4 ms·

I appreciate the back and forth on a contentious issue. Drilling into the core difference: > "When supply is limited and more people demand it, it’s value is

I appreciate the back and forth on a contentious issue. Drilling into the core difference: > "When supply is limited and more people demand it, it’s value is going to increase." > "Price of homes is set by desirability and demand." > "HOW? Prices are not determined by Palo Alto residents. It is determined by the market by those who WANT to sell their Palo Alto homes to newcomers. Price of homes is set by desirability and demand." > "Because they came in before you and built homes, took mortgages and didn’t die soon enough to have their homes sold at market rate for others to move in?" I think the core element here is that prices are high because supply is artificially constrained by existing owners, if allowed to - the market would build a lot more housing and prices would come down a lot. Since the palo alto residents don't allow housing to be built, they are indirectly setting the prices to be high. I don't want people to die, I want people to allow more housing to be built. The people who already own here don't want that. As someone who would like to live and raise a family here, I do.

jelliclesfarm 6y ago
I hear you. I disagree with you re: PA residents setting the prices. It is demand that sets the prices. Too many people wanting to live in PA increases desirability of the area. The city complying with ABAG demands to build new high density and affordable homes are also increasing land value making it unaffordable for the medium income demographic like yourself. Welcome to being middle class in the Bay Area. You will probably be eligible to own a below market rate home in PA if you had a lower paying job. Also Palo Alto is a richer zip code than the rest of Bay Area. If it becomes affordable, then it’s not Palo Alto anymore. It would be Newark(not that anything is wrong with Newark. It’s a great for a starter home and ripe to build equity as Facebook is moving there) And it would lose it desirability as a PA address. It’s a chicken and egg problem. Good luck.
- fossuser 6y ago
  It's demand and supply. You can't control demand, but you do control supply. Restricting supply keeps prices high. Building high density homes increases supply and thus lowers prices. > "Also Palo Alto is a richer zip code than the rest of Bay Area. If it becomes affordable, then it’s not Palo Alto anymore." You used to be able to buy here without having to pay $4M for a nice place, being exclusionary and rich doesn't have to be the town's defining characteristic (or at least it's not what I like about it). I like that it's close to work, there's good schools, and no commute. I'm not searching for a high status zipcode. I am actually lucky enough to be able to buy a cheaper place here, but it's frustrating to have all my wealth tied up in housing just to live in a kind of crappy house. People who've been here for a while and bought in at 300k don't really seem to understand that. People that bought in at $4M have sunk costs and strong incentives to not let prices fall. On the property tax issue, the reason I said variants of 'pay no property tax' is because of the relative value. If a new neighbor pays more tax in one year than you paid cumulatively in 30yrs then effectively your community contribution is negligible. I get the strong incentives and why someone in your position would push the policy you do, it's just harmful to new people that want to live here. Other states without prop13 also do not have tax locked to the sale price. They bear some burden for restricting supply and need to pay for that. At a minimum they're charged the tax on house sale that they haven't been paying while living there (so they pay in the end, but don't get kicked out because of it).
