5 ms·

A factor the author didn't really touch is housing. By 1973 many places in CA at least were starting to ban dingbat construction via ordinance against back out

by asdff 1y ago

A factor the author didn't really touch is housing. By 1973 many places in CA at least were starting to ban dingbat construction via ordinance against back out parking setups. We also see many cities in CA and elsewhere downzoned around that time. LA went from being zoned for over 10 million people in 1960 to being zoned for just 4.2 million and being built to almost 95% of its zoned capacity by the 2010s. I'm not sure exactly the relationship between wage growth and restriction of housing growth but the fact that these phenomenon seemed to happen in lockstep merits some reflection. Prop 13 also came in 1973.

yonran 1y ago
Proposition 13 was 1978 (99 years after the publication of Progress and Poverty).
- asdff 1y ago
  Thanks for the correction
bryanlarsen 1y ago
Housing prices did not outpace inflation in 1973 - 1993. The periods of significant house price inflation (early 2000's, last 15 years) seem to correlate better with periods of wage increase rather than the periods of wage stagnation.
- asdff 1y ago
  It also correlates quite well to available flat land for greenfield development running dry in major metro areas like the non-antelope valley side of LA county. And what do you know, prices are much cheaper on the other side of the San Gabriels where there is room to develop more housing. Without room for greenfield, infill needs to be legalized, or prices rise such that the only winners are the high income people able to participate in the now buyer constrained housing market like we see today.
ty6853 1y ago
The most hilarious thing about housing in california is they had a chance to use ADUs to lower housing prices but of course they totally rigged the game by outlawing splitting off ADUs as a seperate property, meaning all they did was making housing even more expensive because the value of a plot now includes the additional value of the potential to be a landlord but no way to split that value into an economical individual home. They managed to find the one fucking way to make additional housing make being a new homeowner even more expensive, and I believe it was not by accident.
- onlyrealcuzzo 1y ago
  It is intended that all of the policies make land more expensive... No politician wants more affordable housing in a place where >65% of voters are property owners...
  - Ericson2314 1y ago
    It's good for land to become more valuable. We want land prices to go up, and housing prices to go down. All that means is density is increasing faster than land values. Nothing against allowing lot splits, but this is the wrong reason to be for it. The reasoning in the previous to replies reaks of "homeownership is more virtuous than renting" which is not true. And besides, if you really want more homeownership, the most important path forward is condos, and thus condo defect liability reform.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - ty6853 1y ago
      On its own higher housing density should lower land prices. All else equal land prices are both cause and effect of housing access. In the philosophical extreme, if zoning allowed infinite density you could stick a hong-kong style condo skyscraper for the entire population on 0.1 acres and the rest of the land would provide no additional housing utility pushing prices down to whatever the value it is as farmland/business/recreation. The housing value of surrounding land would plumet. Low land prices are indicative of less restrictive zoning. In more restrictive zoning that punishes building houses on small plots, land becomes more valuable because the land is the license to build a house. i.e. where I live I had to buy more land than I needed because without it I could not build my house, which drives up land prices (increased demand). The reason why california ADU increase parcel prices is because it prints an additional house license while being illegal to split it off. Otherwise you would be left with two cheaper parcels, although in sum they may be more expensive, but you would still pay less for enough land for license to print a house.
trod1234 1y ago
The author is fighting an uphill battle given that this subject has been covered many times in the past, each with their own interpretation, more often than not in contradictory opinion. I stopped reading after it became clear that they are just following the same carved path that's been covered before, with all the same mistakes, not original thought. Monetary debasement (money-printing) explains the issues. The chaos is explained by Mises with regards to centralized systems as early as the 1930s. There's really no point in discussion when the majority is noise.
- asdff 1y ago
  At the same time cost of living has not risen so much in certain parts of the country. You are paying say $1.2m in CA for a modest home worth say $90k in Toledo, Ohio. Labor certainly isn't so depressed in Ohio vs CA, it is a little but not by a factor of over 10 fold like we see in comps in the housing market. This is why it is important to recognize the regional factors that lead to these differential outcomes IMO, and you can't consider that without considering the state of the housing market. Everywhere had the same Fed but we see dramatically different outcomes.
_DeadFred_ 1y ago
When I was young and renting we found the best landlord. She would buy properties and let them run down. Thus changing the neighbors from fighting against her construction permits to championing them. Because she wasn't looking for rental income but had lots of future development properties she rented to us because we were such easy renters to have. Lived in some amazing locations slated to be future exclusive properties around Santa Cruz county. So many weird games spring up around arbitrary rules/laws.

