4 ms·

High level, statistically speaking, there's a lot of evidence that homelessness correlates with housing prices. What's remarkable is how mad people get about th

by davidw 3y ago

High level, statistically speaking, there's a lot of evidence that homelessness correlates with housing prices. What's remarkable is how mad people get about the pretty self-explanatory notion that as a thing increases in costs, fewer people can afford it. They want to blame drugs or mental health or something. And while those do play a part for many people, the price of housing is what looms over it all: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/everything-you-think-you-know-about https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/everything-you-think-you-know-... Spending money to try and do something about homelessness at the same time the housing market is like a big factory that produces more homelessness via rising prices... I won't say it's useless, because it does help some people, but it's a losing fight. The housing market is bigger than the amount of assistance that can be brought to bear.

pydry 3y ago
>They want to blame drugs or mental health or something. Because the actual solutions involve taking a scythe to property prices and rents and thats the last thing investors want. They, and the media outlets they own, would prefer to see people dying on the street than that, but theyre not comfortable admitting it. Hence drugs, mental health crisis, yadda yadda anything except real solutions - 20ccs of rent control stat, taxing the hell out of their fattened up property portfolios and an exercise regimen of Singapore style social housing construction.
- davidw 3y ago
  There are a lot of different ways of building 'enough' housing: https://www.sightline.org/2017/09/21/yes-you-can-build-your-way-to-affordable-housing/ https://www.sightline.org/2017/09/21/yes-you-can-build-your-... Everyone has different preferences and ideas there, but the shortage is so, so damaging right now in so many ways.
- carom 3y ago
  False. I want more units. There is a demand and I want to meet that demand for money. I want to buy land that people can't afford and subdivide it to make it available to them. Win win. Single family home owners are the people who oppose density with their entire being. I hear them cry about traffic, parking, their view, noise, about their neighborhood's character. That regime is the problem. If it is profitable I will build housing all day long. If you cap rents and require unprofitable units to be built, I can't build as much. Then you are left competing for the finite supply of single family homes. Good luck! My property has rent control. Two 600 dollar a month units. Unprofitable. No way to get those to market so I Ellis act the whole thing. Good work rent control, you just made a 4 unit building into a single family home. Now there are some more regulations that disincentivize rebuilding by requiring unprofitable units or restoring the previous rental level. Great, let's delay building +10 units for a decade. These controls are so hair brained and only make the situation worse. You don't need social housing, you just need to get out of the way of the market.
  - pydry 3y ago
    False The fastest rate of home building was in New York during the 1950s. The strictest rent controls were in New York in the 1950s. The slowest is today when rent controls are weakest. It's not that it doesn't have an effect, but it is small and is absolutely overwhelmed by the lowering of property taxes. When property taxes are low, even the shittiest units making the most inefficient use of land like yours can tick over making a small profit and this eats land which would otherwise be used to build denser housing. Lowered property taxes also kicked property values sky high which in turn led to the NIMBY revolution. This also inhibited home building in a massive, massive way. In order to fix the housing crisis landlords who use land inefficiently to start losing money in a big way. That way they will finally dump their properties and the land can be redeveloped efficiently. They must be subjected to market discipline otherwise the housing market will never be fixed. The velvet glove treatment of their rent entitlements is entirely unsustainable.
    - carom 3y ago
      How are landlords your target for inefficiency when (complete guess) 50%+ of land is being used for single family homes? My property is going from 4 units to a personal residence due to rent control. It is unprofitable. It is not being developed further despite that being my initial plan because those restrictions would carry over to the new units (SB 8). You will never convince me these programs are good. They are literally taking housing off the market. This is zoned for 14 units. I will sit on it for 10 years due to SB 8. Great policy to prevent housing development.

by davidw 3y ago

pydry 3y ago

>They want to blame drugs or mental health or something. Because the actual solutions involve taking a scythe to property prices and rents and thats the last thing investors want. They, and the media outlets they own, would prefer to see people dying on the street than that, but theyre not comfortable admitting it. Hence drugs, mental health crisis, yadda yadda anything except real solutions - 20ccs of rent control stat, taxing the hell out of their fattened up property portfolios and an exercise regimen of Singapore style social housing construction.

davidw 3y ago
There are a lot of different ways of building 'enough' housing: https://www.sightline.org/2017/09/21/yes-you-can-build-your-way-to-affordable-housing/ https://www.sightline.org/2017/09/21/yes-you-can-build-your-... Everyone has different preferences and ideas there, but the shortage is so, so damaging right now in so many ways.
carom 3y ago
False. I want more units. There is a demand and I want to meet that demand for money. I want to buy land that people can't afford and subdivide it to make it available to them. Win win. Single family home owners are the people who oppose density with their entire being. I hear them cry about traffic, parking, their view, noise, about their neighborhood's character. That regime is the problem. If it is profitable I will build housing all day long. If you cap rents and require unprofitable units to be built, I can't build as much. Then you are left competing for the finite supply of single family homes. Good luck! My property has rent control. Two 600 dollar a month units. Unprofitable. No way to get those to market so I Ellis act the whole thing. Good work rent control, you just made a 4 unit building into a single family home. Now there are some more regulations that disincentivize rebuilding by requiring unprofitable units or restoring the previous rental level. Great, let's delay building +10 units for a decade. These controls are so hair brained and only make the situation worse. You don't need social housing, you just need to get out of the way of the market.
- pydry 3y ago
  False The fastest rate of home building was in New York during the 1950s. The strictest rent controls were in New York in the 1950s. The slowest is today when rent controls are weakest. It's not that it doesn't have an effect, but it is small and is absolutely overwhelmed by the lowering of property taxes. When property taxes are low, even the shittiest units making the most inefficient use of land like yours can tick over making a small profit and this eats land which would otherwise be used to build denser housing. Lowered property taxes also kicked property values sky high which in turn led to the NIMBY revolution. This also inhibited home building in a massive, massive way. In order to fix the housing crisis landlords who use land inefficiently to start losing money in a big way. That way they will finally dump their properties and the land can be redeveloped efficiently. They must be subjected to market discipline otherwise the housing market will never be fixed. The velvet glove treatment of their rent entitlements is entirely unsustainable.
  - carom 3y ago
    How are landlords your target for inefficiency when (complete guess) 50%+ of land is being used for single family homes? My property is going from 4 units to a personal residence due to rent control. It is unprofitable. It is not being developed further despite that being my initial plan because those restrictions would carry over to the new units (SB 8). You will never convince me these programs are good. They are literally taking housing off the market. This is zoned for 14 units. I will sit on it for 10 years due to SB 8. Great policy to prevent housing development.