A lot more market-rate construction helps low-income renters more than subsidies • Hacker News Board

Re: A lot more market-rate construction helps low-income renters more than subsidies

#51

Post by bjourne » Tue, Mar 24, 2015, 1:38 PM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #16

bjourne wrote: post #9

It's not only a problem in SF, exploding rents is a problem all over the world. But is "barriers to new construction" the problem? No one ever explains those, just blames politicians. But for a property owning corporation it is obviously a poor idea to invest in new apartments because that would reduce the value of the ones they already got. It's not much different from OPEC not wanting to flood the market with oil.

No one ever explains those Examples: + Mission Street between 16th and Ceasar Chavez is a rail corridor. There was a proposal to limit this area to 8 story buildings. SF counterproposed and adopted a height limit which was on a per-property basis the lower of either a) what was presently built there or b) what city staff recommended, to preserve the character of the neighborhood. (Source: http://www.slate.com/blogs/m…

Well, redeveloping existing areas is of course not as simple as building on unused land. From my limited research using Google Streetview, Mission Street looks like a charming neighborhood with many buildings worth preserving.

What about south of San Francisco? Couldn't you build five story or higher apartment buildings there? Again, using Streetview, it looks like there are many newly built suburbs (or maybe they are just well-kept?) but almost all of them are single homes. Which isn't dense enough to solve the housing shortage. Also quite a number of golf courses and country clubs around. :)

Re: A lot more market-rate construction helps low-income renters more than subsidies

#52

Post by tzs » Tue, Mar 24, 2015, 1:39 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #33

collyw wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"it doesn't favor the wealthy but it should" Wtf? How do you get to that conclusion when inequality has been growing for the last 40 years?

A wealthy software developer produces a lot of value in an hour, whereas a poor barista does not. If the developer lives 10 minutes from work while the barista commutes for 1 hour, the developer has more time to spend on productive activities. The world is then better off. This is of course completely tangential to the main point, namely that they both can live in SF if we build more housing .

> If the developer lives 10 minutes from work while the barista commutes for 1 hour, the developer has more time to spend on productive activities. The world is then better off.

You got that completely backwards. A developer can be productive during the commute. Given modern offices with their distractions, an hour commute each way can give a developer much needed time for design and analysis. The barista, on the other hand, does nothing productive while commuting.

Re: A lot more market-rate construction helps low-income renters more than subsidies

#53

Post by icebraining » Tue, Mar 24, 2015, 1:45 PM UTC

whybroke wrote: post #43

yummyfajitas wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets look at a list of megacities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_proper_by_popul... Bangalore, Istanbul, London, Mumbai, NYC and Pune are all wonderful places and I'd be happy to live in any of them. Mumbai in particular is a place I actively plan to spend at least a year in. (I've already lived in NYC, London and Pune.) I can't say I love Delhi or Hyderabad, but you could certainly do worse. By the st…

So if India and all its cities had 4 times as many people would it be better off? The population is so high that wages are so low that talented people are fleeing the country. Indeed if mega-cities were a good thing then Pakistan, Nigeria and the Congo should be doing better than Japan. Excepting just 6 out of 84, your list thoroughly proves my point; over crowding correlates with societies with suppressed labor valu…

Indeed if mega-cities were a good thing then Pakistan, Nigeria and the Congo should be doing better than Japan.

If universal healthcare was a good thing then people in Rwanda should be more healthy than in the US. They aren't, so universal healthcare is bad.

Find the flaw in this argument and you'll find the one in yours.

Re: A lot more market-rate construction helps low-income renters more than subsidies

#54

Post by seanmcdirmid » Tue, Mar 24, 2015, 1:46 PM UTC

escherize wrote: post #40

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In an unrestricted free market, someone would just buy up all the property in a constrained space to corner the market. That has definitely happened before in robber baron days. And honestly, if I wanted to live in a cess pool like Houston, I would move there. Houses are cheap enough (comparatively) but it is a huge icky sprawl.

This buy-up argument is impossible in a free market. Let's say there are 10 people renting apartments that a monopolist plans to buy out, and each of their properties are 'worth' $1, meaning you could reasonably expect to pay $10 for one property. They also rent out their appartments for $1 each. What happens when the monopolist starts buying properties? He buys a few, and they notice he's going for a monopoly. They…

> Let's say there are 10 people renting apartments that a monopolist plans to buy out

You aren't making sense. The monopolist doesn't buy "10 apartments", they just buy the entire building since those 10 people are "renting." You only have to buy from the person who owns the building; even in an non-free market renters have no ownership rights.

> Well, the 10th would be able to rent his land out at nearly the same price as the monopolist, say $2.50. But notice that the 10th property owner didn't have to over-pay for his land, so he will is making way more profits than monopolist, which would price his property out of the range of the monopolist.

When did the 10th renter become a property owner?

