4 ms·

> developers will lobby against it Eh. I don't believe this is true. For example, in the Great San Francisco earthquake, something like 90% of the damage was c

> developers will lobby against it Eh. I don't believe this is true. For example, in the Great San Francisco earthquake, something like 90% of the damage was caused by fires. Most of these fires were and are caused by unsecured water heaters, rigid gas connections, etc. There are now building codes that improve on these issues -- all water heaters are now strapped, gas connections are flexible, etc. Among other protections that I know of, shear walls are mandated in certain cases, engineering reviews are done, houses are bolted to foundations at more regular intervals, the proportion of various walls that are windows is more limited, etc. Yes, regulations were slackened in 1906, but 1. Earthquakes between 1906 and now show that regulations DO tighten over time. If developers are trying to lobby against these, they are failing. (More likely, the property owners paying the developers are the ones who would lobby. It benefits the contractor to charge for more work.) 2. Even if we didn't have historical evidence to discount your position, the resources available to the people of that time and the people of our current time are not remotely comparable. Our capabilities for manufacturing and building are dramatically more vast. More on the evolution of these codes, which further contradicts your view that developers have been able to prevent their strengthening: http://quake06.stanford.edu/centennial/tour/stop10.html http://quake06.stanford.edu/centennial/tour/stop10.html

reality_czech 12y ago
75% of all SF housing units are over 50 years old. Source: http://www.sf-planning.org/ftp/general_plan/Housing_Element_Part_I_Data_Needs_Assmt_CPC_Adopted.pdf http://www.sf-planning.org/ftp/general_plan/Housing_Element_... So the technlogical improvements in earthquake safety since the 1960s are simply irrelevant for most residents. They're living an ancient, unsafe homes. What ought to happen is proposition 13 ought to be repealed, along with the restrictive zoning laws. Then people who are sitting on lots of undeveloped property would have to sell it to developers, because the taxes would be unaffordable otherwise. And developers would put up new properties. Prices would then come back to earth and poor people would be able to live in houses again. But the prevailing mentality in the US is that houses are investments, not places to live, so don't expect this to happen any time soon. Instead, you can expect politicians to intervene if housing starts to become affordable again, like they did in 2007. ("Oh no! Housing prices DECLINED!") It's basically a giant transfer of wealth from the young to the old. But people are too ignorant of economics to understand how and why it's happening, so you can expect it to continue.
- ericd 12y ago
  You're right, and Prop 13 doesn't get nearly enough hate in these discussions. It's not just that people are sitting on investments like domain campers, though - it makes it impossible for many people to move, because if they did move to an equivalently valued home, they'd be paying many times their current property tax. This restricts the liquidity of the housing market and encourages hoarding, which leads to skyrocketing prices among the few houses that do go on the market. If that was slowly phased out, prices would come down as more houses came on the market, and the houses that those people wouldn't represent such a huge jump in ongoing property taxes.
  - bagels 12y ago
    How does repealing Prop 13 change anything? Wouldn't everyone just end up paying the same or more taxes? Looking at property tax rates in other states (which presumably don't have such a law), we're about on par with them. The people who can't move because of increased taxes would be forced to flee the state maybe?
    - ericd 12y ago
      We may be on par with them in terms of nominal rates, but those other states' property taxes rise with the value of the houses every year, whereas CA prop tax amounts are based on the cost at the time of purchase and adjusted at a max of 2%/year, even if their house appreciates by 10%, as it does some years. People who bought their houses in 1975 are paying taxes based on what their houses were worth in 1975 times roughly 1.02^40, or 2.2x. In the same period, the median home price went from $41,600 to $478,700, a rise of almost 12x. So, if they moved to an equivalently valuable home, they'd pay about 5.5x the amount of tax going forward, which can be very significant. Housing prices take into account the amount of taxes one expects to have to pay, so if they're no longer locked, and one expects prices to rise, then the price one will be willing to pay will be lower. Also, prices will fall as more supply opens up, since there won't be such a big advantage to sitting on houses anymore, and people are more free to move to less expensive areas. Currently there's a bit of a rent control situation where the low rates can be passed on to your descendants, and there's a big incentive to stay in it rather than selling it and moving farther out, even if the place farther out is half the price. This effect is more pronounced on the high demand areas where prices have risen more. Over time, the prices would adjust and settle. People may end up paying more tax overall, but we can play with the rate, or we could decide that the schools could use more funding (in many places, they could), and that we should keep the rate where it is. As it is now, the people who are just moving to CA are heavily subsidizing people who have lived here for a long time, and the lack of liquid housing supply is causing prices to shoot up.