  - jelliclesfarm 6y ago
    Let us break this down because there is too much noise. 1. What is the goal? You can only pick one of the many issues you mentioned above. Because no one of them are connected to each other. Example: even if you make a retiree pay more tax, you may not be able to afford it. Even if they build more affordable housing, it is not for you but for teachers and other people who are ok with living in high density apartments. 2. Identify the player and the player’s motivation first. Each player has a different goal and the solution to getting to each is different. This will clear the vision a bit. 3. From what I have read, it seems to me that you think $4M is too high and for whatever reason you think that if retired seniors on fixed income are made to pay tax on properties that haven’t been sold yet, somehow you and others like you can have a piece of PA real estate. Another layer of confusion is that you feel that if people build more, housing will be more affordable to the less than 4M shopping budget folks. Neither of these positions and the assumptions supporting them are rational or logical. 4. The last flaw in your argument is that it is fashioned to create villains whose actions preceded your presence in PA as something that has somehow affected your happiness. I find that this is very prevalent these days and it’s puzzlingly inexplicable to me. Your inability to afford a nice house in one of the most desirable zip codes say more about your paycheck than the assets accrued by someone thirty years ago FOR the purpose of watching their nest egg grow. Nobody buys a property so it will become a financial albatross. Mortgages are designed so that for thirty years during your productive period, you work to pay it off so that when you retire you don’t have the burden of payments but the security and comfort of an appreciated asset. They had planned their lives around this notion without expecting the boom in house prices that PA experienced. In other words, it’s not their problem or social responsibility to make it easier for those who are too poor to buy in TODAY(decades or years after they made it their home). They are not the ‘bad guys’. When we stop projecting our lack(too poor to buy in PA) as someone’s else(older existing PA homeowners) villainy, then things will become a little less murky. It’s easy to lash out at others but it won’t solve any problem. 5. Other states do not have population or GDP of California that is almost as much as small countries. Texas and WA have more taxes but they also don’t have income tax. Housing will not be stable if you don’t cap property taxes. If your property taxes are swinging wildly on the basis of speculative buying and especially from foreign buyers, how can anyone manage their finances? During a boom, it will be 10k..the next year, it could be 30k or 8k. If you increase the percentage, how will those in fixed income and mortgage free after retirement be able to cover the increases? This plan would force millions of seniors out of their homes right after they have finished payed their mortgages and have stopped working. Let’s take the example of John. John bought a house in 1990. He is 65 now and receives a pension. He has medical issues. He expects to die in the house he now owns. His finances are managed for fixed expenses including living expenses, property taxes and some savings. How do you expect him to survive if he is made to pay more taxes on a house that has multiple times and he hasn’t sold it yet. The only solution is if he uproots himself and goes to elsewhere cheap. Another example: let’s take Jack. Jack bought a property in 2000 at age 30. He got married in 2005 and has two kids in school. His house has appreciated but as has his expenses because of his growing family. His income hasn’t increased. How is he supposed to save for his retirement, his kid’s education, his living expenses and mortgage that he still owns if property taxes go on a property doesn’t own yet and hasn’t realized the market appreciation. This market appreciation is because of young tech workers who came in 2010-2015, foreign home buyers, those who have moved from out of state to CA and desire PA. So the people of CA and homeowners have to subsidize the DESIRES of newcomers and people who don’t yet pay property taxes because they don’t own homes yet but would like to by paying more taxes? In which universe do you think people would chop off their hand and limb so they can share their chair with you? What have the newly arrived people desiring a piece of PA done to PA that others living there and have built PA have to bear the cost of sharing their space with them? If you can’t afford to live in PA by buying a property, PA has nothing to lose. You have no bargaining card. At all. What are you offering in this negotiation to achieve what you want? All I hear is about how ‘unfair’ it is and what it signals is weakness and lack of resources. That’s not a good bargaining chip. 6. Everyone is free to desire and this is a good thing. But if we don’t get what we desire, lashing out at those who have what we want will not achieve anything. The city of PA doesn’t need new people. It doesn’t need extra property taxes to be levied because the state of CA redistributes all incoming public money. Even if PA gets more housing and pays more property taxes with its socialist policies, it will not benefit PA at all and will only create more restrictions and lesser resources and more crowds. There is no incentive at all. It is more so with PA than other affluent cities in other counties because PA manages its own water Dept and funds it’s own school system with parcel taxes and has its own recycling..and will soon set up microgrids to be truly independent. The high quality of life is only because of local governance. Or it would be a shitty mess like the rest of California. It is best if the start ups and tech companies move out. Because the employees abhor driving and traffic altho this has been caused by this very sector. The infantalisation of this generation’s workers starting with Google’s coddling at their ‘campus’ and then adopted by other FAANG companies and then even smaller start ups has created an entitled citizenry that is feels entitled and is used to getting what it wants when it wants. Real life is not like that. If one wants something shiny and beautiful and desirable, there is a price for it. I am grateful that it is only a monetary price. It doesn’t matter anymore because with tech moving out of California, things will become better and this insanity might stop if Californians are lucky. We have just started traded water futures for California water. Did you know that? $496/acre-foot last I checked yesterday. High density building has to stop. I have been farming long enough to have seen the drought era and I am afraid no one in tech knows or understands the tsunami of dust and wind that is waiting for us. California is mostly desert and our water comes because we steal from Rio Grande. It’s a much bigger topic, but all the tech money can’t fix water scarcity that is a guarantee. And we shouldn’t be building more or building densely because it’s easy to go vertical, but not enough water to support the increase in our state’s population.

