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I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. I want my children to be able to afford to live near me if they want. I own a house and would gladly relinquish my a

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. I want my children to be able to afford to live near me if they want. I own a house and would gladly relinquish my ability to sell it at a profit if it meant keeping prices affordable for young folks. I’m not sure what the real solution is, though.

api 8y ago
The instant someone signs a mortgage it becomes in their (cynical) economic best interest to try to keep others from being able to do the same. The only solution I see is state level zoning standardization around pro-density zoning and limitations on NIMBY power.
- i_am_nomad 8y ago
  People choose to buy in neighborhoods they like (if they have a choice). It doesn’t make them cynical schemers if they then don’t want the neighborhood to change.
  - romed 8y ago
    Is there another part of the market where you apply this twisted reasoning? I thought 1992 was a pretty good year for Japanese sports cars. I think building new cars after 1992 should have been illegal. We can keep 1992 cars affordable through price controls.
    - api 8y ago
      That's the best analogy to NIMBY housing policy I've ever read.
      - megablast 8y ago
        That says more about you than the analogy.
    - trevelyan 8y ago
      Bad analogy. A 1992 car does not change when new models are released to others. But changes to neighbourhoods from increased density can be negative to quality of life, such as having a quiet road suddenly become a connector road for large amounts of commuter traffic (kids no longer playing outside), or schools get overcrowded, or there is standing-room only on the subway for a long commute into town.
      - closeparen 8y ago
        Traffic is a consequence of segregated uses and insufficient density. Densification is how a quiet residential neighborhood might come to support pedestrian life, service its resident’s need without making them get on a collector road, fund additional public transit capacity, etc. Some mid-rise condos down the block are far better than another suburban subdivision a few miles down the road, as traffic goes.
        int_19h 8y ago
        What about all the people who would prefer lower density over all those other things that you mention?
        kspaans 8y ago
        The problem is that due to the way most property taxes and house prices work those people are getting a free ride off of the prosperity of the city: a tragedy of the commons. Assuming this quiet neighbourhood is near an urban area with nice jobs/schools/amenities etc, the value of the 'hood is created by the network effects of the city. Growth of the city means growth in the value of that 'hood. The people living there usually aren't doing a lot to increase the value of their properties. But as property assessments lag market values, or the way taxes are structures, those owners can see flat costs for their housing while their values rise. Meanwhile by refusing to add density to their neighbourhood they are driving up the costs for others. When they eventually sell or move they get all of the gains in property value all the while having very low carrying costs. If they wanted a quiet neighbourhood they could move to a smaller town or further out from the city centre, but I don't think they do. If the market were better organized then their behaviour would be dampened by higher taxes as their property values rise. Owners would then have an economic choice: resist density in your 'hood and pay more for that privilege, move somewhere cheaper, or allow more density which will keep costs flat.
  - nate_meurer 8y ago
    The nature of a NIMBY is to label any change as bad, regardless of the benefits to other people. If that isn't cynical, I don't know what is. Would you defend segregationists, who tried desperately to preserve the racial makeup of their neighborhoods, schools, and buses? It's a rhetorical question of course -- I know you would not. My point is just that your logic can be (and is) used to defend any number of despicable causes. There's no reason our civil society has to put up with with this nonsense.
    - dcow 8y ago
      Just because a certain principle can be used destructively does not mean the principle itself is flawed.
      - nate_meurer 8y ago
        That's kind of a strange thing to say. I'd argue it's clearly not true in this case. Do you disagree? Can you maybe explain why?
        dcow 8y ago
        I read your comment as arguing that people who structure their social systems based on conservative principles e.g. we like our neighborhood a certain way so we resist rapid change (barring explicit racism, of course) are a tax on society. I agree with your example and agree that people wanting an explicitly racially segregated community are cynical and racist. But an similarly conservatively principled person may simply prefer a low-density lifestyle and act in ways that resist change for that reason. There may even be scenarios where we can look back and correlate responsible, well meaning, application of certain principles with undesirable social trends, but I don't think that alone invalidates the principle. I don't know if I misread your comment, but it was odd to see a broad critique on conservatives and their principles: > My point is just that your logic can be (and is) used to defend any number of despicable causes. I could use plenty of sound logic to defend despicable causes, but fact that the cause is despicable does not alone invalidate the logic if the logic is sound. When sound logic argues for despicable things (which it often does) we introduce ethics and morality to judge whether we should actually act on the logical conclusion. I think a better way to phrase your comment would be, "We shouldn't have to put up with despicable causes, period". I'm being a little pedantic, yes.
- ajmurmann 8y ago
  I don't think it's even in their own economic interest. I think it's just fear of the unknown and nostalgia. I'd love it if my neighborhood were to become popular enough for someone deciding that they want to build a skyscraper next to my house. It would mean the land value alone would allow me to retire.
