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I don't understand why you're being down voted. Is it really controversial to say that a regular single family house in a single family house neighborhood will

by TomVDB 8y ago

I don't understand why you're being down voted. Is it really controversial to say that a regular single family house in a single family house neighborhood will go down in value when somebody decides to plant an apartment complex right next to do?

kelnos 8y ago
I think the downvotes are unwarranted, but the point being made is that in a land-scarce environment like SF, a developer would pay out the nose to buy your single-family home, tear it down, and build something with higher density... if the land was zoned for it. Sure, once this happens enough times, and supply starts to meet demand, you're absolutely right in that a single-family home's value will drop when it's adjacent to an apartment complex. (Then again, it could also be quite valuable to someone who wants a single-family home when the norm becomes larger complexes.) Also note that the current value of your home is driven almost entirely by artificial scarcity. There's nothing intrinsic about it that makes it worth so much.
stouset 8y ago
Honestly? I appreciate your willingness to engage in this thread, but I have to say I really don’t care if it does or if it doesn’t. Making a real estate purchase is a risk. Making a huge one is a huge risk. Right now, the Bay Area is prioritizing rewarding the obscenely wealthy and rewarding massive risk-taking by the moderately wealthy. If those risks don’t pan out, but people can afford to live here, I’m not that upset.
- Spooky23 8y ago
  The counter-point is that if I was a homeowner in the Bay Area, I want to protect my property as much as possible, and I'll use my political power to do that. People who are disrupted by this can build character by living in a van or move to any of the hundreds of metro areas that are more affordable -- it's not my problem. If you work for some tech company, you should appreciate that controlling a resource like a technology or real property has benefits. FWIW, I chose the latter option and live in a mid sized urban core. I make about half of what I'd make in the Bay Area, but my costs are probably about 80% less, even factoring in private school. So if you make a choice to live in a van as a rational actor, that's your choice. Own it.
  - stouset 8y ago
    > The counter-point is that if I was a homeowner in the Bay Area, I want to protect my property as much as possible, and I'll use my political power to do that. I totally get that, but it's a) unfortunate that when one buys a home, their financial self-interest becomes immediately opposed to the needs of the overwhelming majority in this city who rent, and b) ridiculous that city politics safeguards the value of these risky bets by homeowners at the expense of literally everyone else.
    - RestlessMind 8y ago
      > city politics safeguards the value of these risky bets by homeowners Mainly because homeowners are more engaged in the city politics? If renters or would-be homeowners were more engaged, this would have been a totally different situation.
      - stouset 8y ago
        You might be surprised to find that most renters have jobs, and can’t get away from those jobs during the day to attend neighborhood and city council meetings.
- RestlessMind 8y ago
  > If those risks don’t pan out...I'm not that upset. But see, now you have introduced an "us vs them" mentality to this discussion with homeowners on one side and non-homeowners on the other. If I, a homeowner with 800K mortgage, is going to face people like you who want to act in a way that will reduce the price of my home below 800K thus wiping out my equity in my home and saddling me with an underwater mortgage, then I am going to fight tooth and nail against any new housing. Figuring out how to add new housing without affecting the value of existing homes would go a long way towards getting buy-in from existing homeowners.
  - stouset 8y ago
    The us-vs-them situation exists whether you like it or not. I have the means to purchase in SF and have not done so, not in small part because it would position my self-interest counter to so many in this city who aren’t as lucky as I’ve been. Every act of public policy creates winners and losers. Not acting just preserves the status quo of homeowners as winners and everyone else as losers. Feel-good-yet-practically-impossible suggestions like yours are effectively arguments in favor of an unlimited extension of this status quo. You took a large gamble with a massive sum of money—what is literally a lifetime of earnings for most families in the US—and are now arguing that the city should continue to prioritize the positive outcome of your gamble over the needs of the hundreds of thousands in this city who are struggling to get by. This leveraged gamble has been growing at a rate of 8–9%, and with typical mortgages here it’s reasonable to guess you’re seeing over a 12% return on that gamble annually as a result, after mortgage interest and property taxes. Pardon my complete lack of empathy for the hardship you might endure should your gamble only return 5%, were we to consider the needs of the rest of this city over your own.
Spooky23 8y ago
I think the reason is that people living in places like SFO are effectively locked out of the market. They are angry and passionate about it, and I sympathize. The problem from my perspective is that the "crisis" of housing is really a boomtown phenomenon. The problem exists because companies can afford to pay people enough, which won't last forever.