by asdff 1y ago

yonran 1y ago

Proposition 13 was 1978 (99 years after the publication of Progress and Poverty).

asdff 1y ago
Thanks for the correction

bryanlarsen 1y ago

Housing prices did not outpace inflation in 1973 - 1993. The periods of significant house price inflation (early 2000's, last 15 years) seem to correlate better with periods of wage increase rather than the periods of wage stagnation.

asdff 1y ago
It also correlates quite well to available flat land for greenfield development running dry in major metro areas like the non-antelope valley side of LA county. And what do you know, prices are much cheaper on the other side of the San Gabriels where there is room to develop more housing. Without room for greenfield, infill needs to be legalized, or prices rise such that the only winners are the high income people able to participate in the now buyer constrained housing market like we see today.

ty6853 1y ago

The most hilarious thing about housing in california is they had a chance to use ADUs to lower housing prices but of course they totally rigged the game by outlawing splitting off ADUs as a seperate property, meaning all they did was making housing even more expensive because the value of a plot now includes the additional value of the potential to be a landlord but no way to split that value into an economical individual home. They managed to find the one fucking way to make additional housing make being a new homeowner even more expensive, and I believe it was not by accident.

onlyrealcuzzo 1y ago
It is intended that all of the policies make land more expensive... No politician wants more affordable housing in a place where >65% of voters are property owners...
- Ericson2314 1y ago
  It's good for land to become more valuable. We want land prices to go up, and housing prices to go down. All that means is density is increasing faster than land values. Nothing against allowing lot splits, but this is the wrong reason to be for it. The reasoning in the previous to replies reaks of "homeownership is more virtuous than renting" which is not true. And besides, if you really want more homeownership, the most important path forward is condos, and thus condo defect liability reform.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - ty6853 1y ago
    On its own higher housing density should lower land prices. All else equal land prices are both cause and effect of housing access. In the philosophical extreme, if zoning allowed infinite density you could stick a hong-kong style condo skyscraper for the entire population on 0.1 acres and the rest of the land would provide no additional housing utility pushing prices down to whatever the value it is as farmland/business/recreation. The housing value of surrounding land would plumet. Low land prices are indicative of less restrictive zoning. In more restrictive zoning that punishes building houses on small plots, land becomes more valuable because the land is the license to build a house. i.e. where I live I had to buy more land than I needed because without it I could not build my house, which drives up land prices (increased demand). The reason why california ADU increase parcel prices is because it prints an additional house license while being illegal to split it off. Otherwise you would be left with two cheaper parcels, although in sum they may be more expensive, but you would still pay less for enough land for license to print a house.

trod1234 1y ago

The author is fighting an uphill battle given that this subject has been covered many times in the past, each with their own interpretation, more often than not in contradictory opinion. I stopped reading after it became clear that they are just following the same carved path that's been covered before, with all the same mistakes, not original thought. Monetary debasement (money-printing) explains the issues. The chaos is explained by Mises with regards to centralized systems as early as the 1930s. There's really no point in discussion when the majority is noise.

asdff 1y ago
At the same time cost of living has not risen so much in certain parts of the country. You are paying say $1.2m in CA for a modest home worth say $90k in Toledo, Ohio. Labor certainly isn't so depressed in Ohio vs CA, it is a little but not by a factor of over 10 fold like we see in comps in the housing market. This is why it is important to recognize the regional factors that lead to these differential outcomes IMO, and you can't consider that without considering the state of the housing market. Everywhere had the same Fed but we see dramatically different outcomes.

_DeadFred_ 1y ago

When I was young and renting we found the best landlord. She would buy properties and let them run down. Thus changing the neighbors from fighting against her construction permits to championing them. Because she wasn't looking for rental income but had lots of future development properties she rented to us because we were such easy renters to have. Lived in some amazing locations slated to be future exclusive properties around Santa Cruz county. So many weird games spring up around arbitrary rules/laws.