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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

#221

Post by marssaxman »

underlipton wrote: post #187
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.

This is the common refrain, however, consider: There were two shitty, cheap units. The people in the first were forced to move out when a developer bought it, tore it down, and built the luxury unit. They have been homeless/going into debt renting a third slightly-less-shitty third unit. Without the first shitty, cheap unit, the second's competition was that third slightly-less-shitty unit; they raised their prices c…

The whole point of this article is that building tons of new "luxury" units actually did lower rents, moving the needle exactly as predicted.

The zoning code in the location of your anecdote must be completely suffocating, or that developer would not have left so much money on the table by failing to add more units.

Where I live, a developer recently tore down the cheap, shitty house on the corner and built not one new "luxury" townhouse, but eight of them. Across the street, a larger building was recently demolished, and now they're putting in twenty-one new units. Two cheap homes lost: but a net of twenty-seven homes gained. That represents a whole lot of competitive pressure taken off the lower end of the market.

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#223

Post by mpyne »

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 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.

That's the point, the "dumpy old apartment" was never going to be the thing stopping the rich person from moving in.

Due to overlap in preferences amongst a multitude of people, the rich person would free up the housing they like by buying it from whoever, who would then free up slightly-less-good housing in the area by kicking out someone else (with money, to be clear) and so on down the chain until you get to the "dumpy old apartment", whose rent now rises because there are more people interested in moving into it due to lack of other options.

New housing, even if it's new 'luxury' housing, breaks this chain of housing migrations in the area before it gets to buying people out of their dumpy old apartments.

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#224

Post by ProfessorLayton »

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #115
darksaints wrote: post #73

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.

Yet the rent in Paris is still too high for an average French resident; and while rent is lower than in San Diego, the price of an apartment is higher. And, of course, median salary in San Diego is far higher than in Paris.

>Yet the rent in Paris is still too high for an average French resident

It's obviously not just about more housing, but more housing per capita.

3% of the French population lives in Paris proper, and roughly 20% in the metropolitan area compared with 0.42% in San Diego and ~1% in San Diego MSA [1].

More hosing will help Paris along with San Diego to put downward pressure on prices.

[1] Wikipedia

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#225

Post by noosphr »

vkou wrote: post #216
noosphr wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And then a decade of that later, all the people bitching about immigration will be wondering why the country's demographics resemble that of a nursing home, and why the tax base and the social safety net has collapsed.

The social safety net has collapsed _today_.

Hospital wait times in Canada, Australia and the UK are _years_ for elective procedures. I had a health scare three years ago and got put on the public waiting list. I still get a message every 6 months to remind me that I'm on the waiting list.

I've still to advance far enough up the queue to get a date booked.

This is not normal.

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#226

Post by Dylan16807 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #213
Dylan16807 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 c…

There is no way for San Diego to grow that fast overnight anyways. If it grows gradually, and it’s still desirable, that will attract more jobs and more people eventually, the city won’t become more affordable (long term) until it stops attracting new residents. Otherwise, new housing simply provides temporary relief while the city grows. Paris is a good example, I think, of a city expensive by French standards. My p…

> the city won’t become more affordable (long term) until it stops attracting new residents

I really hope we don't have indefinite large amounts of US population growth. And if we mostly stabilize the population, then it only takes a few 16M cities to absorb all the demand and make the relief permanent.

> Paris is a good example, I think, of a city expensive by French standards. My point was that if your theory is you can build to affordable, there should be at least one example on the planet where that actually worked (even Tokyo is considered expensive by Japanese standards).

Then consider this particular argument not that you can build to a nebulously defined "affordable", but that you can build to "San Diego has between 100% and 1000% of its current population with rent 40% lower than it is right now".

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#227

Post by ProfessorLayton »

xtiansimon wrote: post #182
bombcar wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

SF (only acceptable abbreviation) is 7x7 miles square surrounded by water on three sides—the only way to grow is up, right after you knock down the 100 yro Victorian homes and historic buildings, and gut the neighborhood charms. This from someone who once paid rent 1300/mo for a two bedroom in Potrero Hill.

>right after you knock down the 100 yro Victorian homes and historic buildings

BS, there's ~400K housing units in SF, and only ~10k of those would be considered victorian. These units couldn't (And shouldn't!) be destroyed for new housing because they're protected, and that's not what NIMBY's or YIMBY's are arguing about anyway since almost everyone loves victorian homes.