by TomVDB 8y ago

kelnos 8y ago

I think the downvotes are unwarranted, but the point being made is that in a land-scarce environment like SF, a developer would pay out the nose to buy your single-family home, tear it down, and build something with higher density... if the land was zoned for it. Sure, once this happens enough times, and supply starts to meet demand, you're absolutely right in that a single-family home's value will drop when it's adjacent to an apartment complex. (Then again, it could also be quite valuable to someone who wants a single-family home when the norm becomes larger complexes.) Also note that the current value of your home is driven almost entirely by artificial scarcity. There's nothing intrinsic about it that makes it worth so much.

stouset 8y ago

Honestly? I appreciate your willingness to engage in this thread, but I have to say I really don’t care if it does or if it doesn’t. Making a real estate purchase is a risk. Making a huge one is a huge risk. Right now, the Bay Area is prioritizing rewarding the obscenely wealthy and rewarding massive risk-taking by the moderately wealthy. If those risks don’t pan out, but people can afford to live here, I’m not that upset.

Spooky23 8y ago
The counter-point is that if I was a homeowner in the Bay Area, I want to protect my property as much as possible, and I'll use my political power to do that. People who are disrupted by this can build character by living in a van or move to any of the hundreds of metro areas that are more affordable -- it's not my problem. If you work for some tech company, you should appreciate that controlling a resource like a technology or real property has benefits. FWIW, I chose the latter option and live in a mid sized urban core. I make about half of what I'd make in the Bay Area, but my costs are probably about 80% less, even factoring in private school. So if you make a choice to live in a van as a rational actor, that's your choice. Own it.
- stouset 8y ago
  > The counter-point is that if I was a homeowner in the Bay Area, I want to protect my property as much as possible, and I'll use my political power to do that. I totally get that, but it's a) unfortunate that when one buys a home, their financial self-interest becomes immediately opposed to the needs of the overwhelming majority in this city who rent, and b) ridiculous that city politics safeguards the value of these risky bets by homeowners at the expense of literally everyone else.
  - RestlessMind 8y ago
    > city politics safeguards the value of these risky bets by homeowners Mainly because homeowners are more engaged in the city politics? If renters or would-be homeowners were more engaged, this would have been a totally different situation.
    - stouset 8y ago
      You might be surprised to find that most renters have jobs, and can’t get away from those jobs during the day to attend neighborhood and city council meetings.
RestlessMind 8y ago
> If those risks don’t pan out...I'm not that upset. But see, now you have introduced an "us vs them" mentality to this discussion with homeowners on one side and non-homeowners on the other. If I, a homeowner with 800K mortgage, is going to face people like you who want to act in a way that will reduce the price of my home below 800K thus wiping out my equity in my home and saddling me with an underwater mortgage, then I am going to fight tooth and nail against any new housing. Figuring out how to add new housing without affecting the value of existing homes would go a long way towards getting buy-in from existing homeowners.
- stouset 8y ago
  The us-vs-them situation exists whether you like it or not. I have the means to purchase in SF and have not done so, not in small part because it would position my self-interest counter to so many in this city who aren’t as lucky as I’ve been. Every act of public policy creates winners and losers. Not acting just preserves the status quo of homeowners as winners and everyone else as losers. Feel-good-yet-practically-impossible suggestions like yours are effectively arguments in favor of an unlimited extension of this status quo. You took a large gamble with a massive sum of money—what is literally a lifetime of earnings for most families in the US—and are now arguing that the city should continue to prioritize the positive outcome of your gamble over the needs of the hundreds of thousands in this city who are struggling to get by. This leveraged gamble has been growing at a rate of 8–9%, and with typical mortgages here it’s reasonable to guess you’re seeing over a 12% return on that gamble annually as a result, after mortgage interest and property taxes. Pardon my complete lack of empathy for the hardship you might endure should your gamble only return 5%, were we to consider the needs of the rest of this city over your own.

Spooky23 8y ago

I think the reason is that people living in places like SFO are effectively locked out of the market. They are angry and passionate about it, and I sympathize. The problem from my perspective is that the "crisis" of housing is really a boomtown phenomenon. The problem exists because companies can afford to pay people enough, which won't last forever.