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Average Rent in San Francisco Has Dropped $1k This Year

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Re: Average Rent in San Francisco Has Dropped $1k This Year

#321

Post by SllX »

nostrademons wrote: post #251
sokoloff wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because renting in SF trades off in part against buying in SF at the margins (and against renting nearby to SF and against moving out of SF entirely). If buying in SF becomes more expensive due to an LVT, then renting becomes more competitive on the margin. I find it to be strangely magical thinking that land-value-taxes will precisely and surgically extract 100% of their value from landlords with no players in the g…

The point of LVTs is precisely to alter participants' behavior in the market. The value of LVTs is in aligning incentives so that landlords have an incentive to build more housing and use it more efficiently. It makes vacancy & speculation a money-losing endeavor (the same way that inflation makes holding cash a money-losing endeavor), and creates political pressure to repeal zoning laws and create smart public impro…

> The point of LVTs is precisely to alter participants' behavior in the market.

Maybe this is the point to its proponents. However:

> Its value as a revenue source is secondary, and many proponents (of the geolibertarian sort) actually support lower tax receipts and smaller government.

Statements like this muddy tax discussions.

The primary reason for any tax at all, regardless of type or preference is to raise revenue for government. That fact shouldn’t be lost when discussing which kinds of taxes and what percent to raise them at is discussed, even when optimizing for political outcomes.

If the government were raising more tax than it needs for example, tax revenue is too high. If the government is spending more than it is collecting, then tax revenue is too low. Effects on market behavior are always secondary considerations.

Re: Average Rent in San Francisco Has Dropped $1k This Year

#322

Post by MichaelZuo »

bluedino wrote: post #44
the-dude wrote: post #10

I have somewhat inside info about a drop in rent for commercial real estate in a high end shopping street in NL ( The Netherlands ). This is unheard of, real estate owners rather keep a shop vacant than drop the rent. I think we have seen nothing yet in commercial real estate, obviously not limited to SF or NL.

There ar e plenty of commercial buildings in the USA that have been empty twenty years.

Really? Any in/near a major city?

Re: Average Rent in San Francisco Has Dropped $1k This Year

#323

Post by ric2b »

imtringued wrote: post #274
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most people doubt supply and demand to some degree. How often have you seen someone argue we should secure the supply of food to disaster zones by repealing price gouging laws? Rent control is popular because many people believe, wrongly but wholeheartedly, that landlords are just price gougers and everyone could get cheap adequate housing if they weren’t manipulating it.

The supply and demand based solution to price gouging is to make the government guarantee access to the good at the desired price. Price gouging laws themselves don't solve the problem. If anything, the government can pretend that the problem has been solved and block any potential resolution. They can make the problem far worse. I'll say it over and over again. If you want to fix the economics then you must fix phys…

> The supply and demand based solution to price gouging is to make the government guarantee access to the good at the desired price.

In a disaster situation that's not so easy to do.

Re: Average Rent in San Francisco Has Dropped $1k This Year

#324

Post by bnralt »

epistasis wrote: post #300
mola wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There so much land in the US. People don't have to live in San Fransisco. These people grew up there, they want to live in their home. You know, that emotional thing that money can't really explain. Sure they see the people arriving in, with huge paychecks that drive prices up, and them out as bad. Any human will, a rational agent won't.

Though this is not an uncommon view in SF at the moment, I find it horrifying. What has made SF such a great place from the 1970s to ~2010 has been its willingness to accept new people, including the strange and the weird. That's not to say that it's been a great city for everyone , the first-wave gentrifiers from the 1960s pushed out Black people from the neighborhoods they took over, like Haight Ashbury, and the do…

That's an odd point of view - you're xenophobic if you don't prioritize unending population increases above all else?

Re: Average Rent in San Francisco Has Dropped $1k This Year

#325

Post by epistasis »

syshum wrote: post #278
tehjoker wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public housing would.

Yes the world needs more Housing Projects, those worked out very well in the past

To paraphrase, poorly, the story of Color of Law by Richard Rothstein:

The housing projects in the US were implemented in extremely racist ways: segregation, then don't maintain the public housing at all. Public housing for white people in the 1930s was great, then with the red scare, the government decided that subsidizing home ownership would prevent the spread of socialism in the US. It was quite effective, but access to cheap home loans and cheap new developments was racially segregated: only new developments that would be largely white would get the FHA-subsidizided home loans. This is the well-documented "red lining."