And anyways, the monopolist doesn't corner the market directly; they use inside information to buy cheap, and have excess capital to take advantage of market opportunities. How many old west movies are premised on some rich guy trying to buy up all the land in town because they know the railroad is coming through? Those are actually based on "true stories." The late 1800s was full of that.

Re: A lot more market-rate construction helps low-income renters more than subsidies

#55

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Mar 24, 2015, 1:49 PM UTC

waltdisney wrote: post #44

icebraining wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That has definitely happened before in robber baron days. I'm curious, has it really happened at a city level? Seems to me that it would get prohibitively expensive, since other owners would see the massive demand and push up the prices, but that's really just a supposition.

It worked for Walt Disney in Florida.

[deleted]

Re: A lot more market-rate construction helps low-income renters more than subsidies

#56

Post by icebraining » Tue, Mar 24, 2015, 1:52 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #37

icebraining wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That has definitely happened before in robber baron days. I'm curious, has it really happened at a city level? Seems to me that it would get prohibitively expensive, since other owners would see the massive demand and push up the prices, but that's really just a supposition.

You do it when no when is looking (hence robber baron). Best to start when the land is cheap, and when you are going to build infrastructure to increase the value of the property. So the railroads with tracks and stations, amusement park operators (Disney World...), or it could be a factory with lots of jobs in a depressed area.

You said they would "buy up all the property in a constrained space to corner the market". I don't see how your examples apply. What constrained space did Disney World take over? What market did they corner?

Re: A lot more market-rate construction helps low-income renters more than subsidies

#57

Post by icebraining » Tue, Mar 24, 2015, 1:53 PM UTC

waltdisney wrote: post #44

icebraining wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That has definitely happened before in robber baron days. I'm curious, has it really happened at a city level? Seems to me that it would get prohibitively expensive, since other owners would see the massive demand and push up the prices, but that's really just a supposition.

It worked for Walt Disney in Florida.

What constrained space did they buy? Which market did they corner?

Re: A lot more market-rate construction helps low-income renters more than subsidies

#58

Post by icebraining » Tue, Mar 24, 2015, 1:55 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #54

escherize wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This buy-up argument is impossible in a free market. Let's say there are 10 people renting apartments that a monopolist plans to buy out, and each of their properties are 'worth' $1, meaning you could reasonably expect to pay $10 for one property. They also rent out their appartments for $1 each. What happens when the monopolist starts buying properties? He buys a few, and they notice he's going for a monopoly. They…

> Let's say there are 10 people renting apartments that a monopolist plans to buy out You aren't making sense. The monopolist doesn't buy "10 apartments", they just buy the entire building since those 10 people are "renting." You only have to buy from the person who owns the building; even in an non-free market renters have no ownership rights. > Well, the 10th would be able to rent his land out at nearly the same pr…

And anyways, the monopolist doesn't corner the market directly; they use inside information to buy cheap, and have excess capital to take advantage of market opportunities. How many old west movies are premised on some rich guy trying to buy up all the land in town because they know the railroad is coming through?

In what way does that apply to SF?

Re: A lot more market-rate construction helps low-income renters more than subsidies

#59

Post by seanmcdirmid » Tue, Mar 24, 2015, 1:59 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #58

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let's say there are 10 people renting apartments that a monopolist plans to buy out You aren't making sense. The monopolist doesn't buy "10 apartments", they just buy the entire building since those 10 people are "renting." You only have to buy from the person who owns the building; even in an non-free market renters have no ownership rights. > Well, the 10th would be able to rent his land out at nearly the same pr…

And anyways, the monopolist doesn't corner the market directly; they use inside information to buy cheap, and have excess capital to take advantage of market opportunities. How many old west movies are premised on some rich guy trying to buy up all the land in town because they know the railroad is coming through? In what way does that apply to SF?

Today, tomorrow, or yesterday?

SF is already sold out, so it doesn't apply at all; there is nowhere to build and all the property is spoken for. It might have applied 110 years ago after the great fire, or even in the early 90s after the S&L crisis, but not today.

Re: A lot more market-rate construction helps low-income renters more than subsidies

#60

Post by whybroke » Tue, Mar 24, 2015, 2:06 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #53

whybroke wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if India and all its cities had 4 times as many people would it be better off? The population is so high that wages are so low that talented people are fleeing the country. Indeed if mega-cities were a good thing then Pakistan, Nigeria and the Congo should be doing better than Japan. Excepting just 6 out of 84, your list thoroughly proves my point; over crowding correlates with societies with suppressed labor valu…

Indeed if mega-cities were a good thing then Pakistan, Nigeria and the Congo should be doing better than Japan. If universal healthcare was a good thing then people in Rwanda should be more healthy than in the US. They aren't, so universal healthcare is bad. Find the flaw in this argument and you'll find the one in yours.

41/58 countries with universal healthcare are in the developed world.

84/100 mega-cites are in the third world.

I don't know how this could confuse you but feel free to google inductive reasoning.