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The real solution is building lots and lots of buildings. To make that happen we need to massively relax regulations. It's not practical to build affordable hou

The real solution is building lots and lots of buildings. To make that happen we need to massively relax regulations. It's not practical to build affordable housing right now because the fixed legal and planning costs are too high, so only higher end housing really makes sense to build.

closeparen 9y ago
New supply equivalent to the oldest and crappiest apartments on the market would still not be affordable, because they aren't either. The positioning of new supply within the basic<->luxury spectrum is vastly overblown. The entire range of market rates needs to come down by thousands of dollars.
- kelnos 9y ago
  Sure, but at the end of the day it's still a supply/demand problem. If you flood a region with more housing, prices will go down as demand is satisfied. There was an article posted on HN (sorry, I can't even remember the name of it, let alone the URL) that detailed a study that showed that, while building luxury or high-end housing is helpful in reducing overall prices, building mid-range and affordable housing is more helpful. I'm not saying that means that we should only be building mid-range and affordable housing, but focusing on high-end housing will solve the problem much slower than it could be solved otherwise.
- ajmurmann 9y ago
  If we don't solve the problem by building more, how is your ideal outcome going to look?
  - closeparen 9y ago
    We must lower the overall market by building a ton more. The level of luxury that “more” is pitched at is irrelevant - the problem is that whole market is too high, not that it skews towards luxury.
    - ajmurmann 9y ago
      Sounds like we are in violent agreement ;) Edit: my crazy fantasy is to replace a huge portion of the avenues in SF with a massive arcology. That would solve the problem for Sf and set a great example for elsewhere. But of course that isn't going to happen.

closeparen 9y ago

New supply equivalent to the oldest and crappiest apartments on the market would still not be affordable, because they aren't either. The positioning of new supply within the basic<->luxury spectrum is vastly overblown. The entire range of market rates needs to come down by thousands of dollars.

kelnos 9y ago
Sure, but at the end of the day it's still a supply/demand problem. If you flood a region with more housing, prices will go down as demand is satisfied. There was an article posted on HN (sorry, I can't even remember the name of it, let alone the URL) that detailed a study that showed that, while building luxury or high-end housing is helpful in reducing overall prices, building mid-range and affordable housing is more helpful. I'm not saying that means that we should only be building mid-range and affordable housing, but focusing on high-end housing will solve the problem much slower than it could be solved otherwise.
ajmurmann 9y ago
If we don't solve the problem by building more, how is your ideal outcome going to look?
- closeparen 9y ago
  We must lower the overall market by building a ton more. The level of luxury that “more” is pitched at is irrelevant - the problem is that whole market is too high, not that it skews towards luxury.
  - ajmurmann 9y ago
    Sounds like we are in violent agreement ;) Edit: my crazy fantasy is to replace a huge portion of the avenues in SF with a massive arcology. That would solve the problem for Sf and set a great example for elsewhere. But of course that isn't going to happen.