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There's a shortage of detached single family homes in desirable cities and suburbs. If you just want to rent an apartment there's an oversupply from overbuildi

by tempsy 3y ago

There's a shortage of detached single family homes in desirable cities and suburbs. If you just want to rent an apartment there's an oversupply from overbuilding during the pandemic.

CrazyStat 3y ago
There’s generally not room to build the desired number of detached single family homes (with desirable lot sizes) in desirable cities and suburbs. Which is why you end up with exurbs and hour long commutes. We need to build higher density housing in the desirable areas, which is often disallowed by zoning.
- xyzelement 3y ago
  I think you're operating on maybe 5+ year old thinking on this problem. Post-COVID, the "exurbs with hour long commutes" have become significantly more desirable, as people have gone fully or partially remote. The "penalty" of the long commute has gone down while the benefits of space, affordability, and community type have gone up. The world is obviously figuring out the Return to Office thing but overall the commute is a less big deal than it once was. This dynamic means that folks who own what you correctly categorize as owning "detached single family homes in (or close) to desirable cities" who no longer care about the commute might be overall willing to sell these homes in favor of larger/more affordable homes further out, freeing up these homes to those for whom city proximity still matters. I think there are really two core demographics at play with a small middle. There are those who are all about the city life - don't want a car, don't want a house, want to walk to work and to the tinder date, be around a large number of diverse people and experiences, etc. Then there are those who primarily orient their life around home/family and want the space/affordability. Distance to city mainly matters as a factor of the commute, which itself is less relevant than it was before. Then there's the relatively smaller group that both wants a house and needs to be close to the city life. This group will continue to pay the highest costs because they have the highest demand but I think that's reasonable.
  - CrazyStat 3y ago
    The number of people working remote is still fairly small compared to the overall workforce. Many jobs simply don’t allow for it. If you’re in tech you’re probably overestimating how big this shift has been.
spankalee 3y ago
I don't think there's much, if any, of an over supply of apartments. The people I've seen who try to teach vacancies show that new buildings get to nearly full occupancy within a year or so. That's pretty reasonable if you need to rent a few hundred units at once. If anything, there's a massive under-supply of 3+br apartments large enough for families, due to double-loaded corridor designs that are almost required to meet fire codes. The only good spot for 3brs is in the corners, so you get at most 4 per floor.
- dwallin 3y ago
  The undersupply of 3 bedrooms is real, in many neighborhoods in my city you just can't find them. Anecdotally, the lack of 3-4 bedroom apartments has been the major driver of couples I know, who were aiming to start families and who would otherwise love to stay in my city, leaving the city for the suburbs. 3-4 bedroom units are also popular with younger folk, who are often happy to have roommates, and share amenities in exchange for lower rent.
  - hinkley 3y ago
    You can skate by for a few years on a 2BR, or even a 1 BR with a bonus room, but not all bonus rooms have windows and raising a baby in a cell is probably not conducive to success as an adult. Once your second child hits grade school they should have a proper bedroom. But in “you damn kids don’t know how good you got it” news, I’m of an age where I knew people who had to share a room with a sibling. And there was lots of talk about how that used to be more common. Those boomer kids with five siblings weren’t living in 7 bedroom mansions. They were doubled up in a four bedroom house.
- hinkley 3y ago
  If you build a U shaped building you get a courtyard in the middle and you might be able to manage 6 per floor. Maybe eight with the inside corners? But the last building I lived in shaped like that had a pair of 1 BRs at the corners, scalloped to get windows on 2 sides. When I think of 3 bedroom apartments I think of college towns.
- tempsy 3y ago
mjmahone17 3y ago
There is absolutely not an oversupply of apartments in my city, nor in Seattle proper. it should be non-controversial to let the market supply as many apartments in the locations people want to be as people are willing to rent. Especially any regulatory changes that enable family sized apartments to be built at relatively lower cost should be encouraged. Even if there were an “oversupply”, if someone could build new apartment buildings at 50% the cost with larger, safer, more comfortable units than most apartments nearby, it would drive rents down for existing buildings while still allowing the developer to make a profit. We should be enabling these opportunities as much as possible.
- tempsy 3y ago
  How is there not an oversupply of rentals in Seattle? I pulled up Zillow Rentals around downtown and there's a comical number of listings available. If you can rent a new construction 1 bed for under $2k a month in a jobs center there is no apartment shortage in your city.
  - BobaFloutist 3y ago
    Conventional wisdom is for housing to be "affordable" it needs to be 1/3 of your income. 2000312=72000 a year. 72000/2050 = 35$/h. Where are grocery clerks, baristas, school teachers, janitors, restaurant workers, etc supposed to live?
    - tempsy 3y ago
      uh roommates?
  - Aloisius 3y ago
    > I pulled up Zillow Rentals around downtown and there's a comical number of listings available. And how does that tell you that supply exceeds demand? Even when there's a housing undersupply, units will still be available at any given moment. It's not like people stop dying, moving out or building altogether. To determine oversupply, you need to look at something that also tells you demand as well. Like, what's the average time available units are on the market? What's the vacancy rate look like?
dwallin 3y ago
> There's a shortage of detached single family homes in desirable cities and suburbs. You have this backwards, it's essentially physically impossible for this to not be the case. Past a certain point you just cannot squeeze more detached single family homes into a reasonable distance from a city. Single family homes, suburbs, and the required car-centric transit they require are massively space and transit inefficient. If you want there to be affordable detached single family homes within a reasonable distance to a desirable city your best bet is to push for increased density within and around the core of the city, with walkable streets and excellent public transportation. The increase in livability and affordability in the center encourages more people who might otherwise be pushed out to stay and leaves more single family homes for those who really want them.
marssaxman 3y ago
There will always be a shortage of detached single family homes in desirable cities and suburbs, because that style of housing takes up a great deal of land. The only way out is up.
- tempsy 3y ago
  Yes, and I’m saying that there’s plenty of available high density apartment complexes in cities with a shortage of detached homes, yet people still want a home for a dozen reasons. America is not a country where people want to live in an apartment long term if they have the resources to buy a proper home.
  - jandrewrogers 3y ago
    > America is not a country where people want to live in an apartment long term if they have the resources to buy a proper home. You are projecting your personal preferences on the American population. Some of the highest occupancy apartment buildings in my area are full of people who can afford to buy a house anywhere they want to yet clearly choose otherwise. Apartment living has significant advantages that don't disappear just because you ignore them. It is an explicit preference of several people I know.
    - tempsy 3y ago
      “several people” is not the majority