jelliclesfarm 6y ago

I hear you. I disagree with you re: PA residents setting the prices. It is demand that sets the prices. Too many people wanting to live in PA increases desirability of the area. The city complying with ABAG demands to build new high density and affordable homes are also increasing land value making it unaffordable for the medium income demographic like yourself. Welcome to being middle class in the Bay Area. You will probably be eligible to own a below market rate home in PA if you had a lower paying job. Also Palo Alto is a richer zip code than the rest of Bay Area. If it becomes affordable, then it’s not Palo Alto anymore. It would be Newark(not that anything is wrong with Newark. It’s a great for a starter home and ripe to build equity as Facebook is moving there) And it would lose it desirability as a PA address. It’s a chicken and egg problem. Good luck.

fossuser 6y ago
It's demand and supply. You can't control demand, but you do control supply. Restricting supply keeps prices high. Building high density homes increases supply and thus lowers prices. > "Also Palo Alto is a richer zip code than the rest of Bay Area. If it becomes affordable, then it’s not Palo Alto anymore." You used to be able to buy here without having to pay $4M for a nice place, being exclusionary and rich doesn't have to be the town's defining characteristic (or at least it's not what I like about it). I like that it's close to work, there's good schools, and no commute. I'm not searching for a high status zipcode. I am actually lucky enough to be able to buy a cheaper place here, but it's frustrating to have all my wealth tied up in housing just to live in a kind of crappy house. People who've been here for a while and bought in at 300k don't really seem to understand that. People that bought in at $4M have sunk costs and strong incentives to not let prices fall. On the property tax issue, the reason I said variants of 'pay no property tax' is because of the relative value. If a new neighbor pays more tax in one year than you paid cumulatively in 30yrs then effectively your community contribution is negligible. I get the strong incentives and why someone in your position would push the policy you do, it's just harmful to new people that want to live here. Other states without prop13 also do not have tax locked to the sale price. They bear some burden for restricting supply and need to pay for that. At a minimum they're charged the tax on house sale that they haven't been paying while living there (so they pay in the end, but don't get kicked out because of it).
- jelliclesfarm 6y ago
  Let us break this down because there is too much noise. 1. What is the goal? You can only pick one of the many issues you mentioned above. Because no one of them are connected to each other. Example: even if you make a retiree pay more tax, you may not be able to afford it. Even if they build more affordable housing, it is not for you but for teachers and other people who are ok with living in high density apartments. 2. Identify the player and the player’s motivation first. Each player has a different goal and the solution to getting to each is different. This will clear the vision a bit. 3. From what I have read, it seems to me that you think $4M is too high and for whatever reason you think that if retired seniors on fixed income are made to pay tax on properties that haven’t been sold yet, somehow you and others like you can have a piece of PA real estate. Another layer of confusion is that you feel that if people build more, housing will be more affordable to the less than 4M shopping budget folks. Neither of these positions and the assumptions supporting them are rational or logical. 4. The last flaw in your argument is that it is fashioned to create villains whose actions preceded your presence in PA as something that has somehow affected your happiness. I find that this is very prevalent these days and it’s puzzlingly inexplicable to me. Your inability to afford a nice house in one of the most desirable zip codes say more about your paycheck than the assets accrued by someone thirty years ago FOR the purpose of watching their nest egg grow. Nobody buys a property so it will become a financial albatross. Mortgages are designed so that for thirty years during your productive period, you work to pay it off so that when you retire you don’t have the burden of payments but the security and comfort of an appreciated asset. They had planned their lives around this notion without expecting the boom in house prices that PA experienced. In other words, it’s not their problem or social responsibility to make it easier for those who are too poor to buy in TODAY(decades or years after they made it their home). They are not the ‘bad guys’. When we stop projecting our lack(too poor to buy in PA) as someone’s else(older existing PA homeowners) villainy, then things will become a little less murky. It’s easy to lash out at others but it won’t solve any problem. 