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It’s a real problem. I love the dynamism of cities but had to move out due to affordance. Now that I own a home, it’s a major conflict because I just dumped non

by bmitc 4y ago

It’s a real problem. I love the dynamism of cities but had to move out due to affordance. Now that I own a home, it’s a major conflict because I just dumped non-retirement life savings into this home. If it lost major value, it would be disastrous. I’m happy enough for more urbanism and communities, but why do I need to sacrifice my life savings to support that? The U.S. government has really allowed things to get out of hand with housing. The first thing they should address are investors and companies buying up houses. There are at least two houses in my neighborhood sitting empty and quickly dilapidating, as they were likely purchased by investors.

Gigachad 4y ago
I think the original statement doesn't really get to the truth of it. High density and vibrant communities are positives for property value. People objecting to these changes either aren't thinking logically or they aren't objecting to the value part. They want to preserve the character of the area they moved in to.
- ajmurmann 4y ago
  I think some of it is a misunderstanding of economics, but some of it is also different willingness to take risks and looking at different time horizons. If my single-family home is the only one in the neighborhood with an apartment building next to it, its value might indeed drop. If I can wait till the neighborhood becomes hip and desired and maybe someone wants to buy my home for big money to build a larger building, cool. However, if I cannot wait a few years or worry that the apartment building goes up and then the economics change and the city takes a turn for the worse and nothing gets build anymore, I might be against the apartment building. It's also always nicer to have those things build a little further away. Being the quiet neighborhood a short hop away from the cool hip hood gives you most of the benefits without the risks and downsides. Of course if everyone thinks like that we get the current situation. IMO it's selfish, not that they aren't thinking logically.
  - jrockway 4y ago
    > If my single-family home is the only one in the neighborhood with an apartment building next to it, its value might indeed drop. People love single-family homes in dense urban environments. A neighborhood that I think is a good example of comfortable density with a good variety of building sizes is Brooklyn Heights in New York City. You can buy a studio apartment for $250,000 or a townhouse for $17,000,000, and everything in between. You would make an incomprehensible amount of money selling your house if your neighborhood turned into Brooklyn Heights.
    - ajmurmann 4y ago
      In dense urban areas, yes. That's not the scenario I described though.
      - jrockway 4y ago
        If all the buildings in your neighborhood turn into apartment buildings, you're a dense urban area now.
        ajmurmann 4y ago
        Three initial plan is likely only for a single building though. There is no guarantee there won't be a recession and nothing else gets built for a long time.
        jrockway 4y ago
        I guess, what are you worried about? A stronger tax base is good for your community; you have 100 people paying property taxes where there used to be 1 person. The worst case is that they park your cars in front of your trash cans on trash day and it doesn't get picked up?
        ajmurmann 4y ago
        I personally not worried about anything. I'd immediately go for something that's like Japanese zoning and probably actively penalize sprawl. However, I'm trying to steelman the NIMBY fucks. > The worst case is that they park your cars in front of your trash cans on trash day and it doesn't get picked up? Future buyers might be worried about that or they might worried about the thing becoming a crack house or other xenophobic shit. I know lots of people who for reasons I don't agree with or even find appalling don't want to live next to an apartment building.
eloisant 4y ago
The home you live in is not an investment, you should not see it as one. If the $ value of your house goes down, you can still live it in just fine. If you want to move, and the overall market is down, you will sell your house for less but you will also buy your new house for less. No matter what, a 100m2 house is still worth a 100m2 house in a similar neighborhood. The only case you should be worried is if only YOUR neighborhood goes down in price while the rest of your city is stable or going up. Or only your city is going down and you want to move to a different city. Anyway - it's still unclear to me how allowing small business in residential area would make the housing prices go down. If anything it would make it go up as having small business in a walking distance is very convenient. Even multi-stories buildings, I see why homeowners don't want them because of their personal confort, but if it becomes the norm I don't see how it would make their property prices go down.
- bmitc 4y ago
  > The home you live in is not an investment, you should not see it as one. I don’t and didn’t say I did and really need lectured on that. It’s my primary complaint of how people think about the financial aspect of home ownership. I was a happy renting but mainly because I was very lucky and found a landlord who kept my rent below market and only raised it once. That was until I got tired of a revolving door of neighbors and a particularly nasty one, so I chose home ownership primarily for lifestyle. It’s nice to not have a maniac neighbor living above me. Trust me, it’s not by choice that I needed to tie up so much of my worth in a mortgage. I’m not arguing against really anything other than indiscriminately blaming homeowners. Even when I was renting, which so far occurred every year except for one of my adult life, a lot of urban development generally increased rent and prices. As I mentioned elsewhere, a lot of urban designers just want to build, build, build. That’s something I don’t think solves what people think it does. And in general, urban design cannot fix cost of living issues and these conflicts of interests. By the way, moving is a whole other discussion. I couldn’t have afforded my home merely a few months after purchase due to the volatility of interest rates. Tokyo has extensive public transportation and culture and other things that support its density. You don’t get Tokyo in the U.S. by just slapping down apartment buildings, which typically come with parking and traffic demands on the local area.
davidw 4y ago
Companies owning housing don't show up locally to block new housing: > The role of institutional investors is still being studied, but the popularity of the narrative strikes at something dangerous: People want a convenient boogeyman and when they get it, they often ignore the structural problems that are harder to combat. Housing undersupply is the result of decades of locals opposing new home building. It’s not something that can be blamed on Wall Street greed and the nefarious tinkering of a private equity firm. And that’s a much harder truth to stomach. https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/22524829/wall-street-housing-market-blackrock-bubble https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/22524829/wall-street-housin...
- bmitc 4y ago
  I think it’s probably actually understated. Although, it also probably depends on your area. In my area, as I already have given an example of, “site unseen” investors are absolutely prevalent.
  - davidw 4y ago
    She has a lot of data in that article and it's pretty solid. Whatever the amount of homes being purchased by investors, you have to look at the root cause of why they're investing. This is covered by the article - did any of you downvoters bother to read it? > Yield-chasing investors have turned to the real estate market because it has become a very profitable place to put your money. And the main reason it has become so profitable is the preexisting housing shortage created by local governments and certain homeowners seeking to block new homes from being built, leading to a nearly 4 million home shortage nationwide. Locally, when we look around at who's blocking housing, it's 100% our neighbors: https://bendyimby.com/2022/09/07/development-code-weaponized-against-housing/ https://bendyimby.com/2022/09/07/development-code-weaponized...

