6 ms·

Apparently not, because 97% of the NIMBYs are winning.

by Wohlf 9y ago

IntronExon 9y ago
The state is diverse, but perhaps typically the people with serious power are far less diverse. There are many voices, but only a subset get to be heard in a way that matters.
api 9y ago
The instant you sign a mortgage it becomes in your economic best interest to limit the supply of housing. Housing cannot simultaneously be affordable and a good investment. Homeowners on average tend to be more politically engaged, so homeowners dominate state and local politics. As for why every prosperous state doesn't have this problem as badly as California you can add prop 13 which hugely limited property tax increases for existing homeowners. This eliminated one of the major checks on real estate hyperinflation. You can further add the fact that the San Francisco Bay Area (the region with the highest prices by far) is geographically constrained and the fact that earthquake risk imposes additional site preparation and construction costs. It's really a perfect storm for real estate price insanity, specially in the Bay Area. It's less insane in SoCal but still pretty high, especially when compared to median income in LA County and San Diego. SoCal is less geographically constrained.
- wickawic 9y ago
  You can be a homeowner and also not be a misanthrope at the same time. The min/max attitude of tech workers has always disgusted me in his regard. Edit: I don’t retract my statement, but at the time of posting this my parent comment only contained the first paragraph. I agree with most points brought up
  - api 9y ago
    Averages matter a lot. You can be magnanimous but it doesn't take that many greedy bastards to have an effect. I also think closet classism/racism plays into it. California has a liberal facade but there's a lot of "we don't want those kinds of people" in our neighborhood sentiment below the surface. Making sure housing is unaffordable for minorities and the poor is a great passive-aggressive way to implement segregation without having to admit it.
    - CodeWriter23 9y ago
      The poor would never be able to afford food at the Gelson’s in those areas.
- theseatoms 9y ago
  > The instant you sign a mortgage it becomes in your economic best interest to limit the supply of housing. In the long-run you want economic development to happen though.
- briffle 9y ago
  I don't really get this mentality. Yes, its good to have your home go up in value, but when you sell, are you moving to South Dakota? If not, then the houses your hoping to move into have ALSO gone up in value. The difference being that nobody can afford 'starter homes' at the low end, so people have a harder time selling them, and moving up to a nicer house.
  - eweise 9y ago
    A lot of people view their home as part of their retirement plan. Buy house, raise kids, retire and sell house. Buy new house outside of work center. House prices in places like Redding CA are in the 200K range. Same house in the bay area is around 1million.
    - adrianmonk 9y ago
      What advantage does that offer compared to just having cheaper housing and putting the difference in other investments? To me it certainly seems worse than other retirement approaches. You are forced into making a single asset a huge percentage of your net worth, which utterly destroys your diversification. Real estate is also notoriously illiquid, so if something forces you out of the area, you could take an enormous loss. If someone proposed another retirement investment strategy with these characteristics that didn't involve your home, people would say, "I'll pass... that sounds like a really bad deal."
      - toomuchtodo 9y ago
        Other investments aren't as reliable and secure as real estate.
  - davidw 9y ago
    In the Bay Area, they sell and move to Oregon, driving up our prices. And because they're retired, don't have kids in schools or anything, they mostly vote against taxes. There are also plenty of entrepreneurs and hackers and so on who move up here, so that balances things out to some degree. Still, though, California's NIMBYism has repercussions throughout the entire west coast.
- cowsandmilk 9y ago
  > The instant you sign a mortgage it becomes in your economic best interest to limit the supply of housing. Not always. Being able to flip a single family to a developer who is going to build multifamily is often the best return on your investment. The more confidence the developer has that their proposed building will be approved, the higher the price you can get for your lot.
  - mywittyname 9y ago
    In doing this, you are no longer an owner, thus no longer have a vested interest in limiting housing. You profit from this, but at the expense of your neighbors. Imagine the opposite scenario where all over your neighbors do this, but you're the single hold out. Would your home be worth more, less, or the same with twice (or more) the number of people living on the block? Obviously, we don't really know, but the holdout is likely fearful that their property value would go down dramatically. You can see why people who have $1,000,000 mortgages don't want to see the value of their house fall to reasonable levels, because they'd be the ones taking the six-figure bath.
    - closeparen 9y ago
      The holdout’s subjective experience might be ruined, but their land value would skyrocket.
    - hx87 9y ago
      Your house is worth what people are willing to pay for it. Developers are willing to pay a lot for it since a multifamily building can yield a lot more rent revenue than a single family house. The house is probably worth more in this scenario.
    - sampo 9y ago
      > Imagine the opposite scenario where all over your neighbors do this, but you're the single hold out. Would your home be worth more, less, or the same with twice (or more) the number of people living on the block? As a single family house its value would be less. But since all your neighbours already flipped their home for a developer building multifamily buildings, you surely can do the same, and as land to build an apartment building, your property probably is more valuable than it ever could have been as a single family home.
- hx87 9y ago
  > The instant you sign a mortgage it becomes in your economic best interest to limit the supply of housing. Not if you own the underlying land, or at least a portion thereof, and willing to build higher and denser and rent it out. For example, if I own a 1 story house, NIMBYism prevents me from building another story and renting it out as a separate unit for extra income. NIMBYism raises the value of my current property but lowers its potential value.

