San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash • Hacker News Board

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#591

Post by SECProto » Wed, Sep 07, 2022, 12:48 PM UTC

awad wrote: post #565

SECProto wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The whole Bay Area is a NIMBY nest The whole every urban area of North America is a NIMBY nest. Pretty much every city is stuck with swathes of land zoned only for single family homes, with any density needing development agreements and land use change hearings and etc. Some cities are less geographically constrained (more sprawl is possible) or slower growing (the zoning changes can accommodate the growth) but the…

You can search through the New York City zoning map here and would be hard pressed to find areas zoned exclusively for single family homes.... https://zola.planning.nyc.gov/

That's a great mapping tool! Yes, much of NYC would be the exception that proves the rule. However, if you turn on the R-1 to R-4 layers (which corresponds to single and two-family housing with off-street parking required for each unit), you see vast swathes of Queens highlighted in yellow, much of it within a very short walk to rail transit. Check how strict the requirements are for an R-4 Infill development (and then realize that that is much much easier than densification of any other NA city R zoning that I'm aware of)

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#592

Post by jshprentz » Wed, Sep 07, 2022, 1:38 PM UTC

ethbr0 wrote: post #19

ptmcc wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most offices have physical layouts that make conversion to residential difficult to impossible. Big things like lots of interior square footage without windows and plumbing only to a few central locations. And while some or even most of this is fixable, major renovations are a ton of cost and effort to convert them to something that will still be expensive and weird, if even possible to meet the legal requirements of…

Maybe SF should relax the legal requirements of residential space, then? If they choose not to build sufficient housing... they can at least choose to use what they have. A windowless room with a community bathroom doesn't sound appealing, but at a certain price point it's better than nothing.

> A windowless room with a community bathroom doesn't sound appealing, but at a certain price point it's better than nothing.

Last November, HN briefly discussed [1] Munger Hall at the University of California Santa Barbara, which will be just such a building. Housing 4,500 students, only 32 of 512 single rooms on each floor will have physical windows. The remaining 95% will have virtual windows that simulate sunlight.

The HN linked article [2] includes a floor plan and a rendering of an 8-room cluster with shared kitchen, dining room, and bathrooms. UC Santa Barbara has more information on the project [3].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29096773

[2] https://www.dezeen.com/2021/11/02/architect-resigns-grotesqu...

[3] https://sam.ucsb.edu/campus-planning-design/current-projects...

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#593

Post by ulfw » Wed, Sep 07, 2022, 2:51 PM UTC

jshprentz wrote: post #592

ethbr0 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe SF should relax the legal requirements of residential space, then? If they choose not to build sufficient housing... they can at least choose to use what they have. A windowless room with a community bathroom doesn't sound appealing, but at a certain price point it's better than nothing.

> A windowless room with a community bathroom doesn't sound appealing, but at a certain price point it's better than nothing. Last November, HN briefly discussed [1] Munger Hall at the University of California Santa Barbara, which will be just such a building. Housing 4,500 students, only 32 of 512 single rooms on each floor will have physical windows. The remaining 95% will have virtual windows that simulate sunligh…

Terrible way to live for a human being. Hello Matrix.

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#594

Post by JamesBarney » Wed, Sep 07, 2022, 3:34 PM UTC

jfghi wrote: post #389

JamesBarney wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? If you own 10% of the rental units in San Francisco, how do you enforce scarcity except by trying to prevent construction?

I’d claim that if a person owns 10 percent they can afford to fill 9 percent of those and push up prices such that it becomes a net gain. It seems as though housing is priced on the edges of supply and demand and that a slight excess of either can shift prices for the future units being bought or rented. I once spoke with a general manager of a large hotel that explained to me how certain levels of vacancy were targe…

If we in increased or decreases the number of units in San Francisco by 0.1%, i.e. added added 400 units. How much would that affect price?

We can then reason backwards on what's the minimum sized landlord that would benefit from artificially restricting supply.

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#595

Post by sieabahlpark » Wed, Sep 07, 2022, 5:03 PM UTC

silicon2401 wrote: post #80

ethbr0 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe SF should relax the legal requirements of residential space, then? If they choose not to build sufficient housing... they can at least choose to use what they have. A windowless room with a community bathroom doesn't sound appealing, but at a certain price point it's better than nothing.