by tempsy 3y ago

There's a shortage of detached single family homes in desirable cities and suburbs. If you just want to rent an apartment there's an oversupply from overbuilding during the pandemic.

CrazyStat 3y ago

There’s generally not room to build the desired number of detached single family homes (with desirable lot sizes) in desirable cities and suburbs. Which is why you end up with exurbs and hour long commutes. We need to build higher density housing in the desirable areas, which is often disallowed by zoning.

xyzelement 3y ago
I think you're operating on maybe 5+ year old thinking on this problem. Post-COVID, the "exurbs with hour long commutes" have become significantly more desirable, as people have gone fully or partially remote. The "penalty" of the long commute has gone down while the benefits of space, affordability, and community type have gone up. The world is obviously figuring out the Return to Office thing but overall the commute is a less big deal than it once was. This dynamic means that folks who own what you correctly categorize as owning "detached single family homes in (or close) to desirable cities" who no longer care about the commute might be overall willing to sell these homes in favor of larger/more affordable homes further out, freeing up these homes to those for whom city proximity still matters. I think there are really two core demographics at play with a small middle. There are those who are all about the city life - don't want a car, don't want a house, want to walk to work and to the tinder date, be around a large number of diverse people and experiences, etc. Then there are those who primarily orient their life around home/family and want the space/affordability. Distance to city mainly matters as a factor of the commute, which itself is less relevant than it was before. Then there's the relatively smaller group that both wants a house and needs to be close to the city life. This group will continue to pay the highest costs because they have the highest demand but I think that's reasonable.
- CrazyStat 3y ago
  The number of people working remote is still fairly small compared to the overall workforce. Many jobs simply don’t allow for it. If you’re in tech you’re probably overestimating how big this shift has been.

spankalee 3y ago

I don't think there's much, if any, of an over supply of apartments. The people I've seen who try to teach vacancies show that new buildings get to nearly full occupancy within a year or so. That's pretty reasonable if you need to rent a few hundred units at once. If anything, there's a massive under-supply of 3+br apartments large enough for families, due to double-loaded corridor designs that are almost required to meet fire codes. The only good spot for 3brs is in the corners, so you get at most 4 per floor.