  - OpieCunningham 8y ago
    Sure, but before you had a chance to cash out, they tore down the skyscraper and built a fracking well.
    - ajmurmann 8y ago
      Yeah, happens all the time. Cities like Tokyo and Manhattan are full of them.
      - nradov 8y ago
        Parts of Los Angeles literally are full of oil wells.
        ajmurmann 8y ago
        Yeah, but no skyscraper has been torn down for one and land prices in LA are still better than in your NIMBY suburb.
- drb91 8y ago
  Wanting to live in your house is not (just, or even primarily) an economic interest. EDIT: clarification
  - closeparen 8y ago
    The presence of other people on neighboring lots does not stop you from living in your house.
    - drb91 8y ago
      I think I misunderstood. Why would having a mortgage make it desirable to stop others from getting one? Surely you want to fill the neighborhood as much as possible and create public services—this increases the value of everything. NIMBY on the other hand is completely irrational.
      - closeparen 8y ago
        Allowing supply to catch up with demand might crater housing prices to quasi-normal levels, destroying ~70% of most Bay Area homeowners’ net worth.
wycs 8y ago
The solution is to get rid of zoning laws. Baring some breakthrough in public choice theory allowing us to break out of this mess, I predict we are stuck with this until the robots take over.
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  Getting rid of zoning laws only works if you have a lot of extra land to sprawl out onto. Otherwise, even if you build up to get more dense ala NYC, HK, Tokyo, or Shanghai, the area will just become more attractive and more people will want to live there. No easy solutions here.
  - wycs 8y ago
    You say that like vastly increasing the productivity of our largest cities is neutral at best. This would create an extraordinary surplus, and other cities that can build out would compete for citizens, just like Texas is doing right now.
    - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
      No city in Texas is dense, its all sprawl, even in liberal Austin.
      - graeme 8y ago
        I looked into this and Texas still has a lot of pro-sprawl policies, such as mandatory parking minimums. People paint them as no zoning, but that's only on one specific measure.
  - barry-cotter 8y ago
    Housing prices have been more or less flat in Tokyo for 30 years. https://marketurbanismreport.com/tokyos-affordable-housing-strategy-build/ https://marketurbanismreport.com/tokyos-affordable-housing-s... > According to the website RealEstate.co.jp, average housing prices throughout Greater Tokyo have actually decreased since 2006. In 2014, the average price of second-hand condos was 27,890,000 yen, or about $232,914. This is above the U.S. median of $187,000, but is a steal when considering that average housing prices in many destination U.S. cities are triple or quadruple this amount.
kromem 8y ago
Luckily you don't have to do anything to make that happen. Housing is going to correct in a serious way, and soon. Quantitative easing artificially keeping lending rates low screwed the housing market. That's in the process of correcting in a major way. At the same time, the increasing rates are going to hit the stock market in a bad way, decreasing general liquidity for down payments. The real headline is: "you can't keep high prices and increase mortgage rates amidst stagnant incomes." A few other considerations: Baby boomers are a huge population. The generations afterwards simply don't match their numbers. That generation is still primarily homeowners. As they age, that's no longer going to be the case, and the supply constrained market is going to reverse as houses get handed down or put on the market. New developments and construction/renovation are targeting higher-end buyers, which makes affordable housing hard to find. But as everyone races to chase the higher end buyer, eventually there's going to be an over-supply and the market will tank. This was in part one of the contributing factors to the 2008 crash - new developments ended up as wastelands that eventually ended up as "affordable" housing because the buyers disappeared. Personally, even though I'm open to buying a house at the moment, I'm staying the heck away from the market. I'm already seeing properties in my area sold a few months ago put back on the market initially for more, but then dropping the price below what they bought at. We're approaching the cusp of the upward wave, and as rates increase, a lot of people that bought in the past two years are going to be stuck with whatever they bought into for a good while.
- pfooti 8y ago
  While I don't disagree with a lot of your argument, according to some preliminary research it seems like there's about as many millennials as boomers. Like 77 million boomers, 65 million gen x, 75 million gen y.
  - Mtinie 8y ago
    The count is less important than the buying power. Millennials, as a group, have significantly less buying power than their Baby Boomer peers at the same point in their lives. One source, but eye-opening if you can believe/trust the underlying data: "Only a third of millennials own their own home, compared with almost two-thirds of baby boomers at the same age. It will take a millennial on average 19 years to save for a deposit, compared[0] with three years in the 1980s. A third of millennials will, it is predicted, have a lifetime of renting with less space, poorer conditions, longer commutes and more insecurity than the baby boomers experienced."[1] ----- [0] https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications/home-improvements-action-to-address-the-housing-challenges-faced-by-young-people/ https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications/home-impro... [1] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/apr/29/millennials-struggling-is-it-fault-of-baby-boomers-intergenerational-fairness https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/apr/29/millennials-....
madengr 8y ago
Then why don’t you do just that? Sell it cheaply to young folks.

