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What? Do you think it's insane to say that billionaires should be put to death?
San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident
81–90 of 204 posts
Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is an easy solution preventing empty homes in markets with a high rate of vacant homes combined with a high rate of involuntary homeless: a tax of 40% of the value as recorded at deed transfer per year of emptiness. Exceptions only given in case of reasonable vacancy (e.g. due to construction works or damages). If the property ends up vacant for 2 years, government appoints random renters - for a maximum rent n…
I think this is the kernel of a great idea. Empty homes in urban areas especially ought to be relatively rare and we need to have ways to incentivize utilization--with both carrot and stick.
I think the main idea is what's known as a vacancy tax. If people want to park their money in SF property but not use it, that's fine, they'll just have to pay more.
Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident
#83You can't build yourself out of the housing crisis when the problem is one of distribution, not one of supply. The idea that housing should be treated as an investment is, itself , the problem. How can you want housing to be affordable while also wanting housing to gain in value, i.e. increase in cost? These are completely contradictory aims. Zoom out for a second and consider how wild it is that we turned a life nec…
> the housing crisis when the problem is one of distribution, not one of supply. What’s your thesis for this? If the supply suddenly quintupled in the Bay Area and the population halved, I doubt we’d be calling it a “housing crisis”. Prices would fall dramatically because of supply.
The constricted supply is very much related to the treatment of primary residences as an investment. Quintupling the supply would definitely cause prices to fall, but any homeowner in their right mind opposes that development because they might lose $500k+ of property value.
Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident
#84Offer property tax incentives to real estate owners who have empty homes if they lease them to tenants that have issues with housing stability at rates they can realistically afford. The owner gets tax benefits. People in need get a home to live in. The city has fewer homeless. All lease income could go towards upkeep.
How about punishing malingering misuse of resources rather than offering a carrot.
Owners incentivized to utilize land, more real estate available, foreign investment squatting suffers.
Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident
#85Empty homes is not a problem.
Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everyone gets to feel good if they can blame "the wealthy foreigners" rather than look at their own crappy housing policies, such as the rampant NIMBYism and huge market distortion from Prop 13. Faceless "wealthy foreigners" are easier to dislike than their own neighbors who show up at planning commission meetings to rant about someone adding an extra bedroom to their home (this is an actual thing I read about in San…
Where I live "wealthy homeowners" are the NIMBYs. They suddenly appear out of nowhere to argue in city council meetings against more housing, then leave their homes empty more than half the year (or all year). That most of them are also foreign is incidental: it'd be just as bad if it were Americans doing this.
Foreigners cannot vote, so it seems odd that the city council would pay that much attention to them.
My point is that there's a small but persistent current of thought regarding the housing crisis that wants to pin the blame on "wealthy foreigners buying up all our real estate", as sort of an 'out' for taking a good, hard look at local housing policies.
Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident
#87When I lived in San Francisco, the newly built condo building across from me was fully empty (but fully sold) for all the years I lived there. This is a tower in SOMA. There was only one apartment which appeared to be a corporate one that was occasionally utilized. The rise of foreign money parking money in real estate has screwed things up on a global level. San Francisco has felt the brunt of this due to their insa…
There is an easy solution preventing empty homes in markets with a high rate of vacant homes combined with a high rate of involuntary homeless: a tax of 40% of the value as recorded at deed transfer per year of emptiness. Exceptions only given in case of reasonable vacancy (e.g. due to construction works or damages). If the property ends up vacant for 2 years, government appoints random renters - for a maximum rent n…
You would have fared much better if you led with the fact that a similar system is already in place in Berlin.
The comment reads as an extreme solution that no one would ever implement. The fact that it is already implemented somewhere gives it a lot more credibility.
Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The rise of foreign money parking money in real estate has screwed things up on a global level. If the property tax is paid and the maintenance is kept up what is the problem created solely by the fact some homes are empty? The only reason these properties have such high values is because there is a demand that is not being supplied. Supplying more housing makes this a non-issue. > San Francisco has felt the brunt…
The fact that there are so many empty homes should be a bright, shining clue that basic supply vs. demand isn't the only factor at work.
Correlation doesn't equal causation. How would parking money in a depreciating asset benefit a foreign investor? They clearly aren't cashflow positive, so some other outside influence is causing this and it is limited to a few specific cities, so it has to be some localized effect.
Some look at the situation, question what's different about SF that might be causing this, and point to the highly restrictive development laws the city has. These prevent new comers from entering the market leaving only those who are primarily playing the long game and looking to build wide moats. If investors who required a much shorter return could compete, it's assumed the situation would normalize
If this isn't the case, then what is the underlying issue? Simply attacking wealthy people for doing something that is a) completely legal and b) obviously providing them some sort of benefit doesn't solve the underlying problem. To look at it another way, SF has clearly been trying to "solve" this problem through increased regulation for many decades now. Where are the success stories we can point to that show the direct approach is working?
Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident
#89When I lived in San Francisco, the newly built condo building across from me was fully empty (but fully sold) for all the years I lived there. This is a tower in SOMA. There was only one apartment which appeared to be a corporate one that was occasionally utilized. The rise of foreign money parking money in real estate has screwed things up on a global level. San Francisco has felt the brunt of this due to their insa…
I used to be instinctively against stuff like this, but I actually think it’s pretty reasonable now. People outside of a given city/country/etc. have no inherent right to participate in that place. Local residents should only allow outsiders to participate if they derive some benefit from it. Now, that said, there may be unintended consequences to eliminating foreign purchases of real estate.
Vancouver, BC passed something like this a few years ago - it’s a 20% tax on all non-resident home purchases. It has actually stopped house prices from rising so fast, but there are still a bunch of empty homes.
Re: San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident
#90You can't build yourself out of the housing crisis when the problem is one of distribution, not one of supply. The idea that housing should be treated as an investment is, itself , the problem. How can you want housing to be affordable while also wanting housing to gain in value, i.e. increase in cost? These are completely contradictory aims. Zoom out for a second and consider how wild it is that we turned a life nec…
I think there's truth there, but housing distribution solutions never seem to be very elegant.
The way it tends to boil down in my mind is more general philosophical concepts. Starting with the price and cost of housing to me isn't very interesting because market dynamics are what got you here. You want a different city. I want to learn more about what people think that city looks like, and then think about solutions from there.
How do you decide who gets to live in SF (or insert city here)? Prioritize people who were born there? Whose family has history? People who have jobs there? What about self-employed people? People with kids? A lottery system?