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Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town

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Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town

#571

Post by drfuchs »

DrScump wrote: post #544
drfuchs wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parts of Palo Alto were very blue collar post WWII. I knew one nonagenarian who bought his house new in 1949 for $10k, and it sold, unimproved, for $2.2m on his death over a year ago. Also a centenarian still living in her original 1950 $10k house that Zillow now estimates at $2.3m. So, there's 220x gains. Clearly, all the value is in the land. Property tax in 2013 was about $1k in both cases; both have new neighbors…

In nominal dollars . I really doubt that. I just checked a friend's house who has lived in PA since 1952, and they are paying $3200. Anybody can look up what actual property taxes are paid here: https://payments.sccgov.org/propertytax/Secured

Exactly the site I used. Exactly $1121.80 for 2013 (in both cases; same development, same lot size, so must have been same price).

Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town

#572

Post by ksec »

msvan wrote: post #143
skewart wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"1. Build really tall. Hasn't worked out all that great in Hong Kong, though." What do you mean when you say it hasn't worked out great in Hong Kong? Is it because prices are still high in a lot of neighborhoods there? I'd say the build-really-tall strategy has worked out quite well in HK. There is a range of affordability in close proximity with good transit, and lots of parks and open space. It's a remarkably livab…

I'm basing my judgment on hearsay. I was under the impression that HK property prices were through the roof, so I stand corrected.

The price are through the roof, and you have to compare it to Median salary. The price per Square Feet / or Square Meter is expensive.

Of coz if you are working in Hong Kong as a wealthy individual you would have no problem enjoying everything HK has to offer. This is the same as any other place in the world.

https://twitter.com/FIVRE604/status/697822416894951424

You have to also include the City and State difference. Vancouver has a problem with Median Salary to Housing price at 10, and Sydney is at 12. Hong Kong is 19. Which means if HK property prices dropped by 50% it will still be around the same level as Vancouver.......

Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town

#573

Post by ksec »

There are lots and lots of empty Housing from Tokyo, HK and Sydney and Vancouver, most belongs to Chinese investors. We have empty housing sitting here, acting as a way to park money and yet we have so many suffer from housing price inflation.

If we Tax of empty housing for prolong period of time, like 6 months, which should force the owner to rent out its place, balancing some of the supply and demand issue.

IT DOES NOT solve the housing issues. Far from it, but it is one fair way to get more money to government and stop the price hiking so much.

Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town

#574

Post by surfmike »

vehementi wrote: post #522
surfmike wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An expensive house doesn't make you richer unless you're selling it and live somewhere cheaper. And in our society it's a given that predictability of costs is one of the benefits you get from buying a house.

Okay, and? So they can and should go and do that. Are you insinuating it is a hardship that they have the option to liquidate and easily move to a cheaper area and pocket a million dollars?

Yes, especially since it's not because of anything they've done. Being forced to leave where you've lived your life, where your friends and family is, because of money is definitely a hardship.

Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town

#575

Post by krakensden »

maxsilver wrote: post #195
jseliger wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

San Francisco is an outlier given the extremely dense concentration of high paying jobs which drove housing into orbit San Francisco's housing policies drove housing into orbit: http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/ . There are numerous other discussions of this: http://www.amazon.com/TheRent-Too-Damn-High-Matters-ebook/dp... . We have the technology to build lots of units (steel-frame construction, elevators)…

Would that actually solve the problem? Is there anywhere in America where steel frame construction + concrete walls + elevators is affordable to regular people? Is there even one example of this happening in the real world? I haven't found any examples, except in already hyper-wealthy neighborhoods, or in 40+ yr old buildings in cities that became significantly less desirable, due to very high crime/poverty/etc. (Det…

Seattle is currently enjoying falling rents, and is the kind of hip coastal city that people care about: http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/2015/11/bad-timingas...

For more dramatic numbers, including low prices and a booming population for many years, you should look at Houston, Texas, Hero Of Housing Capitalism.

Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town

#576

Post by yason »

adiabatty wrote: post #546
rayiner wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about raising more money, it's about fairly apportioning the tax burden. Why should two homeowners with the same value of property pay different amounts of taxes just because one is old and has owned the house a long time?

On the other hand, why should your tax bill go up simply because other people are willing to spend increasingly large amounts of money to buy a house like yours? It's not like income tax where your tax bill only goes up when you get more money to pay it with.

The taxes should indeed go up to optimize land use in general.

If you have a house built in 1902 in the middle of a big city, you're paying minimal taxes and find yourself surrounded by high-rises, it's very inefficient land use. Your lot could provide housing for hundreds if not thousands of people if another high-rise was built there.