> Maybe X should relax the legal requirements of Y That's a slippery slope. Lots of legal requirements exist to protect someone. Legal requirements for windows are pretty reasonable to ensure people have at least some bare minimum of access to natural light in their home, rather than just living in a box.

No post body was provided.

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#596

Post by cloverich » Wed, Sep 07, 2022, 5:34 PM UTC

cjbgkagh wrote: post #54

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue that a "crash" isn't really a "crash" if it comes after a 50% increase in 2 years. Anything short of a 20% correction is simply a reversion. If prices shot up 100% in 1 year, and then were down 3% in two months - no one would be talking about a crash.

I generally have the same rule of thumb; not a crash until down 50% from peak. But housing is leveraged. It’s not like stock where few people have margin accounts, a 20% reversion sends most people who bought recently underwater. Plus the size of the real estate market is much bigger than the stock market. The flow-on reverse wealth effect will feel like a stock crash to many people.

But notably its only people who bought recently. I purchased 5 years ago, and our home's price would have to go down by half for us to get back to even, then a bit further to be truly underwater. And that's with us having put down only 5% -- anyone putting 10-20% down would have more buffer still. Someone who purchased 2 years ago might have less of a buffer, but still perhaps 20-30%. Our neighbors who purchased 7 years ago can lose ~70% and still be ok.

Not meant to downplay how awful it can be for some folks, just meant for perspective.

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#597

Post by JeremyNT » Wed, Sep 07, 2022, 6:58 PM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #76

I had always thought the supposed end of automaker dominance Detroit-style doomsday scenario was impossible for S.F., but turns out the normalization of remote work was all it took. The American software industry didn't need to end, it just had to go home.

SF could be a beautiful town in a wonderful location - if only it wasn't so expensive.

The "worst" scenario for SF in the event of a work-from-home sea change is that the COL regresses to a "normal" level for a city with its (impressive) amenities and natural environment, and it stops being propped up due to proximity of so many fatcat tech workers.

"Worst" is in quotation marks for a reason, because this feels like a highly desirable outcome for everybody (except for the fatcat real estate owners doing the rent seeking).

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#598

Post by hahaxdxd123 » Wed, Sep 07, 2022, 7:23 PM UTC

svnt wrote: post #471

hahaxdxd123 wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

brace yourself brace for impact you need to brace before squatting

If these are in frequent use around you may I suggest driving lessons or an increase in dietary fiber?

Perhaps instead I can suggest to you airline travel or an exercise regimen?

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#599

Post by buss » Wed, Sep 07, 2022, 7:27 PM UTC

adameasterling wrote: post #421

buss wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can fix it, but only if we get organized. Sachin Agarwal (co-founder of Posterous) and I founded GrowSF to fix the city. We're less than two years in and already the #2 most influential voter guide in the city. We must elect pro-growth and pro-tech people who can bring competence to government. There's no other way out of this mess. We'd love your support! https://growsf.org/donate

Donated! Huge fan of the voter guide!

Thank you! We can only win together :)

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#600

Post by buss » Wed, Sep 07, 2022, 7:32 PM UTC

fmajid wrote: post #551

buss wrote: post #330

For everyone that lives in San Francisco: the only way we'll be able to fix our city is if we get involved. That means voting and donating to pro-growth and pro-competence political groups. That's why a4agarwal ( https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=a4agarwal ) and I started GrowSF — we can build a better city, but only if the tech industry supports pro-growth policies and elected officials. We'd love your support! h…

I'm a US expat (live in the UK) who is thus still registered to vote in San Francisco. Do us expats a favor and post your endorsements at least 2 months early. Our postal ballots are sent early and most sites procrastinate on their voter guides. For instance I filled and mailed my ballot for the June 2022 elections on April 28th, and I wish SFGate had published their analysis of the primary race for Insurance Commiss…

With universal vote by mail, expats now don't vote too much earlier than voters in the city. For the June 2022 election, voters in SF received their ballots on May 8. So I think you got yours one or two weeks before that?

The deadline for deciding who could appear on the ballot was yesterday, September 6th, for the November 8th election. So ballots should start getting printed today and mailed to expats some time in the next week. So I think you'll get your ballot mid-to-late September.

We're currently on track to publish the voter guide on October 1st, but I'll see if we can get it up any earlier!