api 8y ago

The instant someone signs a mortgage it becomes in their (cynical) economic best interest to try to keep others from being able to do the same. The only solution I see is state level zoning standardization around pro-density zoning and limitations on NIMBY power.

i_am_nomad 8y ago
People choose to buy in neighborhoods they like (if they have a choice). It doesn’t make them cynical schemers if they then don’t want the neighborhood to change.
- romed 8y ago
  Is there another part of the market where you apply this twisted reasoning? I thought 1992 was a pretty good year for Japanese sports cars. I think building new cars after 1992 should have been illegal. We can keep 1992 cars affordable through price controls.
  - api 8y ago
    That's the best analogy to NIMBY housing policy I've ever read.
    - megablast 8y ago
      That says more about you than the analogy.
  - trevelyan 8y ago
    Bad analogy. A 1992 car does not change when new models are released to others. But changes to neighbourhoods from increased density can be negative to quality of life, such as having a quiet road suddenly become a connector road for large amounts of commuter traffic (kids no longer playing outside), or schools get overcrowded, or there is standing-room only on the subway for a long commute into town.
    - closeparen 8y ago
      Traffic is a consequence of segregated uses and insufficient density. Densification is how a quiet residential neighborhood might come to support pedestrian life, service its resident’s need without making them get on a collector road, fund additional public transit capacity, etc. Some mid-rise condos down the block are far better than another suburban subdivision a few miles down the road, as traffic goes.
      - int_19h 8y ago
        What about all the people who would prefer lower density over all those other things that you mention?
        kspaans 8y ago
        The problem is that due to the way most property taxes and house prices work those people are getting a free ride off of the prosperity of the city: a tragedy of the commons. Assuming this quiet neighbourhood is near an urban area with nice jobs/schools/amenities etc, the value of the 'hood is created by the network effects of the city. Growth of the city means growth in the value of that 'hood. The people living there usually aren't doing a lot to increase the value of their properties. But as property assessments lag market values, or the way taxes are structures, those owners can see flat costs for their housing while their values rise. Meanwhile by refusing to add density to their neighbourhood they are driving up the costs for others. When they eventually sell or move they get all of the gains in property value all the while having very low carrying costs. If they wanted a quiet neighbourhood they could move to a smaller town or further out from the city centre, but I don't think they do. If the market were better organized then their behaviour would be dampened by higher taxes as their property values rise. Owners would then have an economic choice: resist density in your 'hood and pay more for that privilege, move somewhere cheaper, or allow more density which will keep costs flat.
- nate_meurer 8y ago
  The nature of a NIMBY is to label any change as bad, regardless of the benefits to other people. If that isn't cynical, I don't know what is. Would you defend segregationists, who tried desperately to preserve the racial makeup of their neighborhoods, schools, and buses? It's a rhetorical question of course -- I know you would not. My point is just that your logic can be (and is) used to defend any number of despicable causes. There's no reason our civil society has to put up with with this nonsense.
  - dcow 8y ago
    Just because a certain principle can be used destructively does not mean the principle itself is flawed.
    - nate_meurer 8y ago
      That's kind of a strange thing to say. I'd argue it's clearly not true in this case. Do you disagree? Can you maybe explain why?
      - dcow 8y ago
        I read your comment as arguing that people who structure their social systems based on conservative principles e.g. we like our neighborhood a certain way so we resist rapid change (barring explicit racism, of course) are a tax on society. I agree with your example and agree that people wanting an explicitly racially segregated community are cynical and racist. But an similarly conservatively principled person may simply prefer a low-density lifestyle and act in ways that resist change for that reason. There may even be scenarios where we can look back and correlate responsible, well meaning, application of certain principles with undesirable social trends, but I don't think that alone invalidates the principle. I don't know if I misread your comment, but it was odd to see a broad critique on conservatives and their principles: > My point is just that your logic can be (and is) used to defend any number of despicable causes. I could use plenty of sound logic to defend despicable causes, but fact that the cause is despicable does not alone invalidate the logic if the logic is sound. When sound logic argues for despicable things (which it often does) we introduce ethics and morality to judge whether we should actually act on the logical conclusion. I think a better way to phrase your comment would be, "We shouldn't have to put up with despicable causes, period". I'm being a little pedantic, yes.
ajmurmann 8y ago
I don't think it's even in their own economic interest. I think it's just fear of the unknown and nostalgia. I'd love it if my neighborhood were to become popular enough for someone deciding that they want to build a skyscraper next to my house. It would mean the land value alone would allow me to retire.
- OpieCunningham 8y ago
  Sure, but before you had a chance to cash out, they tore down the skyscraper and built a fracking well.
  - ajmurmann 8y ago
    Yeah, happens all the time. Cities like Tokyo and Manhattan are full of them.
    - nradov 8y ago
      Parts of Los Angeles literally are full of oil wells.
      - ajmurmann 8y ago
        Yeah, but no skyscraper has been torn down for one and land prices in LA are still better than in your NIMBY suburb.
drb91 8y ago
Wanting to live in your house is not (just, or even primarily) an economic interest. EDIT: clarification
- closeparen 8y ago
  The presence of other people on neighboring lots does not stop you from living in your house.
  - drb91 8y ago
    I think I misunderstood. Why would having a mortgage make it desirable to stop others from getting one? Surely you want to fill the neighborhood as much as possible and create public services—this increases the value of everything. NIMBY on the other hand is completely irrational.
    - closeparen 8y ago
      Allowing supply to catch up with demand might crater housing prices to quasi-normal levels, destroying ~70% of most Bay Area homeowners’ net worth.

