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Here in CA we're riding one hella of a Macro bubble that no one sees. This certainly can't continue. The unwillingness of voters to expand the housing supply

Here in CA we're riding one hella of a Macro bubble that no one sees. This certainly can't continue. The unwillingness of voters to expand the housing supply is one the greatest social ills of our time. I can accept and understand that those who benefit don't want to address the issue. But, there are countless many who don't benefit from it at all. Why is this not a great national issue of enormous debate? Why is there so little visibility? everytime i see a list of voter related issues, housing is never mentioned. Shelter is a fundamental human need - it's at the very bottom of maslow's hierarchy of needs. If humanity can't even get past this bottom layer, we're not going anywhere. The entire concept of real estate is wrong. You hear it all the time. Whenever real estate prices go up, people react like it's a good thing - it's not. For society to make progress, prices must come down. It's not just for those who don't have a home. Property owners should benefit too, with lower tax bills. Of course prop 13 creates more perverse incentives than i can count... I could go on, but we've already discussed this millions of times.

closeparen 9y ago
They benefit in the form of less congested streets and easy-to-find parking, light coming through their windows (rather than blocked by tall buildings across the street), low building heights giving their neighborhoods a familiar small-town feeling, etc. To be clear, I think it's unconscionable that we prioritize these concerns when rents are so high, but average people absolutely do benefit from restrictions on housing supply as long as they are secure in long-ago mortgages and grandfathered rent control. One of the NIMBY talking points is that upzoning creates a profit incentive to destroy rent-controlled buildings and replace them with higher-density market-rate buildings. Rent-controlled lease holders actually become more secure in their positions when the neighborhood downzones. This is really about seniority/tenure in an area, and if there's any serious reform, it will likely be to further protect those with grandfather status from newcomers.
gwbas1c 9y ago
> Whenever real estate prices go up, people react like it's a good thing The problem is that, based on how things work, a significant amount of our assets are tied up in real estate. If you're a homeowner and your home's value tanks compared to the rest of the market, you're screwed! You can't move to another place because you've lost all of the money that you put into your home. It gets even worse if you need the money: Think of elderly who sell their homes and use the profits to pay for assisted living. Or, look at how we pay for education: We use our homes as collateral for education loans!
- landryraccoon 9y ago
  In the long run this hurts even the homeowners. They can never move and they're slaves to the needs of their home. At that point the home is equally a liability as well as an asset; if so much of your worth is tied up in it that you are destroyed if anything happens to it, isn't that slavery not freedom? Sure they may feel some selfish benefit if housing prices go up but it's a terrible prisoner's dilemma - everyone else's home values are going up as well; so you can never sell or move. For people that have a home because they need a place to live and not as an investment, that's not wealth, it's just a number on paper.
  - nerfhammer 9y ago
    Just move to a cheaper part of the country and then illegally rent it out. This lets you profiteer off of more than one side of the shortage. You don't have to give up that property you don't particularly need anymore but could never acquire again. I know plenty of examples of people doing this.
mancerayder 9y ago
Why is this not a great national issue of enormous debate? Why is there so little visibility? everytime i see a list of voter related issues, housing is never mentioned. Good question, but I think the answer is that it's simply not a national issue. In New York City, you can bet that it's a campaign issue across local politicians, and it's in the news weekly. Also, it's not true that one 'can't build' in NYC due to regulations. While there are regulations (as one would expect of a highly densely populated city), there's plenty of building. The price of land, however, is obscene. Meanwhile, that $1M condo that's one bedroom apartment you purchased in Manhattan (in Manhattan it's probably small) or even the $800K 2 bedroom you purchased in Brooklyn (in a cheaper part of Brooklyn, like Bed Stuy or Bushwick), you could live like a Sheikh in a place like Omaha, NE or (perhaps) Dallas, TX. Hotpots like SF, NYC, Boston and so on - the smaller, dense cities with jobs and no land left - no so much. It's not a national issue. Everyone wants to live in California because you get nice weather, high salaries and cannabis edibles rain from the sky. You're a victim of your own success.
- tdb7893 9y ago
  I've found that I prefer living in the Midwest and having an extra thousand or so a month for travel and stuff than living in a more hipster city.
  - mywittyname 9y ago
    Midwestern cities are experiencing housing inflation too. Urban houses that were 140k five years ago are well over 200k now.
    - closeparen 9y ago
      Intuitively it seems pretty rare for Midwesterners to live in cities or "urban" houses. Most of us seem to be in the metro areas, but in freeway-connected suburbs, not urban cores.
      - tdb7893 9y ago