Apparently not, because 97% of the NIMBYs are winning.

by Wohlf 9y ago

Apparently not, because 97% of the NIMBYs are winning.

The state is diverse, but perhaps typically the people with serious power are far less diverse. There are many voices, but only a subset get to be heard in a way that matters.

api 9y ago

The instant you sign a mortgage it becomes in your economic best interest to limit the supply of housing. Housing cannot simultaneously be affordable and a good investment. Homeowners on average tend to be more politically engaged, so homeowners dominate state and local politics. As for why every prosperous state doesn't have this problem as badly as California you can add prop 13 which hugely limited property tax increases for existing homeowners. This eliminated one of the major checks on real estate hyperinflation. You can further add the fact that the San Francisco Bay Area (the region with the highest prices by far) is geographically constrained and the fact that earthquake risk imposes additional site preparation and construction costs. It's really a perfect storm for real estate price insanity, specially in the Bay Area. It's less insane in SoCal but still pretty high, especially when compared to median income in LA County and San Diego. SoCal is less geographically constrained.

wickawic 9y ago
You can be a homeowner and also not be a misanthrope at the same time. The min/max attitude of tech workers has always disgusted me in his regard. Edit: I don’t retract my statement, but at the time of posting this my parent comment only contained the first paragraph. I agree with most points brought up
- api 9y ago
  Averages matter a lot. You can be magnanimous but it doesn't take that many greedy bastards to have an effect. I also think closet classism/racism plays into it. California has a liberal facade but there's a lot of "we don't want those kinds of people" in our neighborhood sentiment below the surface. Making sure housing is unaffordable for minorities and the poor is a great passive-aggressive way to implement segregation without having to admit it.
  - CodeWriter23 9y ago
    The poor would never be able to afford food at the Gelson’s in those areas.
theseatoms 9y ago
> The instant you sign a mortgage it becomes in your economic best interest to limit the supply of housing. In the long-run you want economic development to happen though.
briffle 9y ago
I don't really get this mentality. Yes, its good to have your home go up in value, but when you sell, are you moving to South Dakota? If not, then the houses your hoping to move into have ALSO gone up in value. The difference being that nobody can afford 'starter homes' at the low end, so people have a harder time selling them, and moving up to a nicer house.
- eweise 9y ago
  A lot of people view their home as part of their retirement plan. Buy house, raise kids, retire and sell house. Buy new house outside of work center. House prices in places like Redding CA are in the 200K range. Same house in the bay area is around 1million.
  - adrianmonk 9y ago
    What advantage does that offer compared to just having cheaper housing and putting the difference in other investments? To me it certainly seems worse than other retirement approaches. You are forced into making a single asset a huge percentage of your net worth, which utterly destroys your diversification. Real estate is also notoriously illiquid, so if something forces you out of the area, you could take an enormous loss. If someone proposed another retirement investment strategy with these characteristics that didn't involve your home, people would say, "I'll pass... that sounds like a really bad deal."
    - toomuchtodo 9y ago
      Other investments aren't as reliable and secure as real estate.
- davidw 9y ago
  In the Bay Area, they sell and move to Oregon, driving up our prices. And because they're retired, don't have kids in schools or anything, they mostly vote against taxes. There are also plenty of entrepreneurs and hackers and so on who move up here, so that balances things out to some degree. Still, though, California's NIMBYism has repercussions throughout the entire west coast.
cowsandmilk 9y ago
> The instant you sign a mortgage it becomes in your economic best interest to limit the supply of housing. Not always. Being able to flip a single family to a developer who is going to build multifamily is often the best return on your investment. The more confidence the developer has that their proposed building will be approved, the higher the price you can get for your lot.
- mywittyname 9y ago
  In doing this, you are no longer an owner, thus no longer have a vested interest in limiting housing. You profit from this, but at the expense of your neighbors. Imagine the opposite scenario where all over your neighbors do this, but you're the single hold out. Would your home be worth more, less, or the same with twice (or more) the number of people living on the block? Obviously, we don't really know, but the holdout is likely fearful that their property value would go down dramatically. You can see why people who have $1,000,000 mortgages don't want to see the value of their house fall to reasonable levels, because they'd be the ones taking the six-figure bath.
  - closeparen 9y ago
    The holdout’s subjective experience might be ruined, but their land value would skyrocket.
  - hx87 9y ago
    Your house is worth what people are willing to pay for it. Developers are willing to pay a lot for it since a multifamily building can yield a lot more rent revenue than a single family house. The house is probably worth more in this scenario.
  - sampo 9y ago
    > Imagine the opposite scenario where all over your neighbors do this, but you're the single hold out. Would your home be worth more, less, or the same with twice (or more) the number of people living on the block? As a single family house its value would be less. But since all your neighbours already flipped their home for a developer building multifamily buildings, you surely can do the same, and as land to build an apartment building, your property probably is more valuable than it ever could have been as a single family home.
hx87 9y ago
> The instant you sign a mortgage it becomes in your economic best interest to limit the supply of housing. Not if you own the underlying land, or at least a portion thereof, and willing to build higher and denser and rent it out. For example, if I own a 1 story house, NIMBYism prevents me from building another story and renting it out as a separate unit for extra income. NIMBYism raises the value of my current property but lowers its potential value.