California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one • Hacker News Board

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#91

Post by throwaway0a5e » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 9:33 PM UTC

asdff wrote: post #74

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Most cities in the country also have their own housing crises. No they don't. The ones that do are the ones who's housing market is all jacked up by California money that wants off the sinking ship.

The Midwesterner shouldn't fear the Californian. That's a boogyman. The Midwesterner however, should have a real fear of their fellow wealthy Midwesterners, who will go from one house to 2.5 on average after their children come of age and outbid the middle class midwesterner for the limited housing stock available in predominantly single family home cities.

I specifically said "california money" on purpose.

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#92

Post by dorchadas » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 9:34 PM UTC

Guest42 wrote: post #56

majormajor wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Demonizing single family houses seems rather dated in 2021. Single family home prices are surging in much of California too (while apartment prices and condo prices... not so much!), it's not just "everyone is fleeing!" California was short on both types of housing - what has changed is that it is in even higher demand now! And if remote work continues after COVID, that will continue. Add to that more efficient elect…

From my observations it seems as though many houses and apartments are intentionally left empty and one possible approach towards improving housing availability is to disincentive this practice by increasing property taxes on those.

Not necessarily California specific, but more in touristy spots: They're also being let out on AirBnB to short term tourists. It's done a huge number on available housing in many markets. Dublin, for instance, say the long-term rental supply double from August of 2019 to August of 2020 because of all the AirBnB residences looking to keep making money and thus returning to the long-term rental market. Hopefully they'll stay on that market (and more will follow), and AirBnB can disappear.

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#93

Post by majormajor » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 9:35 PM UTC

shuckles wrote: post #73

majormajor wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's where the government aspect comes in. But again, what you decry as "non-sensical" instead seems like it could also just be called "response of a community towards potential market failure modes." You are ascribing moral blame to just one side of a more complicated situation. It would be like if all I was talking about is how big developers bribe local governments to get permits to build their shit - neith…

I really don't understand your both sides argument. One side takes advantage of the fact that zoning is a local matter to advantage incumbents at huge expense to society at large. It also creates the bureaucratic infrastructure that favors large developers who can pay bribes informally (literal bribes) or formally (impact fees). The other side is all future residents who might want to live in a quadplex where a SFH e…

If you want to change their minds, and change housing policies in major US cities... you may want to try harder to understand why people want single family homes, and why they don't see zoning as evil. You've got a lot of minds to change!

Both sides are understandable to me because those hypothetical future residents have the entire rest of the country to choose from. I don't know why the current residents shouldn't be able to expect to make the rules they want. Yes, it's what they want versus what other people want... that's unavoidable! It's the other side of the "if you want to continue living in a less dense area, go move somewhere more rural (until we pick it for densification too)" coin.

Some folks think the tiebreaker here is that cities are more sustainable, but that doesn't avoid the problem that if you want to move more people into denser housing, some people aren't going to be able to get what they want.

I find both sides understandable because I don't expect anyone to be happy when people more powerful than them tell them they can't have what they want.

Can you really not understand why someone would be unhappy with someone else coming in and saying "I have the right to change your life?" Why "well you better be rich enough to own the land for the entire neighborhood" is a hollow response?

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#94

Post by shuckles » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 9:35 PM UTC

lisper wrote: post #84

shuckles wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough. Steve Waldman described about this mentality pretty well here: https://www.interfluidity.com/v2/6287.html This is not as divorced from property values as you believe. The features of suburbs you like such as low-crime (usually coded as "quiet"), amenities, good schools, access to jobs through a quick commute etc. are exactly what give them their high value. However, the single family home subdivision sub…

> low-crime (usually coded as "quiet") In my case, quiet is not code for low-crime. I meant it literally. I lived for a long time (20+ years) in loud neighborhoods with lots of traffic noise and screaming kids (literally -- one place I lived was next to a house that was used as a day-care center) and mockingbirds which kept me up at night because our house had no A/C so we had to keep the windows open at night. My ma…

> I live in the foothills of the Santa Cruz mountains...If all of Silicon Valley were depopulated I think my neighborhood would still be a perfectly fine place to live.

Humboldt Country is a beautiful and high poverty part of the state with poor municipal services. I have no reason to believe the Santa Cruz wouldn't be the same without expensive urban infrastructure, not to mention the money we do and need to continue spending to minimize the risk of fire to your property.