Thus, you should either pay for your privilege (in taxes) or sell the lot (for a lot of money, presumably) to let other people use the space more efficiently.

However, I must say that a property tax itself is a wicked one and should be replaced by land value tax. Land is more valuable in the centre than in the outskirts of the city, so when properly taxed it creates the tendency to increase density of the highly taxed land and allows for more liberal land use where nobody else wants to build.

Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town

#577

Post by specialist »

gorkemyurt wrote: post #211

One of the main reasons of the housing crisis in the Bay Area is Prop 13 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(197... ) Prop 13 basically keeps the property taxes constant (or 1% increase) as the value of your house increases (doubles or triples). Your tax gets re-calculated only if you sell your house and the new owner starts paying potentially multiples of what the previous owner has been payin…

While Prop 13 is terrible, it's the not cause of the housing shortage (or bubble).

Land use policy is the cause, preventing supply to meet demand.

California’s High Housing Costs: Causes and Consequences

http://www.lao.ca.gov/reports/2015/finance/housing-costs/hou...

"Building Less Housing Than People Demand Drives High Housing Costs. California is a desirable place to live. Yet not enough housing exists in the state’s major coastal communities to accommodate all of the households that want to live there. In these areas, community resistance to housing, environmental policies, lack of fiscal incentives for local governments to approve housing, and limited land constrains new housing construction. A shortage of housing along California’s coast means households wishing to live there compete for limited housing. This competition bids up home prices and rents. Some people who find California’s coast unaffordable turn instead to California’s inland communities, causing prices there to rise as well. In addition to a shortage of housing, high land and construction costs also play some role in high housing prices."

Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town

#578

Post by Spooky23 »

gorkemyurt wrote: post #211

One of the main reasons of the housing crisis in the Bay Area is Prop 13 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(197... ) Prop 13 basically keeps the property taxes constant (or 1% increase) as the value of your house increases (doubles or triples). Your tax gets re-calculated only if you sell your house and the new owner starts paying potentially multiples of what the previous owner has been payin…

Prop 13 is certainly unfair policy, but is almost certainly not a causal factor.

New York is a great example of a place with runaway train property taxes and perennial housing shortages in the NYC Metro area.

Property tax escalation creates vicious cycles, vaporizing buying power and creating disincentives for property maintenance, especially in older houses and poor neighborhoods.

In those areas, government aid programs create a housing price floor, so property owners maintain the minimum requirements for habitability, run the property down to zero value, and walk away.

Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town

#579

Post by rayiner »

adiabatty wrote: post #546
rayiner wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about raising more money, it's about fairly apportioning the tax burden. Why should two homeowners with the same value of property pay different amounts of taxes just because one is old and has owned the house a long time?

On the other hand, why should your tax bill go up simply because other people are willing to spend increasingly large amounts of money to buy a house like yours? It's not like income tax where your tax bill only goes up when you get more money to pay it with.

Your tax bill doesn't go up just because the value of your house goes up. Your municipality has to vote to spend that extra tax revenue instead of cutting property tax rates. If they do that (and remember old people are the dominant demographic of voters), why shouldn't people pay more?

Re: Without affordable housing, Vancouver risks becoming an economic ghost town

#580

Post by webmaven »

api wrote: post #428
msvan wrote: post #82

It seems like many major cities of the world are experiencing this problem, and no city has been able to come up with a good solution. It always leads to displacement and newspaper articles about displacement, but no real solutions. Here are a couple of solutions: 1. Build really tall. Hasn't worked out all that great in Hong Kong, though. 2. Rent control. This is often unfair and inflates price of non-rent controlle…

I think it's a symptom of something else: the hyper-centralization of relevance and cultural center of gravity in only a few places. When I was younger (1990s), I don't remember it mattering so much where you were located. I've spoken to older people and they concur: they've all said that when they were young being in, say, Indianapolis or Toledo was not a big deal. Today, at least in the USA, there's a strong sense…

I agree that this is the status quo re: startups, but the high water mark was probably a couple of years ago, with the caveats that there have long been 'SV' startups that have or keep all or most of their engineering in an offshore location, say in Israel, with only the corporate office and upper management / sales moving to SV after VC investment.

However, now we're seeing two things happen:

* Several cities technically in 'flyover country' (eg. Boulder CO, Austin TX, etc.) have already built brands/ecosystems as startup hubs, and more cities are trying to copy their example rather than 'become the next SV'.

* Some fully geographically distributed companies (eg. Automattic, Buffer) are gaining visibility as success stories, and although they are still the exception, I expect more new startups to try and copy them, if only because Bay Area COL is now so ridiculously high.

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