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It seems to me like one of the big problems with "affordable" housing in desirable areas is that everyone who has bought an "unaffordable" house is now in on th

by beager 9y ago

It seems to me like one of the big problems with "affordable" housing in desirable areas is that everyone who has bought an "unaffordable" house is now in on the con, and "affordable" housing threatens to correct (read: deflate) the value of the very expensive thing that they have bought. I'm not a homeowner, but being near NYC, if I manage to get myself into buying a home, I would probably be inclined to support any measure that ensures that the demand for my home—and therefore its price—continues to rise at as great a rate as possible to make sure that I wasn't on the hook for a large depreciation on my mortgaged property. This is the reverse of my current desire, which is for housing to be affordable enough for me to get into so I don't have to rent and can provision that part of my income toward building wealth and not someone else's wealth. The moment I become a homeowner, those motivations flip. If the median home price were closer to the median income in a given area, I surmise that the desire from homeowners for increased demand and value would abate, because homeowners would stand to gain or lose less in their house vis a vis their income. Instead, you have folks who may gain more value in their homes in one year than they would make in salary. And conversely, price correction at such a great disparity to median income would mean that you now owe the bank a year or more's salary more than what your home is worth.

closeparen 9y ago
Someone who qualifies for an affordable housing program wouldn't come close to affording your market-priced home, and in practice, creating even 2,000 such units over 15 years is a campaign-centerpiece, career-making accomplishment. To contribute to demand, you have to be able to make a realistic bid. I make well over area median income and I couldn't come close to that. You really think someone at 50% of AMI could? The position, "I'm not a NIMBY, I just don't like greedy developers getting whatever they want. I would support this project if it were affordable housing" is a common tactic for people who are ostensibly liberal to appear less craven about their home values then they actually are. Issuing building permits to 100% of the tiny drip of funded affordable housing projects won't change a thing, and they know it.
pixl97 9y ago
>who has bought an "unaffordable" house is now in on the con, Yep, people are using houses as investments instead of just places to live. When a person is invested in something they will willingly engage in behavior that leads to harmful outcomes to everyone, even themselves long term. A corollary of this is summed up in this famous statement “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” -Sinclair
- Tempest1981 9y ago
  Sure, if you're 100% sure you will never move, you can ignore the financial aspect. But people do move, for many reasons. If you owe more than your house is worth, now you're trapped. Hard to ignore. I assume this is one reason we have zoning rules -- so you know what your neighborhood will look like in 10-20 years. Important with a 30 year mortgage. (If your point was those with 2nd homes or investment properties that they don't live in -- that's an issue. See Vancouver, and various Bay Area cities.) Edit: by "investment", you might mean someone seeking an appreciation of $500k vs $300k. I was thinking of $0k vs losing $200k. It happens.
  - grandinj 9y ago
    so one option would be to limit the length of mortgages, which has been tried elsewhere and supposedly slows down the land price growth
conanbatt 9y ago
Thats why it should not be a power of a landlord to decide what building goes next to it. In the end,if sanfrancisco got its act together and build 100,000 units, the city would transform tremendously, with a flush of people, of jobs, of prosperity. The city strangles economic development.
weeksie 9y ago
The solution isn't to build artificially affordable housing. The solution is to continue to build what the market demands and give the affluent somewhere to move so that they stop occupying the rest of the city. Today's luxury housing is tomorrow's affordable housing.

by beager 9y ago

closeparen 9y ago

Someone who qualifies for an affordable housing program wouldn't come close to affording your market-priced home, and in practice, creating even 2,000 such units over 15 years is a campaign-centerpiece, career-making accomplishment. To contribute to demand, you have to be able to make a realistic bid. I make well over area median income and I couldn't come close to that. You really think someone at 50% of AMI could? The position, "I'm not a NIMBY, I just don't like greedy developers getting whatever they want. I would support this project if it were affordable housing" is a common tactic for people who are ostensibly liberal to appear less craven about their home values then they actually are. Issuing building permits to 100% of the tiny drip of funded affordable housing projects won't change a thing, and they know it.

pixl97 9y ago

>who has bought an "unaffordable" house is now in on the con, Yep, people are using houses as investments instead of just places to live. When a person is invested in something they will willingly engage in behavior that leads to harmful outcomes to everyone, even themselves long term. A corollary of this is summed up in this famous statement “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” -Sinclair

Tempest1981 9y ago
Sure, if you're 100% sure you will never move, you can ignore the financial aspect. But people do move, for many reasons. If you owe more than your house is worth, now you're trapped. Hard to ignore. I assume this is one reason we have zoning rules -- so you know what your neighborhood will look like in 10-20 years. Important with a 30 year mortgage. (If your point was those with 2nd homes or investment properties that they don't live in -- that's an issue. See Vancouver, and various Bay Area cities.) Edit: by "investment", you might mean someone seeking an appreciation of $500k vs $300k. I was thinking of $0k vs losing $200k. It happens.
- grandinj 9y ago
  so one option would be to limit the length of mortgages, which has been tried elsewhere and supposedly slows down the land price growth

conanbatt 9y ago

Thats why it should not be a power of a landlord to decide what building goes next to it. In the end,if sanfrancisco got its act together and build 100,000 units, the city would transform tremendously, with a flush of people, of jobs, of prosperity. The city strangles economic development.

weeksie 9y ago

The solution isn't to build artificially affordable housing. The solution is to continue to build what the market demands and give the affluent somewhere to move so that they stop occupying the rest of the city. Today's luxury housing is tomorrow's affordable housing.