wycs 8y ago

The solution is to get rid of zoning laws. Baring some breakthrough in public choice theory allowing us to break out of this mess, I predict we are stuck with this until the robots take over.

seanmcdirmid 8y ago
Getting rid of zoning laws only works if you have a lot of extra land to sprawl out onto. Otherwise, even if you build up to get more dense ala NYC, HK, Tokyo, or Shanghai, the area will just become more attractive and more people will want to live there. No easy solutions here.
- wycs 8y ago
  You say that like vastly increasing the productivity of our largest cities is neutral at best. This would create an extraordinary surplus, and other cities that can build out would compete for citizens, just like Texas is doing right now.
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    No city in Texas is dense, its all sprawl, even in liberal Austin.
    - graeme 8y ago
      I looked into this and Texas still has a lot of pro-sprawl policies, such as mandatory parking minimums. People paint them as no zoning, but that's only on one specific measure.
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  Housing prices have been more or less flat in Tokyo for 30 years. https://marketurbanismreport.com/tokyos-affordable-housing-strategy-build/ https://marketurbanismreport.com/tokyos-affordable-housing-s... > According to the website RealEstate.co.jp, average housing prices throughout Greater Tokyo have actually decreased since 2006. In 2014, the average price of second-hand condos was 27,890,000 yen, or about $232,914. This is above the U.S. median of $187,000, but is a steal when considering that average housing prices in many destination U.S. cities are triple or quadruple this amount.

kromem 8y ago

Luckily you don't have to do anything to make that happen. Housing is going to correct in a serious way, and soon. Quantitative easing artificially keeping lending rates low screwed the housing market. That's in the process of correcting in a major way. At the same time, the increasing rates are going to hit the stock market in a bad way, decreasing general liquidity for down payments. The real headline is: "you can't keep high prices and increase mortgage rates amidst stagnant incomes." A few other considerations: Baby boomers are a huge population. The generations afterwards simply don't match their numbers. That generation is still primarily homeowners. As they age, that's no longer going to be the case, and the supply constrained market is going to reverse as houses get handed down or put on the market. New developments and construction/renovation are targeting higher-end buyers, which makes affordable housing hard to find. But as everyone races to chase the higher end buyer, eventually there's going to be an over-supply and the market will tank. This was in part one of the contributing factors to the 2008 crash - new developments ended up as wastelands that eventually ended up as "affordable" housing because the buyers disappeared. Personally, even though I'm open to buying a house at the moment, I'm staying the heck away from the market. I'm already seeing properties in my area sold a few months ago put back on the market initially for more, but then dropping the price below what they bought at. We're approaching the cusp of the upward wave, and as rates increase, a lot of people that bought in the past two years are going to be stuck with whatever they bought into for a good while.

pfooti 8y ago
While I don't disagree with a lot of your argument, according to some preliminary research it seems like there's about as many millennials as boomers. Like 77 million boomers, 65 million gen x, 75 million gen y.
- Mtinie 8y ago
  The count is less important than the buying power. Millennials, as a group, have significantly less buying power than their Baby Boomer peers at the same point in their lives. One source, but eye-opening if you can believe/trust the underlying data: "Only a third of millennials own their own home, compared with almost two-thirds of baby boomers at the same age. It will take a millennial on average 19 years to save for a deposit, compared[0] with three years in the 1980s. A third of millennials will, it is predicted, have a lifetime of renting with less space, poorer conditions, longer commutes and more insecurity than the baby boomers experienced."[1] ----- [0] https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications/home-improvements-action-to-address-the-housing-challenges-faced-by-young-people/ https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications/home-impro... [1] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/apr/29/millennials-struggling-is-it-fault-of-baby-boomers-intergenerational-fairness https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/apr/29/millennials-....

madengr 8y ago

Then why don’t you do just that? Sell it cheaply to young folks.