by bmitc 4y ago

Gigachad 4y ago

I think the original statement doesn't really get to the truth of it. High density and vibrant communities are positives for property value. People objecting to these changes either aren't thinking logically or they aren't objecting to the value part. They want to preserve the character of the area they moved in to.

ajmurmann 4y ago
I think some of it is a misunderstanding of economics, but some of it is also different willingness to take risks and looking at different time horizons. If my single-family home is the only one in the neighborhood with an apartment building next to it, its value might indeed drop. If I can wait till the neighborhood becomes hip and desired and maybe someone wants to buy my home for big money to build a larger building, cool. However, if I cannot wait a few years or worry that the apartment building goes up and then the economics change and the city takes a turn for the worse and nothing gets build anymore, I might be against the apartment building. It's also always nicer to have those things build a little further away. Being the quiet neighborhood a short hop away from the cool hip hood gives you most of the benefits without the risks and downsides. Of course if everyone thinks like that we get the current situation. IMO it's selfish, not that they aren't thinking logically.
- jrockway 4y ago
  > If my single-family home is the only one in the neighborhood with an apartment building next to it, its value might indeed drop. People love single-family homes in dense urban environments. A neighborhood that I think is a good example of comfortable density with a good variety of building sizes is Brooklyn Heights in New York City. You can buy a studio apartment for $250,000 or a townhouse for $17,000,000, and everything in between. You would make an incomprehensible amount of money selling your house if your neighborhood turned into Brooklyn Heights.
  - ajmurmann 4y ago
    In dense urban areas, yes. That's not the scenario I described though.
    - jrockway 4y ago
      If all the buildings in your neighborhood turn into apartment buildings, you're a dense urban area now.
      - ajmurmann 4y ago
        Three initial plan is likely only for a single building though. There is no guarantee there won't be a recession and nothing else gets built for a long time.
        jrockway 4y ago
        I guess, what are you worried about? A stronger tax base is good for your community; you have 100 people paying property taxes where there used to be 1 person. The worst case is that they park your cars in front of your trash cans on trash day and it doesn't get picked up?
        ajmurmann 4y ago
        I personally not worried about anything. I'd immediately go for something that's like Japanese zoning and probably actively penalize sprawl. However, I'm trying to steelman the NIMBY fucks. > The worst case is that they park your cars in front of your trash cans on trash day and it doesn't get picked up? Future buyers might be worried about that or they might worried about the thing becoming a crack house or other xenophobic shit. I know lots of people who for reasons I don't agree with or even find appalling don't want to live next to an apartment building.

