4 ms·
As long as the market is allowed to build housing to meet demand it's not too bad. Main issue in Palo Alto (and to a large extent the rest of the bay area) is
by gonehome 5y ago
As long as the market is allowed to build housing to meet demand it's not too bad.
Main issue in Palo Alto (and to a large extent the rest of the bay area) is that there's massive population growth in the bay area, but very little housing is allowed to be built. This creates artificial scarcity and the people that bought houses 30yrs ago accrue massive wealth because of it at the expense of new people (and the new people that manage to buy at exorbitant rates also end up paying the majority share of taxes too).
This is the natural incentive made worse by things like locked property taxes and rent control. You really need legislation that allows the market to build (easier said than done).
- to11mtm 5y agoThe (build) supply side of the housing market is complicated. Remember that even when you aren't hampered by lack of space and/or zoning, most build starts are still 'investments'. I knew a whole lot of folks who did homebuilding in the first decade of the century. Housing starts were all over the place, partially because the investors were sure that with prices rising, it was a sure thing, right? But then the market glut happened. Housing starts stopped. All of those folks left homebuilding and few if any ever went back to it. I think nowadays Investors are back to preferring smaller buildouts, potentially in more phases. The supply/labor issues from covid haven't helped things lately though.
- Retric 5y agoPopulation isn’t coming from nowhere. You can also directly compare the amounts new housing vs new commercial development in the Bay Area to see what’s going on. The rules created by existing residents where designed to push up rent and home prices, and they have succeeded.