closeparen 9y ago

They benefit in the form of less congested streets and easy-to-find parking, light coming through their windows (rather than blocked by tall buildings across the street), low building heights giving their neighborhoods a familiar small-town feeling, etc. To be clear, I think it's unconscionable that we prioritize these concerns when rents are so high, but average people absolutely do benefit from restrictions on housing supply as long as they are secure in long-ago mortgages and grandfathered rent control. One of the NIMBY talking points is that upzoning creates a profit incentive to destroy rent-controlled buildings and replace them with higher-density market-rate buildings. Rent-controlled lease holders actually become more secure in their positions when the neighborhood downzones. This is really about seniority/tenure in an area, and if there's any serious reform, it will likely be to further protect those with grandfather status from newcomers.

gwbas1c 9y ago

> Whenever real estate prices go up, people react like it's a good thing The problem is that, based on how things work, a significant amount of our assets are tied up in real estate. If you're a homeowner and your home's value tanks compared to the rest of the market, you're screwed! You can't move to another place because you've lost all of the money that you put into your home. It gets even worse if you need the money: Think of elderly who sell their homes and use the profits to pay for assisted living. Or, look at how we pay for education: We use our homes as collateral for education loans!

landryraccoon 9y ago
In the long run this hurts even the homeowners. They can never move and they're slaves to the needs of their home. At that point the home is equally a liability as well as an asset; if so much of your worth is tied up in it that you are destroyed if anything happens to it, isn't that slavery not freedom? Sure they may feel some selfish benefit if housing prices go up but it's a terrible prisoner's dilemma - everyone else's home values are going up as well; so you can never sell or move. For people that have a home because they need a place to live and not as an investment, that's not wealth, it's just a number on paper.
- nerfhammer 9y ago
  Just move to a cheaper part of the country and then illegally rent it out. This lets you profiteer off of more than one side of the shortage. You don't have to give up that property you don't particularly need anymore but could never acquire again. I know plenty of examples of people doing this.

mancerayder 9y ago

Why is this not a great national issue of enormous debate? Why is there so little visibility? everytime i see a list of voter related issues, housing is never mentioned. Good question, but I think the answer is that it's simply not a national issue. In New York City, you can bet that it's a campaign issue across local politicians, and it's in the news weekly. Also, it's not true that one 'can't build' in NYC due to regulations. While there are regulations (as one would expect of a highly densely populated city), there's plenty of building. The price of land, however, is obscene. Meanwhile, that $1M condo that's one bedroom apartment you purchased in Manhattan (in Manhattan it's probably small) or even the $800K 2 bedroom you purchased in Brooklyn (in a cheaper part of Brooklyn, like Bed Stuy or Bushwick), you could live like a Sheikh in a place like Omaha, NE or (perhaps) Dallas, TX. Hotpots like SF, NYC, Boston and so on - the smaller, dense cities with jobs and no land left - no so much. It's not a national issue. Everyone wants to live in California because you get nice weather, high salaries and cannabis edibles rain from the sky. You're a victim of your own success.

tdb7893 9y ago
I've found that I prefer living in the Midwest and having an extra thousand or so a month for travel and stuff than living in a more hipster city.
- mywittyname 9y ago
  Midwestern cities are experiencing housing inflation too. Urban houses that were 140k five years ago are well over 200k now.
  - closeparen 9y ago
    Intuitively it seems pretty rare for Midwesterners to live in cities or "urban" houses. Most of us seem to be in the metro areas, but in freeway-connected suburbs, not urban cores.
    - tdb7893 9y ago