eloisant 4y ago

The home you live in is not an investment, you should not see it as one. If the $ value of your house goes down, you can still live it in just fine. If you want to move, and the overall market is down, you will sell your house for less but you will also buy your new house for less. No matter what, a 100m2 house is still worth a 100m2 house in a similar neighborhood. The only case you should be worried is if only YOUR neighborhood goes down in price while the rest of your city is stable or going up. Or only your city is going down and you want to move to a different city. Anyway - it's still unclear to me how allowing small business in residential area would make the housing prices go down. If anything it would make it go up as having small business in a walking distance is very convenient. Even multi-stories buildings, I see why homeowners don't want them because of their personal confort, but if it becomes the norm I don't see how it would make their property prices go down.

bmitc 4y ago
> The home you live in is not an investment, you should not see it as one. I don’t and didn’t say I did and really need lectured on that. It’s my primary complaint of how people think about the financial aspect of home ownership. I was a happy renting but mainly because I was very lucky and found a landlord who kept my rent below market and only raised it once. That was until I got tired of a revolving door of neighbors and a particularly nasty one, so I chose home ownership primarily for lifestyle. It’s nice to not have a maniac neighbor living above me. Trust me, it’s not by choice that I needed to tie up so much of my worth in a mortgage. I’m not arguing against really anything other than indiscriminately blaming homeowners. Even when I was renting, which so far occurred every year except for one of my adult life, a lot of urban development generally increased rent and prices. As I mentioned elsewhere, a lot of urban designers just want to build, build, build. That’s something I don’t think solves what people think it does. And in general, urban design cannot fix cost of living issues and these conflicts of interests. By the way, moving is a whole other discussion. I couldn’t have afforded my home merely a few months after purchase due to the volatility of interest rates. Tokyo has extensive public transportation and culture and other things that support its density. You don’t get Tokyo in the U.S. by just slapping down apartment buildings, which typically come with parking and traffic demands on the local area.

davidw 4y ago

Companies owning housing don't show up locally to block new housing: > The role of institutional investors is still being studied, but the popularity of the narrative strikes at something dangerous: People want a convenient boogeyman and when they get it, they often ignore the structural problems that are harder to combat. Housing undersupply is the result of decades of locals opposing new home building. It’s not something that can be blamed on Wall Street greed and the nefarious tinkering of a private equity firm. And that’s a much harder truth to stomach. https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/22524829/wall-street-housing-market-blackrock-bubble https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/22524829/wall-street-housin...

bmitc 4y ago
I think it’s probably actually understated. Although, it also probably depends on your area. In my area, as I already have given an example of, “site unseen” investors are absolutely prevalent.
- davidw 4y ago
  She has a lot of data in that article and it's pretty solid. Whatever the amount of homes being purchased by investors, you have to look at the root cause of why they're investing. This is covered by the article - did any of you downvoters bother to read it? > Yield-chasing investors have turned to the real estate market because it has become a very profitable place to put your money. And the main reason it has become so profitable is the preexisting housing shortage created by local governments and certain homeowners seeking to block new homes from being built, leading to a nearly 4 million home shortage nationwide. Locally, when we look around at who's blocking housing, it's 100% our neighbors: https://bendyimby.com/2022/09/07/development-code-weaponized-against-housing/ https://bendyimby.com/2022/09/07/development-code-weaponized...