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How do you increase supply in densely populated cities with extremely strict planning laws & regulations? The solution is to ban short term leasing in cities,

How do you increase supply in densely populated cities with extremely strict planning laws & regulations? The solution is to ban short term leasing in cities, increase taxes on sales of property within a certain timeframe and increase taxes on owners who have a property with nobody registered to live in it. Basically you don't want people buying property to flip it quickly, to hoard it or to have a holiday home. You only want buyers who'll live in the property and/or rent it long term.

jeffbee 6y ago
This is the utilization theory of dwellings, which I think is bunk. Actual utilization is over 90% in California cities, so fiddling with vacant and underused properties can only make a small difference while being rather difficult to achieve. 10% vacancy is actually desirable because it makes the marketplace work. Land, on the other hand, is severely underused. Zoning changes could easily triple the housing supply in American cities. That's a lot better than 5-10%.
fennecfoxen 6y ago
I am routinely amazed by the the hoops people are willing jump through to avoid the simple answer of "building more apartments." High end estimates of AirBnB apartments are about 4% of units in the most popular neighborhoods -- Times Square, the East Village, Williamsburg. Drift out to Park Slope and you can see 2%, maybe. House hoarding? Very few people pay a mortgage for empty space when they can get a tenant to pay the mortgage instead. The real house hoarding is the high end luxury market with $20 million penthouses, where renters were never in the picture. We don't need to free up 4-5% more units in the most popular neighborhoods. It'll help a little, yes? It's just that it's such pathetically small thinking. Why don't we have a plan to build 50% more units citywide, and make housing actually affordable? Hell, it's New York. Build us 100% more apartments. Put real price reductions on the table. Do what it takes to chop rental prices in half.
MrPatan 6y ago
Or you could change those extemely strict planning laws and regulations.
dunkelheit 6y ago
When I visited Dublin last year (as a tourist, exacerbating the problem, hehe; although I stayed in a hotel), the housing problems were obvious - lots of homeless in the streets, they also were in the process of banning short-term rentals. But to my outside view the root of the problem was simple - the Irish are too attached to their lovely small homes and don't believe in building anything even moderately high. Of course a few high-rises would look ugly and create other problems but maybe this is the way to give everyone a place to live, not tightening regulations some more.

jeffbee 6y ago

This is the utilization theory of dwellings, which I think is bunk. Actual utilization is over 90% in California cities, so fiddling with vacant and underused properties can only make a small difference while being rather difficult to achieve. 10% vacancy is actually desirable because it makes the marketplace work. Land, on the other hand, is severely underused. Zoning changes could easily triple the housing supply in American cities. That's a lot better than 5-10%.

fennecfoxen 6y ago

I am routinely amazed by the the hoops people are willing jump through to avoid the simple answer of "building more apartments." High end estimates of AirBnB apartments are about 4% of units in the most popular neighborhoods -- Times Square, the East Village, Williamsburg. Drift out to Park Slope and you can see 2%, maybe. House hoarding? Very few people pay a mortgage for empty space when they can get a tenant to pay the mortgage instead. The real house hoarding is the high end luxury market with $20 million penthouses, where renters were never in the picture. We don't need to free up 4-5% more units in the most popular neighborhoods. It'll help a little, yes? It's just that it's such pathetically small thinking. Why don't we have a plan to build 50% more units citywide, and make housing actually affordable? Hell, it's New York. Build us 100% more apartments. Put real price reductions on the table. Do what it takes to chop rental prices in half.

MrPatan 6y ago

Or you could change those extemely strict planning laws and regulations.

dunkelheit 6y ago

When I visited Dublin last year (as a tourist, exacerbating the problem, hehe; although I stayed in a hotel), the housing problems were obvious - lots of homeless in the streets, they also were in the process of banning short-term rentals. But to my outside view the root of the problem was simple - the Irish are too attached to their lovely small homes and don't believe in building anything even moderately high. Of course a few high-rises would look ugly and create other problems but maybe this is the way to give everyone a place to live, not tightening regulations some more.