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> real estate hyperinflation in general is a social ill that deserves to be tackled directly as such. How do you stop house prices from going up? You can't pu

> real estate hyperinflation in general is a social ill that deserves to be tackled directly as such. How do you stop house prices from going up? You can't put a cap on property values without turning bidding into a lottery and screwing owners out of asset appreciation. You could make it easier to afford expensive houses by increasing the money supply, but our interest rates have been pegged at effectively zero for four years. You could build more houses but that seems unlikely given the political climite in SF. Perhaps though you can geodiversify an industry, which actually this guy is doing by leaving SF. I'm not sure how you can regulate that though, except by capping the number of jobs in a given industry, kind of like with taxis.

api 13y ago
Building more housing is the only option, and like you say you can't build anything. Maybe Peter Thiel needs to build his floating seasteading metropolis. If he put it in the bay you could connect SV to Newark and Fremont via a gentrified version of The Raft from Snow Crash.
- muzz 13y ago
  > you can't build anything This canard keeps getting repeated over and over in comments. Not sure if it is a projection of bias, or ignorance, or just denial of the facts. The reality is that tens of thousands of units (22,000 since the article, a year ago, more now) are either in construction or in the pipeline. This is a construction boom. http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/S-F-apartment-construction-boom-around-the-corner-3428146.php http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/S-F-apartment-construc...
  - coenhyde 13y ago
    It may be a boom compared to historical levels but it is in no way enough. 22,000 is tiny! There's probably already a shortage of half a million. Think about how many people live outside the city because rent is too expensive. SF is a desirable location, just because there are only 800k people here now doesn't mean more do not want to live here. SoMa should have massive sky scrappers being built on every block, it's the perfect location to build this high density housing/offices solution (big blocks, flat land, underutilized and close to the city center). And I mean real skyscrapers Manhattan size or larger. The city should take care in SoMa to make sure they do not allow new skyscrapers that do not reach a minimum height. The space there is valuable (even if it's not used correctly now). You wouldn't want a situation where medium density is built instead.
potatolicious 13y ago
It's not about stopping prices from going up, it's about stopping them from going up at an uncontrollable rate. Many desirable neighborhoods are seeing market rents increases in the double-digit percentages, every year. Some parts of SF are experiencing >20% YoY growth. That's real estate hyperinflation, far in excess of the normal appreciation you'd expect in a healthy economy with increasing population. And the solution to real estate hyperinflation is to build more.
- zanny 13y ago
  Too bad you can't build more in SF because of the building height limits, which is the principle reason housing rates are absurd. If the city made sense they'd build some highrise condos downtown and house the entrepreneurs in studio apartments.
  - ivanca 13y ago
    Yes, many big cities are (state-sponsored) trying to grow vertically instead of horizontally.
  - muzz 13y ago
    You'd better tell that to builders who are putting up thousands of units in high rise buildings right now.
  - 31reasons 13y ago
    The earthquake in 1906 nearly ruined the entire San Francisco. It can happen again at anytime. Limiting the building heights and number of housing is a precautionary measure. The best thing the SV tech community should do is realize the limitations and move out to other cities. LA/San Diego could be the great replacement/extension for SV.
    - natrius 13y ago
      Modern building codes prevented that from happening again in '89. If you think earthquakes are a legitimate reason to limit density, Tokyo and Osaka would like to talk to you.
dyno12345 13y ago
> How do you stop house prices from going up? Allow people to actually build things, rather than insisting that 100 year old, wood-framed 3 story split level houses and no new ones are the perfect housing solution for everyone forever.
antitrust 13y ago
> How do you stop house prices from going up? Don't concentrate outrageous salaries in one urban area?
throwaway1979 13y ago
You said it ... the fix isn't hard except the politics make it so. Make it easy to build more housing stock. Allocate more land for building high density homes.

api 13y ago

Building more housing is the only option, and like you say you can't build anything. Maybe Peter Thiel needs to build his floating seasteading metropolis. If he put it in the bay you could connect SV to Newark and Fremont via a gentrified version of The Raft from Snow Crash.

muzz 13y ago
> you can't build anything This canard keeps getting repeated over and over in comments. Not sure if it is a projection of bias, or ignorance, or just denial of the facts. The reality is that tens of thousands of units (22,000 since the article, a year ago, more now) are either in construction or in the pipeline. This is a construction boom. http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/S-F-apartment-construction-boom-around-the-corner-3428146.php http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/S-F-apartment-construc...
- coenhyde 13y ago
  It may be a boom compared to historical levels but it is in no way enough. 22,000 is tiny! There's probably already a shortage of half a million. Think about how many people live outside the city because rent is too expensive. SF is a desirable location, just because there are only 800k people here now doesn't mean more do not want to live here. SoMa should have massive sky scrappers being built on every block, it's the perfect location to build this high density housing/offices solution (big blocks, flat land, underutilized and close to the city center). And I mean real skyscrapers Manhattan size or larger. The city should take care in SoMa to make sure they do not allow new skyscrapers that do not reach a minimum height. The space there is valuable (even if it's not used correctly now). You wouldn't want a situation where medium density is built instead.

potatolicious 13y ago

It's not about stopping prices from going up, it's about stopping them from going up at an uncontrollable rate. Many desirable neighborhoods are seeing market rents increases in the double-digit percentages, every year. Some parts of SF are experiencing >20% YoY growth. That's real estate hyperinflation, far in excess of the normal appreciation you'd expect in a healthy economy with increasing population. And the solution to real estate hyperinflation is to build more.

zanny 13y ago
Too bad you can't build more in SF because of the building height limits, which is the principle reason housing rates are absurd. If the city made sense they'd build some highrise condos downtown and house the entrepreneurs in studio apartments.
- ivanca 13y ago
  Yes, many big cities are (state-sponsored) trying to grow vertically instead of horizontally.
- muzz 13y ago
  You'd better tell that to builders who are putting up thousands of units in high rise buildings right now.
- 31reasons 13y ago
  The earthquake in 1906 nearly ruined the entire San Francisco. It can happen again at anytime. Limiting the building heights and number of housing is a precautionary measure. The best thing the SV tech community should do is realize the limitations and move out to other cities. LA/San Diego could be the great replacement/extension for SV.
  - natrius 13y ago
    Modern building codes prevented that from happening again in '89. If you think earthquakes are a legitimate reason to limit density, Tokyo and Osaka would like to talk to you.

dyno12345 13y ago

> How do you stop house prices from going up? Allow people to actually build things, rather than insisting that 100 year old, wood-framed 3 story split level houses and no new ones are the perfect housing solution for everyone forever.

antitrust 13y ago

> How do you stop house prices from going up? Don't concentrate outrageous salaries in one urban area?

throwaway1979 13y ago

You said it ... the fix isn't hard except the politics make it so. Make it easy to build more housing stock. Allocate more land for building high density homes.