of those are abse…

But why are people upset at others who've made a good investment 10, 20, 50 years ago. That's like telling you you have to either use your savings you haven't touched in x years or give the money to someone else to use it.

not really... it's more like a de-escalating tax bracket; The longer you've owned the home the lower the taxes you pay. However, the reality is that in return you're receiving the exact same "services" as the person buying today. How is that equitable in any way?

Their good investment allows them to sell that property at a profit, rent it for cash flow, or just sit on it. It's still their choice. Just like in the financial crisis, companies were hoarding cash due to uncertainty but because interest rates were zero-negative this encouraged spending and propped up the economy until more material improvements could be achieved. It's basic economics at the end of the day.