4 ms·

As a resident, what do you think was the catalyst for these changes?

pkaye 4y ago
A lot of people moved into the bay area for the good jobs, nice weather and nature. Once housing demand pushed above supply, prices started shooting up. Those locals whose incomes didn't grow were pushed out of their homes. The bay area is boxed in by the hills so hard to expand out. Also a lot of the land was already build up with single family homes and other low density housing a long time ago so upgrading the density is harder. The public transportation is also limited. BART didn't expand to south bay until a few years ago. And the stations are far apart. Undoing all this mess will be much more expensive now.
- 62951413 4y ago
  Actually California natives have one good thing going for them. Prop 13. So if you or your parents have lived in the house for 30+ years you're likely to pay $2K in property taxes on a $1M house (annually). The lack of middle-class jobs is a whole different story.
  - pkaye 4y ago
    Not just natives. Anyone who moved here a decade back might benefit. I grew up here but it was still difficult to buy a house when young because the housing prices kept ahead of salaries. The drop in prices during the last recession is what gave me the chance.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    And that is the flip side to Prop 13, which a bunch of people like to hate on. Absent Prop 13 (for residential properties) a lot of long-term residents would be forced out by rapidly rising property taxes. Which would-be residents may not like but is not at all clearly a bad thing.
    - TulliusCicero 4y ago
      Even if that's your angle, Prop 13 is bizarrely overbroad. If you just wanted to protect long-term residents from needing to move: * Remove its application to commercial property * Remove its application to second/vacation homes * Remove its application to inherited property * Only apply the restriction if the increase would be burdensome on the household's income * Only apply the restriction once someone has lived in the house for a significant amount of time, e.g. 5+ years.
      - electriclove 4y ago
        I started to nod in agreement but as I went down your list I vehemently disagree with where the continuation of that thought goes..
        TulliusCicero 4y ago
        Why's that? The way I look at it, if the purpose is to protect people from needing to move because they can't afford property taxes, restrictions should be narrowly tailored to only apply in that case.
        electriclove 4y ago
        You lost me when you bring up burdensome and household income. Who gets to decide what burdensome is? An owner occupied home should be protected - regardless of how long they have been there or how much money they earn. I do not believe in penalizing this group. The other groups are all doing business and making money off others and I find that to be more justified for being taxed at market.
        TulliusCicero 4y ago
        > Who gets to decide what burdensome is? The same entity creating the regulations, I imagine. Who else would? Set it at some threshold, if the property tax goes beyond some % of annual income then it gets capped. > I do not believe in penalizing this group. Letting people pay property taxes proportional to their property value is not "punishment", any more than people paying income taxes proportional to their income is "punishment".
  - wanderr 4y ago
    Not everyone bought the homes they lived in back then.
  - zip1234 4y ago
    Prop 13 is terrible and has create a 'landed gentry'. It certainly hasn't lowered housing prices and forces those people to stay in a house that they may not want to live in but have to because moving removes their benefit. To fix housing crisis just remove zoning and stupid rules that delay housing. If all of sudden 75% of the land was available for building up there would be rapidly falling prices very quickly.
- zip1234 4y ago
  Most houses I've seen there are $50k houses on $2M pieces of land. Something like 75% of the land is used for single family detached houses. Just remove the dumb restrictions and there is plenty of space and prices go down.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
TulliusCicero 4y ago
I'm also from the bay area, and it's quite simple: demand skyrocketed due to tech, and supply couldn't keep up, due to various kinds of regulations. Zoning is the most obvious regulation that makes things hard: most land is zoned exclusively for single family homes on large lots. There's been a bit of movement on this from the state level to allow ADU's or duplexes, but not enough, there's usually various legal hurdles that make it harder. Missing middle housing is mostly still illegal. The other thing is all the various processes involved. CEQA makes things take a long time (not that I'm opposed to protecting the environment, but surely there's a way to do it that doesn't take years for an apartment complex). Community meetings and planning commissions can often block new developments for random, arbitrary reasons, like "tall building would cast too many shadows" or "demand on street parking would increase"; these are things that are so obviously inherent to any significant development permitted in areas where you can build taller apartment buildings, and yet they're still used to block more housing.