5. Other states do not have population or GDP of California that is almost as much as small countries. Texas and WA have more taxes but they also don’t have income tax. Housing will not be stable if you don’t cap property taxes. If your property taxes are swinging wildly on the basis of speculative buying and especially from foreign buyers, how can anyone manage their finances? During a boom, it will be 10k..the next year, it could be 30k or 8k. If you increase the percentage, how will those in fixed income and mortgage free after retirement be able to cover the increases? This plan would force millions of seniors out of their homes right after they have finished payed their mortgages and have stopped working. Let’s take the example of John. John bought a house in 1990. He is 65 now and receives a pension. He has medical issues. He expects to die in the house he now owns. His finances are managed for fixed expenses including living expenses, property taxes and some savings. How do you expect him to survive if he is made to pay more taxes on a house that has multiple times and he hasn’t sold it yet. The only solution is if he uproots himself and goes to elsewhere cheap. Another example: let’s take Jack. Jack bought a property in 2000 at age 30. He got married in 2005 and has two kids in school. His house has appreciated but as has his expenses because of his growing family. His income hasn’t increased. How is he supposed to save for his retirement, his kid’s education, his living expenses and mortgage that he still owns if property taxes go on a property doesn’t own yet and hasn’t realized the market appreciation. This market appreciation is because of young tech workers who came in 2010-2015, foreign home buyers, those who have moved from out of state to CA and desire PA. So the people of CA and homeowners have to subsidize the DESIRES of newcomers and people who don’t yet pay property taxes because they don’t own homes yet but would like to by paying more taxes? In which universe do you think people would chop off their hand and limb so they can share their chair with you? What have the newly arrived people desiring a piece of PA done to PA that others living there and have built PA have to bear the cost of sharing their space with them? If you can’t afford to live in PA by buying a property, PA has nothing to lose. You have no bargaining card. At all. What are you offering in this negotiation to achieve what you want? All I hear is about how ‘unfair’ it is and what it signals is weakness and lack of resources. That’s not a good bargaining chip. 6. Everyone is free to desire and this is a good thing. But if we don’t get what we desire, lashing out at those who have what we want will not achieve anything. The city of PA doesn’t need new people. It doesn’t need extra property taxes to be levied because the state of CA redistributes all incoming public money. Even if PA gets more housing and pays more property taxes with its socialist policies, it will not benefit PA at all and will only create more restrictions and lesser resources and more crowds. There is no incentive at all. It is more so with PA than other affluent cities in other counties because PA manages its own water Dept and funds it’s own school system with parcel taxes and has its own recycling..and will soon set up microgrids to be truly independent. The high quality of life is only because of local governance. Or it would be a shitty mess like the rest of California. It is best if the start ups and tech companies move out. Because the employees abhor driving and traffic altho this has been caused by this very sector. The infantalisation of this generation’s workers starting with Google’s coddling at their ‘campus’ and then adopted by other FAANG companies and then even smaller start ups has created an entitled citizenry that is feels entitled and is used to getting what it wants when it wants. Real life is not like that. If one wants something shiny and beautiful and desirable, there is a price for it. I am grateful that it is only a monetary price. It doesn’t matter anymore because with tech moving out of California, things will become better and this insanity might stop if Californians are lucky. We have just started traded water futures for California water. Did you know that? $496/acre-foot last I checked yesterday. High density building has to stop. I have been farming long enough to have seen the drought era and I am afraid no one in tech knows or understands the tsunami of dust and wind that is waiting for us. California is mostly desert and our water comes because we steal from Rio Grande. It’s a much bigger topic, but all the tech money can’t fix water scarcity that is a guarantee. And we shouldn’t be building more or building densely because it’s easy to go vertical, but not enough water to support the increase in our state’s population.