This led to the economic segregation where the housing projects were only for Black people, were in areas without access to good schools or jobs. It's no wonder the housing projects failed, because they were largely doomed to failure.

Re: Average Rent in San Francisco Has Dropped $1k This Year

#326

Post by kansface »

Ekaros wrote: post #307
Apocryphon wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn’t the rent be too prohibitively expensive at some point, and the landlord will be forced to shift their strategy for recouping the money lost from LVT from lowering rent, to redeveloping it to be a more effective money maker? Such as by building more units and increasing urban densification.

Now what if redevelopment is not possible? Maybe regulation stops it? Actually, if net value of land is negative what will happen to it? That is taxes are more than value and there is no legal way to extract more value...

> Actually, if net value of land is negative what will happen to it?

You would be describing parts of Detroit wherein land is abandoned and the city limits shrink as the cost of providing services increases.

Re: Average Rent in San Francisco Has Dropped $1k This Year

#327

Post by lotsofpulp »

ishjoh wrote: post #108
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most people doubt supply and demand to some degree. How often have you seen someone argue we should secure the supply of food to disaster zones by repealing price gouging laws? Rent control is popular because many people believe, wrongly but wholeheartedly, that landlords are just price gougers and everyone could get cheap adequate housing if they weren’t manipulating it.

What's interesting and something I've witnessed first hand in NYC, that the tenants of rent controlled apartments will setup a black market for their rent controlled apartment in collusion with their landlord. So if they do move they will attempt to sell for the privilege of renting the unit, at the time this could range as high as $50k, the landlord and previous tenant would split this 'fee'. What's incredible is th…

Arbitrage is to always be expected when real market prices don’t match statutory (or nominal) prices.

Re: Average Rent in San Francisco Has Dropped $1k This Year

#328

Post by nitrogen »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #119
pydry wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zoning is a result of NIMBYism. NIMBYism is a result of people who really want to protect the value of their land. Some of these people will be quite desperate to do this because they're highly leveraged. Negative equity is a good incentive to turn up to your local planning meetings and inhibit development.

I think NIMBYism only looks financially attractive because everyone who bought a square of land in a "city" since the 1970s or so and held for at least a decade has won big regardless of where. That doesn't mean that SF/SV isn't forgoing a lot of money in order to keep its NIMBY policy. Think about how much just the squares of land those single family homes and low rise buildings in SV are on would be worth if the SF…

This is because fundamentally people aren't buying houses for "upside", they are buying them because they want somewhere to live.

Re: Average Rent in San Francisco Has Dropped $1k This Year

#329

Post by imtringued »

runarberg wrote: post #219
fennecfoxen wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dear SF, More apartments built are the only thing to make housing more affordable for normal people. But, when you think of them, you're thinking way too small. You need to think in terms of, like, literally doubling the number of apartments available, and they may then be in reach of normal people once more. You also need to get yourself together and reverse that trend where your transit system has carried fewer peo…

> More apartments built are the only thing to make housing more affordable for normal people What? No! Rent control is among other something that can lower the rent for normal people. I know SF has rent control, but currently it only applies as long as you don’t move.

If you want the government to implement an upper bound for housing prices then you must introduce a housing guarantee at a fixed price. The government will be forced to build housing directly and if it cannot do so it can just change the relevant law that prevents it from doing so and then build the housing or reform the law so that there is no imbalance in regards to commercial and residential property which creates an endless supply of jobs but not enough housing for the new workers.

Re: Average Rent in San Francisco Has Dropped $1k This Year

#330

Post by [deleted] »

nostrademons wrote: post #291
0xffff2 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked as a line cook in college. The place I worked was in a HCOL city, but nowhere close to SF. Our general rule was that items should sell for about 4x the cost of ingredients to cover all overhead. I'm a salaried employ with no expectation of overtime, so my opportunity cost to cook for myself is essentially $0/hr, but even if I factor in a fairly reasonable $15/hr for my own labor, I'm still easily under 4x ra…

I think that there are a couple effects here. One is that $15/hr is a dramatic underestimate of the opportunity cost for many of the people who would otherwise be eating out. Minimum wage in Mountain View & Sunnyvale is $16.05/hour. My wife & my salaries, if converted to hourly, would be several hundred / hour. We cook at home because we're salaried and so don't actually reap that opportunity cost in cash, and becaus…

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