dwallin 3y ago
The undersupply of 3 bedrooms is real, in many neighborhoods in my city you just can't find them. Anecdotally, the lack of 3-4 bedroom apartments has been the major driver of couples I know, who were aiming to start families and who would otherwise love to stay in my city, leaving the city for the suburbs. 3-4 bedroom units are also popular with younger folk, who are often happy to have roommates, and share amenities in exchange for lower rent.
- hinkley 3y ago
  You can skate by for a few years on a 2BR, or even a 1 BR with a bonus room, but not all bonus rooms have windows and raising a baby in a cell is probably not conducive to success as an adult. Once your second child hits grade school they should have a proper bedroom. But in “you damn kids don’t know how good you got it” news, I’m of an age where I knew people who had to share a room with a sibling. And there was lots of talk about how that used to be more common. Those boomer kids with five siblings weren’t living in 7 bedroom mansions. They were doubled up in a four bedroom house.
hinkley 3y ago
If you build a U shaped building you get a courtyard in the middle and you might be able to manage 6 per floor. Maybe eight with the inside corners? But the last building I lived in shaped like that had a pair of 1 BRs at the corners, scalloped to get windows on 2 sides. When I think of 3 bedroom apartments I think of college towns.
tempsy 3y ago

mjmahone17 3y ago

There is absolutely not an oversupply of apartments in my city, nor in Seattle proper. it should be non-controversial to let the market supply as many apartments in the locations people want to be as people are willing to rent. Especially any regulatory changes that enable family sized apartments to be built at relatively lower cost should be encouraged. Even if there were an “oversupply”, if someone could build new apartment buildings at 50% the cost with larger, safer, more comfortable units than most apartments nearby, it would drive rents down for existing buildings while still allowing the developer to make a profit. We should be enabling these opportunities as much as possible.

tempsy 3y ago
How is there not an oversupply of rentals in Seattle? I pulled up Zillow Rentals around downtown and there's a comical number of listings available. If you can rent a new construction 1 bed for under $2k a month in a jobs center there is no apartment shortage in your city.
- BobaFloutist 3y ago
  Conventional wisdom is for housing to be "affordable" it needs to be 1/3 of your income. 2000312=72000 a year. 72000/2050 = 35$/h. Where are grocery clerks, baristas, school teachers, janitors, restaurant workers, etc supposed to live?
  - tempsy 3y ago
    uh roommates?
- Aloisius 3y ago
  > I pulled up Zillow Rentals around downtown and there's a comical number of listings available. And how does that tell you that supply exceeds demand? Even when there's a housing undersupply, units will still be available at any given moment. It's not like people stop dying, moving out or building altogether. To determine oversupply, you need to look at something that also tells you demand as well. Like, what's the average time available units are on the market? What's the vacancy rate look like?

dwallin 3y ago

> There's a shortage of detached single family homes in desirable cities and suburbs. You have this backwards, it's essentially physically impossible for this to not be the case. Past a certain point you just cannot squeeze more detached single family homes into a reasonable distance from a city. Single family homes, suburbs, and the required car-centric transit they require are massively space and transit inefficient. If you want there to be affordable detached single family homes within a reasonable distance to a desirable city your best bet is to push for increased density within and around the core of the city, with walkable streets and excellent public transportation. The increase in livability and affordability in the center encourages more people who might otherwise be pushed out to stay and leaves more single family homes for those who really want them.

marssaxman 3y ago

There will always be a shortage of detached single family homes in desirable cities and suburbs, because that style of housing takes up a great deal of land. The only way out is up.

tempsy 3y ago
Yes, and I’m saying that there’s plenty of available high density apartment complexes in cities with a shortage of detached homes, yet people still want a home for a dozen reasons. America is not a country where people want to live in an apartment long term if they have the resources to buy a proper home.
- jandrewrogers 3y ago
  > America is not a country where people want to live in an apartment long term if they have the resources to buy a proper home. You are projecting your personal preferences on the American population. Some of the highest occupancy apartment buildings in my area are full of people who can afford to buy a house anywhere they want to yet clearly choose otherwise. Apartment living has significant advantages that don't disappear just because you ignore them. It is an explicit preference of several people I know.
  - tempsy 3y ago
    “several people” is not the majority