A lot of people moved into the bay area for the good jobs, nice weather and nature. Once housing demand pushed above supply, prices started shooting up. Those locals whose incomes didn't grow were pushed out of their homes. The bay area is boxed in by the hills so hard to expand out. Also a lot of the land was already build up with single family homes and other low density housing a long time ago so upgrading the density is harder. The public transportation is also limited. BART didn't expand to south bay until a few years ago. And the stations are far apart. Undoing all this mess will be much more expensive now.

62951413 4y ago
Actually California natives have one good thing going for them. Prop 13. So if you or your parents have lived in the house for 30+ years you're likely to pay $2K in property taxes on a $1M house (annually). The lack of middle-class jobs is a whole different story.
- pkaye 4y ago
  Not just natives. Anyone who moved here a decade back might benefit. I grew up here but it was still difficult to buy a house when young because the housing prices kept ahead of salaries. The drop in prices during the last recession is what gave me the chance.
- ghaff 4y ago
  And that is the flip side to Prop 13, which a bunch of people like to hate on. Absent Prop 13 (for residential properties) a lot of long-term residents would be forced out by rapidly rising property taxes. Which would-be residents may not like but is not at all clearly a bad thing.
  - TulliusCicero 4y ago
    Even if that's your angle, Prop 13 is bizarrely overbroad. If you just wanted to protect long-term residents from needing to move: * Remove its application to commercial property * Remove its application to second/vacation homes * Remove its application to inherited property * Only apply the restriction if the increase would be burdensome on the household's income * Only apply the restriction once someone has lived in the house for a significant amount of time, e.g. 5+ years.
    - electriclove 4y ago
      I started to nod in agreement but as I went down your list I vehemently disagree with where the continuation of that thought goes..
      - TulliusCicero 4y ago
        Why's that? The way I look at it, if the purpose is to protect people from needing to move because they can't afford property taxes, restrictions should be narrowly tailored to only apply in that case.
        electriclove 4y ago
        You lost me when you bring up burdensome and household income. Who gets to decide what burdensome is? An owner occupied home should be protected - regardless of how long they have been there or how much money they earn. I do not believe in penalizing this group. The other groups are all doing business and making money off others and I find that to be more justified for being taxed at market.
        TulliusCicero 4y ago
        > Who gets to decide what burdensome is? The same entity creating the regulations, I imagine. Who else would? Set it at some threshold, if the property tax goes beyond some % of annual income then it gets capped. > I do not believe in penalizing this group. Letting people pay property taxes proportional to their property value is not "punishment", any more than people paying income taxes proportional to their income is "punishment".
- wanderr 4y ago
  Not everyone bought the homes they lived in back then.
- zip1234 4y ago
  Prop 13 is terrible and has create a 'landed gentry'. It certainly hasn't lowered housing prices and forces those people to stay in a house that they may not want to live in but have to because moving removes their benefit. To fix housing crisis just remove zoning and stupid rules that delay housing. If all of sudden 75% of the land was available for building up there would be rapidly falling prices very quickly.
zip1234 4y ago
Most houses I've seen there are $50k houses on $2M pieces of land. Something like 75% of the land is used for single family detached houses. Just remove the dumb restrictions and there is plenty of space and prices go down.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

TulliusCicero 4y ago

I'm also from the bay area, and it's quite simple: demand skyrocketed due to tech, and supply couldn't keep up, due to various kinds of regulations. Zoning is the most obvious regulation that makes things hard: most land is zoned exclusively for single family homes on large lots. There's been a bit of movement on this from the state level to allow ADU's or duplexes, but not enough, there's usually various legal hurdles that make it harder. Missing middle housing is mostly still illegal. The other thing is all the various processes involved. CEQA makes things take a long time (not that I'm opposed to protecting the environment, but surely there's a way to do it that doesn't take years for an apartment complex). Community meetings and planning commissions can often block new developments for random, arbitrary reasons, like "tall building would cast too many shadows" or "demand on street parking would increase"; these are things that are so obviously inherent to any significant development permitted in areas where you can build taller apartment buildings, and yet they're still used to block more housing.