4 ms·

> “For-profit developers have predominantly built for the luxury and higher end of the market, leaving a glut of overpriced apartments in some cities,” said Dia

> “For-profit developers have predominantly built for the luxury and higher end of the market, leaving a glut of overpriced apartments in some cities,” said Diane Yentel, president and chief executive of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, an advocacy group. I can't read the chronicle article, but your wapo article is mainly just the opinions of interested people like this. For example, nowhere does it give the actual number of "luxury" units built in Seattle, SF, or Portland -- those would be important numbers if you're trying to comprehend the argument being put forward.

abalone 7y ago
The Chronicle article is worth reading but you can trust me that it points to capital markets and labor shortages as holding back approved projects. Here is a deeper analysis of the Seattle market with specific housing construction figures.[1] It argues "there is no general housing shortage, that the catastrophic figures above are a product of the Great Recession and the normal lag in construction. Because the market appears to be duly responding to demand, efforts to 'free' the housing market are not as effective as efforts to shape the market toward more just ends." This is consistent with the causes cited in the SF Chronicle article that hold back approved projects, as well as the SF Business Times(!) article pointing to the 2008 recession as a cause of the labor shortage, cited previously. [1] https://www.theurbanist.org/2016/11/22/what-housing-shortage/ https://www.theurbanist.org/2016/11/22/what-housing-shortage...