>> In the short term, increased housing will decrease property values. > How? If you keep demand constant and increase supply, you will decrease price. This i

>> In the short term, increased housing will decrease property values. > How? If you keep demand constant and increase supply, you will decrease price. This is one of the most basic tenants of microeconomics. If that's too abstract, just imagine you're a landlord in SF who's used to increasing your rent by 10% per year (no idea what the actual number is) because there are 1% vacancies in the city. Now imagine that all of a sudden more housing came on line so that there are now 20% vacancies in the city. You probably wouldn't be able to increase your price and may have to drop it. Now imagine that the number of bedrooms in SF increased by a factor of 10 overnight. The price of real estate would crater. In the long term, the price of real estate will go up with density. All you have to do is look at places like Manhattan, Tokyo, Hong Kong, etc. This is because cities tend to draw in new citizens from the surrounding area until it is too expensive or too uncomfortable to live there. However, it takes time for those people to move to the city and fill vacancies.