More than half of the city's housing was built after 1940, mostly on the west side, and it's where NIMBYism is at its worst. There's little reason someone or even a developer shouldn't be able to build up there.

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#228

Post by vkou »

noosphr wrote: post #225
vkou wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then a decade of that later, all the people bitching about immigration will be wondering why the country's demographics resemble that of a nursing home, and why the tax base and the social safety net has collapsed.

The social safety net has collapsed _today_. Hospital wait times in Canada, Australia and the UK are _years_ for elective procedures. I had a health scare three years ago and got put on the public waiting list. I still get a message every 6 months to remind me that I'm on the waiting list. I've still to advance far enough up the queue to get a date booked. This is not normal.

> The social safety net has collapsed _today_.

It can always collapse more. Ask anyone who lived through an actual economic collapse. (As opposed to the kinds of minor corrections that the West has seen over the past few decades.)

Your imagination is very limited if you can't think of what the long-term consequence for a country with an average age of 41.6, a fertility rate of 1.25, and a huge political block of nativists who can't do basic arithmetic, are asking for something incredibly stupid, are getting exactly what they want, good and hard.

You solve a housing shortage by... Building more housing. Not by driving young people who want to do work out of your community.

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#229

Post by noosphr »

vkou wrote: post #228
noosphr wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The social safety net has collapsed _today_. Hospital wait times in Canada, Australia and the UK are _years_ for elective procedures. I had a health scare three years ago and got put on the public waiting list. I still get a message every 6 months to remind me that I'm on the waiting list. I've still to advance far enough up the queue to get a date booked. This is not normal.

> The social safety net has collapsed _today_. It can always collapse more. Ask anyone who lived through an actual economic collapse. (As opposed to the kinds of minor corrections that the West has seen over the past few decades.) Your imagination is very limited if you can't think of what the long-term consequence for a country with an average age of 41.6, a fertility rate of 1.25, and a huge political block of nati…

Destroy your society today so it doesn't get potentially destroyed in 30 years is certainly a take.

>You solve a housing shortage by... Building more housing.

It's not housing. It's roads. Hospitals. Schools. Sewers. Power lines. Everything needs to be rebuilt. That means that the immigrants who are coming in must be engineers, doctors, teachers, tradies. Instead we get uber drivers and IT consultants. There aren't enough qualified people in the world to keep up with current immigration to the west. The only solution is to lower immigration until the ratio of qualified people coming in matches (or hopefully exceeds) the ratio of qualified people already here. Anything else lowers living standards and makes a right wing reaction inevitable.

Here's what happens when you build more housing: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-25/one-hour-delays-along...

Re: San Diego rents declined following surge in supply

#230

Post by vkou »

noosphr wrote: post #229
vkou wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The social safety net has collapsed _today_. It can always collapse more. Ask anyone who lived through an actual economic collapse. (As opposed to the kinds of minor corrections that the West has seen over the past few decades.) Your imagination is very limited if you can't think of what the long-term consequence for a country with an average age of 41.6, a fertility rate of 1.25, and a huge political block of nati…

Destroy your society today so it doesn't get potentially destroyed in 30 years is certainly a take. >You solve a housing shortage by... Building more housing. It's not housing. It's roads. Hospitals. Schools. Sewers. Power lines. Everything needs to be rebuilt. That means that the immigrants who are coming in must be engineers, doctors, teachers, tradies. Instead we get uber drivers and IT consultants. There aren't e…

> Destroy your society today so it doesn't get potentially destroyed in 30 years is certainly a take.

Immigrants coming in today aren't 'destroying society'.

And it's not 'potentially'. It's certainly. Nativists have no answers to it, and if they actually presented the dilemma of 'We can keep Pablo out, and also anyone currently under the age of 40 will have to work until they are 75', not a single person would give their ideas a moment of thought.

> It's roads. Hospitals. Schools. Sewers. Power lines. Everything needs to be rebuilt.

Why does it need to be rebuilt on anything beyond a regular depreciation schedule in a steady-population situation?

And by the way - Canada needs to invite at least half a million people a year in order to maintain the population at a steady-state. That number is the table stakes.

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