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#95

Post by mschuster91 » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 9:37 PM UTC

majormajor wrote: post #29

spamizbad wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The challenge you have is that people view housing as an investment . Americans expect their home values to keep pace with inflation. And because housing values are so expensive, there's a tremendous amount of psychological pressure to "preserve" what they've purchased beyond their own property line (eg: "Neighborhood character"). For these reason, they're going to oppose any new supply entering the market. The only…

That's not the big challenge. Upzoning and higher density increases the value of the land. That's why developers want to do it in the first place. Cashing out when someone wants to buy up your neighborhood's land, and getting something nicer somewhere else, would be the purely-financial play. The big challenge is that people chose to live in a certain place because it had certain features. And people don't want to ha…

> The big challenge is that people chose to live in a certain place because it had certain features

In Germany, the most sought-after features are quality mobile ans landline internet, as well as decent public transit.

The problem is that our Conservative politicians outright sabotaged (Kohl with fibre vs cable TV, Schröder with the UMTS frequency auction) or, at best, simply sat doing nothing (Merkel) any efforts to improve this situation.

The result? Everyone who can flees for the cities, while the rural areas generally only house those "left behind".

And then politicians complain about exploding rents in cities or people leaving rural areas... well, d'oh, who would have thought young people and modern jobs require Internet.

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#96

Post by throwawayboise » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 9:38 PM UTC

asdff wrote: post #4

Nowhere is building enough housing for growth. In low cost of living places, chances are if you look at population data, the metro region has been stagnant for decades which has alleviated pressure on supply. In any area with growth at all, prices rise because we don't build actual dense housing like we did before WWII (when row houses and mixed use development in walking distance to frequent public transit were the…

> we don't build actual dense housing like we did before WWII

Because that's not what is profitable for new construction. Builders will build what they can make the most money on. It's not a bad thing -- it's still an increase in housing and every new home sold or rented opens up an older home somewhere for a (probably) less wealthy person, and so on down the line.

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#97

Post by asdff » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 9:39 PM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #38

kwk1 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your quote chopped off an important qualifier present in the original comment.

Explain? The fact that the population of greater Houston has more than doubled in 30 years tends to support the idea that they are building enough for growth. They've got a city the size of Berkeley that didn't even exist 50 years ago.

That's not the case, unless you consider tenement conditions acceptable. The working class in these cities aren't suddenly affording $2000 in rent, they are simply cramming more people and more incomes into smaller apartments (1). In Houston over the last 10 years alone, some neighborhoods rate of overcrowding has gone up well over 100% (2). No, Houston is not building enough either, and paying for the population increase by sacrificing the quality of life of the overcrowded working poor, and pushing the middle class out of the city and elsewhere.

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/23/us/los-angeles-crowded-co...

2. https://kinder.rice.edu/sites/default/files/documents/KI%20R...

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#98

Post by shuckles » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 9:39 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #17

slowmovintarget wrote: post #3

Thesis of the article: Californians are fleeing California and causing the same housing pressure in the spots they flee to. The real question is whether these other locations can avoid the high-density housing NIMBY response that became entrenched in California. It isn't just a matter of income disparity, which the article pivots to. It's also a matter of density and demand.

> Thesis of the article: Californians are fleeing California and causing the same housing pressure in the spots they flee to. Anecdotally, it seems true. Utah housing used to be cheap, but now in Salt Lake valley the prices are just exploding as tons of Californians move to the tech hubs near Lehi and SLC and buy up all the houses with cash

If your housing market's affordability depended on everyone living in the area having low incomes, maybe it's not any better than California's housing market.

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#99

Post by jeffbee » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 9:43 PM UTC

majormajor wrote: post #80

jeffbee wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you believe that fertility is negatively associated with prosperity, then the idea that people will buy these houses because they have children is especially wrong.

But will they want those houses, though... The crisis described here is that more people want them than can get them. So if the trend is that more people will want standalone houses specifically , versus just any sort of housing unit, proposed solutions that reduce the supply of them are bound to backfire for areas that implement them. Basically: is this the start of a different era in terms of demand profiles, drive…

But why are we treating fertility as exogenous, rather than as a choice? Fertility is not exogenous. Demographers are predicting a 15% decline in live births in 2021 in the US, because women are choosing against pregnancy. It is long-studied and well-known that unemployment also depresses fertility. The idea that people will have children and buy houses just because they turn 30 is silly. They will not have children and they will not buy houses unless the environment in which those appear to be rational choices is established.

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#100

Post by nutshell89 » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 9:45 PM UTC

The problem is that not only is there zero appetite to phase out housing-as-investment boosting policies like the mortgage interest deduction, imputed rent exemption, and cap gains exemption at the federal level, en vogue affordable housing strategies have focused on keeping interest rates low, providing 1st time home-buyer tax credits, and strengthening fair lending regulations.

The U.S.(western nations with high housing costs really) are drunk on the housing-as-investment model, and zoning increases and / or social housing positive policies will always take a back seat when speculative profits are involved.