reality_czech 12y ago

75% of all SF housing units are over 50 years old. Source: http://www.sf-planning.org/ftp/general_plan/Housing_Element_Part_I_Data_Needs_Assmt_CPC_Adopted.pdf http://www.sf-planning.org/ftp/general_plan/Housing_Element_... So the technlogical improvements in earthquake safety since the 1960s are simply irrelevant for most residents. They're living an ancient, unsafe homes. What ought to happen is proposition 13 ought to be repealed, along with the restrictive zoning laws. Then people who are sitting on lots of undeveloped property would have to sell it to developers, because the taxes would be unaffordable otherwise. And developers would put up new properties. Prices would then come back to earth and poor people would be able to live in houses again. But the prevailing mentality in the US is that houses are investments, not places to live, so don't expect this to happen any time soon. Instead, you can expect politicians to intervene if housing starts to become affordable again, like they did in 2007. ("Oh no! Housing prices DECLINED!") It's basically a giant transfer of wealth from the young to the old. But people are too ignorant of economics to understand how and why it's happening, so you can expect it to continue.

ericd 12y ago
You're right, and Prop 13 doesn't get nearly enough hate in these discussions. It's not just that people are sitting on investments like domain campers, though - it makes it impossible for many people to move, because if they did move to an equivalently valued home, they'd be paying many times their current property tax. This restricts the liquidity of the housing market and encourages hoarding, which leads to skyrocketing prices among the few houses that do go on the market. If that was slowly phased out, prices would come down as more houses came on the market, and the houses that those people wouldn't represent such a huge jump in ongoing property taxes.
- bagels 12y ago
  How does repealing Prop 13 change anything? Wouldn't everyone just end up paying the same or more taxes? Looking at property tax rates in other states (which presumably don't have such a law), we're about on par with them. The people who can't move because of increased taxes would be forced to flee the state maybe?
  - ericd 12y ago
    We may be on par with them in terms of nominal rates, but those other states' property taxes rise with the value of the houses every year, whereas CA prop tax amounts are based on the cost at the time of purchase and adjusted at a max of 2%/year, even if their house appreciates by 10%, as it does some years. People who bought their houses in 1975 are paying taxes based on what their houses were worth in 1975 times roughly 1.02^40, or 2.2x. In the same period, the median home price went from $41,600 to $478,700, a rise of almost 12x. So, if they moved to an equivalently valuable home, they'd pay about 5.5x the amount of tax going forward, which can be very significant. Housing prices take into account the amount of taxes one expects to have to pay, so if they're no longer locked, and one expects prices to rise, then the price one will be willing to pay will be lower. Also, prices will fall as more supply opens up, since there won't be such a big advantage to sitting on houses anymore, and people are more free to move to less expensive areas. Currently there's a bit of a rent control situation where the low rates can be passed on to your descendants, and there's a big incentive to stay in it rather than selling it and moving farther out, even if the place farther out is half the price. This effect is more pronounced on the high demand areas where prices have risen more. Over time, the prices would adjust and settle. People may end up paying more tax overall, but we can play with the rate, or we could decide that the schools could use more funding (in many places, they could), and that we should keep the rate where it is. As it is now, the people who are just moving to CA are heavily subsidizing people who have lived here for a long time, and the lack of liquid housing supply is causing prices to shoot up.