571–580 of 1001 posts
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When regulations allow for denser housing land prices go up because you can put more rentable dwellings in the same space.
Land prices go up because that's what it's worth. If the government says "you can't do this profitable stuff on your land", then the land is less valuable.
This seems like a bad solution to a problem (housing shortage @ current market prices) with an obvious solution (allow more housing to be built).
It’s almost like the politicians pushing for this policy don’t value the input of experts and the application of research, but instead are only interested in solutions that sound good at the most superficial level. Golly!
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> Turnabout is fair play. The biggest myth is that this kind of stuff actually helps the less-powerful. In reality, it just means they are hurt twice: government artificially suppressing supply, and government manipulating prices which has bad side effects for mamy even if its good for a few. Also, in reality, the powerful often don't get hurt, and arbitrary market manipulations just introduce new ways for them to ge…
Give me a break. Until suppression of building new units stops (by poor, helpless owners), this is the only recourse. I agree wholeheartedly that the real solution is to build more homes but that doesn't appear to be in the cards. So the idea that rent control doesn't actually help lower income people is _completely_ nuts. I know of many people off the top of my head that no-way would still be living in San Francisco…
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I'm not a landlord or homeowner, and 1 makes me cry Big Government. What if something crazy happens to the economy, say the dollar gets devalued, and all you have is rental property for income? Realistically you would raise your rental price.... But wait, there's a cap, and you can't. 2) "legalizing backyard cottages" is actually against Big Government, and I'm with you there. You're forgetting another option: deregu…
- If the dollar gets devalued, other things will drop in price as well - Laws can change in this case, as they have here. laws are a dynamic system - If you are making money from rental properties only, that means you own properties (as well as your own house in theory). Not only are you more well off than almost all the population, but you have goods that are worth a lot of money that you can sell (maybe at a loss b…
When a currency is devalued, the price of things denominated in that currency increases.
> Laws can change in this case, as they have here. laws are a dynamic system
If you're going to pass a law allowing a rent increase every time the market would cause there to be a rent increase, I can suggest a much simpler alternative.
> If you are making money from rental properties only, that means you own properties (as well as your own house in theory). Not only are you more well off than almost all the population, but you have goods that are worth a lot of money that you can sell (maybe at a loss but you still have a roof over your own head).
That is not a valid assumption. Many small time landlords "own" the apartment building that they live in, but really the bank owns most of it and the rent is only enough to pay the mortgage and their own salary for managing the building. Require the rent to be capped at a level that causes the building to be worth less than the amount that you owe on the mortgage and there isn't anything for you to sell while you "still having a roof over your own head" -- you're just going to file for bankruptcy and have nothing.
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Social housing just manifests the imbalance in waiting lists instead of prices. It's not like people who get stuck in the queue are having a better time than people who can't afford the market rate. Building more housing in desirable places to accomodate shifting demand and growing population is just as important under social housing, but even less likely, since the demand is totally disconnected from the incentives…
>Social housing just manifests the imbalance in waiting lists instead of prices. It's not like people who get stuck in the queue are having a better time than people who can't afford the market rate. This is under the assumption that demand often outstrips supply. That's actually less likely to be true with an effective social housing policy in place. >Building more housing in desirable places to accomodate shifting…
If San Francisco's incumbents were okay with their city looking like Singapore, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
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Pernicious attacks on landlords because of some perceived collusion amongst them is ugly. The landlords aren't any more to blame for the lack of supply than their tenants or the politicians. There's obviously money to be had in leveling a block of houses and increasing the population density by 10-30 times the amount. The market demand is extremely high. Real estate developers would jump at the chance to do so if the…
They may not be some grand cabal, but if biggerpockets.com posts are anything to go by, I have no qualms with any pernicious attacks against them. Ruthless capitalism and fundamental human needs do not mix well.
I dunno. I don't have much trouble finding reasonably priced, nutritious, and tasty food (cooked or as ingredients) anywhere I've visited in the world. Yet food is governed by ruthless capitalism, no? Surely we wouldn't argue that farm subsidies are all that's standing in the way between people getting a decent meal and chaos?
What about...petroleum? Like it or not, it's necessary for survival today. Absolutely ruthless capitalism at play, and at the hands of a lot of people we don't like. And yet...the system works pretty ok, I think? The last major oil shock we had was in the '70s -- not bad, considering how many financial crises we've had since then.
I don't get what is your proposed alternative to "ruthless capitalism" for housing. Are you proposing "single payer housing"? Or a "guaranteed public option"? Or is the idea to have more of a "centrally planned" housing market, where the means of production^W^W^Whousing stock is owned by The People but decisions about how to employ the housing stock is made by the government?
There's three paths: 1) Rent cap landlords. The landlords will cry Big Government. 2) Abolish single family-only zoning and legalize backyard cottages, townhomes and small apartments. The homeowners will cry Big Government. 3) Do nothing. Watch as more people start living in tents or endure super-commutes that snarl your traffic and worsen climate change.
I'm not a landlord or homeowner, and 1 makes me cry Big Government. What if something crazy happens to the economy, say the dollar gets devalued, and all you have is rental property for income? Realistically you would raise your rental price.... But wait, there's a cap, and you can't. 2) "legalizing backyard cottages" is actually against Big Government, and I'm with you there. You're forgetting another option: deregu…
The criticism is that big government (state level) is blocking smaller governments (cities) from making policies that fit the smaller community.
It's effectively a option on future rent prices... it shouldn't be particularly hard to value numerically.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Turnabout is fair play. The biggest myth is that this kind of stuff actually helps the less-powerful. In reality, it just means they are hurt twice: government artificially suppressing supply, and government manipulating prices which has bad side effects for mamy even if its good for a few. Also, in reality, the powerful often don't get hurt, and arbitrary market manipulations just introduce new ways for them to ge…
> manipulating prices which has bad side effects for many even if its good for a few. There are way more renters than owners. Prices have been going up more than 5%. Owners are most definitely not the "less-powerful" here. So in reality the gov't might be artificially surpressing supply (though it's mostly due to owner pushback), but the "manipulating prices" (trying to keep rent growth from getting out of control) i…