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I own a house in San Bruno and I'd support more development. The benefits of higher housing prices for owners are massively overstated: I wouldn't realize any

I own a house in San Bruno and I'd support more development. The benefits of higher housing prices for owners are massively overstated: I wouldn't realize any gain until I moved out of the area, which I probably won't do for decades if ever. In the mean time, the housing market just makes more painful for me to move. I don't want the value of my house to crash down to 10% of it's present cost, but I'd be fine with no appreciation for a couple of decades, or a moderate drop in value.

uberman 8y ago
I'm not aware of any intrinsic benefit to a high priced house other than housing being a leveraged investment, but that is clearly a double edged sword. In my opinion. this is the heart of the issue. I want to be clear that there might be many great personal reasons (@raldi has some listed above) to be in favor of more housing stock. However, in the context of the assertion of the original article that voters just don't understand econ 101 supply and demand my feeling is that the majority of homeowners (who are disproportionately voters) understand econ 101 supply and demand perfectly well and that the article does a disservice suggesting that they don't. If I own a highly priced, highly leveraged and, highly demanded investment (such as a house in the bay area), what is my (per the original article) clear as day "econ 101" motivation to help increase supply and thereby reduce the value of this investment? In the context of the original article there is simply no econ 101 incentive for me as a voter to support policies that devalue my investment. Remember, as a highly leveraged investment, a drop in price of just 5% could easily wipe out my entire investment while doing almost nothing to make housing fundamentally more affordable to others. I want to reiterate, there could be many great non-economic motivators for a current homeowner in a high demand market to support more housing. These motivations just fall outside the context of the original article about the unwillingness of voters to understand econ 101 supply and demand.
- aetherson 8y ago
  Well, I'm sure conversation on this thread is super dead, but: What you're saying all makes sense in the context of house-as-investment. But unlike other investments, you need housing, and if your house's value appreciates, you can't just sell and put that money in something else -- unless you're moving out of the area. You could sell your house and rent, but rents and house prices move roughly similarly, so you don't save much doing so. If you sell and buy another house in the area, you just end up moving your money from one "investment" to another and probably have some tax problems (from Prop 13, in California). "Wiping out my entire investment" is less of a concern when all that means is that you can buy another equivalent house at the new price, and appreciating is less of a benefit when it means you need to buy another equivalent house at the new price. Going actually underwater on your loans is of course bad -- though most people shouldn't be so leveraged that modest drop puts them underwater. And those who are about to move out of the area or downsize, sure, they have much more of a traditional investment mentality. But if you're 20+ years from that? If you might never move away or get a smaller house? The value of your house means very little.

uberman 8y ago

I'm not aware of any intrinsic benefit to a high priced house other than housing being a leveraged investment, but that is clearly a double edged sword. In my opinion. this is the heart of the issue. I want to be clear that there might be many great personal reasons (@raldi has some listed above) to be in favor of more housing stock. However, in the context of the assertion of the original article that voters just don't understand econ 101 supply and demand my feeling is that the majority of homeowners (who are disproportionately voters) understand econ 101 supply and demand perfectly well and that the article does a disservice suggesting that they don't. If I own a highly priced, highly leveraged and, highly demanded investment (such as a house in the bay area), what is my (per the original article) clear as day "econ 101" motivation to help increase supply and thereby reduce the value of this investment? In the context of the original article there is simply no econ 101 incentive for me as a voter to support policies that devalue my investment. Remember, as a highly leveraged investment, a drop in price of just 5% could easily wipe out my entire investment while doing almost nothing to make housing fundamentally more affordable to others. I want to reiterate, there could be many great non-economic motivators for a current homeowner in a high demand market to support more housing. These motivations just fall outside the context of the original article about the unwillingness of voters to understand econ 101 supply and demand.

aetherson 8y ago
Well, I'm sure conversation on this thread is super dead, but: What you're saying all makes sense in the context of house-as-investment. But unlike other investments, you need housing, and if your house's value appreciates, you can't just sell and put that money in something else -- unless you're moving out of the area. You could sell your house and rent, but rents and house prices move roughly similarly, so you don't save much doing so. If you sell and buy another house in the area, you just end up moving your money from one "investment" to another and probably have some tax problems (from Prop 13, in California). "Wiping out my entire investment" is less of a concern when all that means is that you can buy another equivalent house at the new price, and appreciating is less of a benefit when it means you need to buy another equivalent house at the new price. Going actually underwater on your loans is of course bad -- though most people shouldn't be so leveraged that modest drop puts them underwater. And those who are about to move out of the area or downsize, sure, they have much more of a traditional investment mentality. But if you're 20+ years from that? If you might never move away or get a smaller house? The value of your house means very little.