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> Tax property more when it's vacant. Problem fixed. Besides leaving properties vacant, rent control distorts the market in other ways. Because rent control al

> Tax property more when it's vacant. Problem fixed. Besides leaving properties vacant, rent control distorts the market in other ways. Because rent control also lowers the supply of rental unit, builders are more incentivized to sell to owner-occupants (since rent control depresses the value of rental units and thus a landlord's willingness to pay for a given unit). This increases the pool of housing available to richer people who can afford to buy a house, and decreases the pool of housing to people who can only afford the rent. Rent control also incentivizes renters to stay in their current housing, even when moving would be more efficient. (Consider someone living in an rent-controlled below-market rate apartment in San Francisco who gets a new job in the South Bay. They would like to move, but that would cost them extra in rent.) Even if you create policies that address these issues, there are likely more problems rent control creates. At what point do you give up and conclude that rent control is the issue?' If you want to control gentrification and enable people to stay in the neighborhoods that they grew up in, there ways to achieve that which don't have the negative side effects of market-wide rent control, like below-market-rate housing for people who make less than a certain amount or have lived in an area for a certain amount of time.

blackrock 6y ago
This is a failure of the market. Since builders do not want to build, then the State needs to provide leadership, take control, establish eminent domain, and send in the army, to build government backed buildings. Then rent these out to people that need them, at affordable rates. The sacred market, is ultimately what is killing the quality of life in California.
- anonuser123456 6y ago
  > Since builders do not want to build, Show me a builder that doesn’t want to build, and I’ll show you a city planning department that makes it impossible to do so. Builders are like any business. They want a margin. If they can’t make a margin, they don’t build. The only way government can build cheaper than a builder is to bypass its own regulatory morass. At which point one might ask, why not just let the builders operate on the same rule set.
  - blackrock 6y ago
    This is true. California has such stupid over-regulations, such as requiring solar panels, on all new housing, at a cost of about $30,000, that gets footed by the consumer. And this is on top of already expensive housing! All these regulations increase the cost of building, and decreases the builder’s profit margin. The only solution here, is to roll back these burdensome regulations and environmental review policies.
- jasonboyd 6y ago
  My wife works in home building in the bay area. I can assure you that home builders want to build homes. The inability to construct new homes in the bay area is almost entirely due to objections from local commissioners and planning councils.

blackrock 6y ago

This is a failure of the market. Since builders do not want to build, then the State needs to provide leadership, take control, establish eminent domain, and send in the army, to build government backed buildings. Then rent these out to people that need them, at affordable rates. The sacred market, is ultimately what is killing the quality of life in California.

anonuser123456 6y ago
> Since builders do not want to build, Show me a builder that doesn’t want to build, and I’ll show you a city planning department that makes it impossible to do so. Builders are like any business. They want a margin. If they can’t make a margin, they don’t build. The only way government can build cheaper than a builder is to bypass its own regulatory morass. At which point one might ask, why not just let the builders operate on the same rule set.
- blackrock 6y ago
  This is true. California has such stupid over-regulations, such as requiring solar panels, on all new housing, at a cost of about $30,000, that gets footed by the consumer. And this is on top of already expensive housing! All these regulations increase the cost of building, and decreases the builder’s profit margin. The only solution here, is to roll back these burdensome regulations and environmental review policies.
jasonboyd 6y ago
My wife works in home building in the bay area. I can assure you that home builders want to build homes. The inability to construct new homes in the bay area is almost entirely due to objections from local commissioners and planning councils.