I managed to talk to someone at both of my representatives' offices within a minute, without any sort of delay. It's very easy, please do call in if you support this measure!
Also, when you do call in, post here afterwards with how long it took you. A lot of people don't bother because they think it'll be a hassle, but it's about a 100 times easier than calling to book a restaurant reservation.
Thank you for this post. I am now very encouraged to contact my state legislators. I might even muster up the courage to call my federal representatives!
This is one of the top factors preventing me from moving back to the Bay Area. It's good to know there's at least SOME serious attempt at a solution (even if folks around here are mostly pessimistic.)
It still surprises me that an industry that's all about connecting the world through the internet and allowing anyone to work with anyone else on anything says "yeah but you need to work in this small area of the country to do it."
The armchair economist in me says that high housing prices in the Bay Area will cause a market "correction" of sorts with other cities exploding as tech sectors -- see NY, Boston, Chicago, Austin, Las Vegas -- as those cities can get away with much better housing for cheap, even if the opportunities aren't as plentiful (yet.)
<conspiracy theory> The cynic in me likes to think that VC's and other wealthy tech execs are trying to keep housing prices high by artificially creating this in-elasticity ("you can have my funding if you live in SF" or "we don't allow remote workers"), as they all probably own houses in the area; the incentives for them would be to have housing prices keep rising, NOT fall, as they would lose significant real-estate equity. </conspiracy theory>
I think NYC is already there. It's so easy to find a tech job in NYC. Maybe it's even easier in SV, but I've never missed not being in SV. There's such a variety here. Plenty of startups, all the tech giants, and plenty of tech/IT jobs at "regular" companies, consulting opportunities, etc... And it's not _just_ tech -- plenty of other industries are headquartered in NYC. By contrast I can't think of any other industries that SV is the flagship metro-area of besides tech... If software is going to eat the world, it helps to have some of those industries you're going to disrupt nearby already.
I'd love to see NYC co-opt SV as the world capital of the tech industry, and I think it could totally happen. The only thing SV has going is historical inertia, and it's eroding. This housing problem in SV is going to make it erode faster.
Honestly I don't understand SV at all. They say NYC has a housing cost problem, and it sure does, but it's nothing compared to SV -- in SV you have people paying Manhattan prices so they can live in SF... yet somehow still commuting an hour to the suburbs where the offices are! At least here you can either pay Manhattan prices and get a 10 minute commute for it -- or take an hour-long commute and at least get a much cheaper and/or larger place in exchange. And your commute won't require you to drive, unless you want that.
NB: I've never lived in the SV area so maybe I have some misconceptions that need correcting? :-)
The size of the campuses in Silicon Valley literally cannot fit in NYC. No comparison.
Its fantastic that Google bought a block of Manhattan for 1 billion dollars, but Google's Mountain View campus is ALL of Mountain View. These are sprawling districts that cannot fit inside of a skyscraper.
The next fundamental difference is the variety of VCs. NYC cannot replicate this, and there is nothing eroding about it. NYC has one or two VCs looking at the same industry trends. Silicon Valley has many VCs interested in completely different things, different portfolio niches.
NYC has variety of industries and conveniences.
Silicon Valley doesn't even know how backwards its infrastructure is, while trying to change a world that functions better than it does already.
San Francisco masquerades as Silicon Valley and an international city but it is neither. New York, London and Hong Kong are international cities, SF struggles to keep up with the tech bubbles that it remains on the periphery of and only recently gained relevance for.
There is more tech focused stuff in SF and Silicon Valley, but New York has enough satellite offices to keep you occupied.
NYC is far far far way from overtaking SV as the capital of tech industry. The combined value of just Google, Apple, and Facebook is $1.3 trillion dollars. To reach that scale will take many many years and some incredible companies. Honestly, places that can put in a serious competition to SV are in Asia - China and India. Chinese tech companies are raising massive rounds, with multiple billion dollar investments in 2016. Also, most successful hubs are often one industry towns. Think Detroit and Houston. That's how clusters are formed and they have a self full-filing effect. But it is also a mistake to think SV is just a "tech" hub. Is Tesla a tech company ? Or is Sunrun a tech company ? Are Impossible Foods or Bolt Threads tech companies ? Technology is now integral to any industry. And increasingly we are seeing R&D shops being set-up in the valley to stay ahead of the game
Yea so the problem is you can't think of tech as one industry. Every company that's being created right now has to involve software one way or the other. That's why companies like Tesla (auto), Netlfix (entertainment), Solarcity (energy), Sofi (finance), airbnb (tourism), uber (logistics), tons of biomedical companies that I don't know the names of (medicine) all headquartered in the bay area.
> The cynic in me likes to think that VC's and other wealthy tech execs are trying to keep housing prices high by artificially creating this in-elasticity
I think the benefits of more people meeting, networking, and starting new things in the area vastly outweighs their interest in their homes. It's not like this really affects the pricing of mansions much anyway, and if they aren't living in a mansion, it's probably such a small amount of their overall wealth that it's inconsequential.
It's a good theory but I think the investors are pretty straight-up about wanting their companies on a short leash.
The key will be those other cities/hubs having their own successes, bringing in the capital and expertise to nurture new talent. It's likely that the number of successful hubs that can be supported is pretty low. I happen to believe that the amount of (awful word) synergy needed to flip a few percent of startups from fail/borderline to success is pretty high. In other words, all those know-a-guy-who-can-help connections have to have a high concentration before it starts to pay off.
But then mine is just a theory as well and has a high chance of being wrong.
Its true but its not limited to SF/Bay Area. I had the impression the other day that city-specific industries are much like Universities; so you see that MIT, Berkeley etc. that had CS dept's early on now have the best programs in CS. So it is with cities: the tech industry was born in Silicon Valley so of course there are a lot of Software/EE engineers out there.
Somehow the city with the highest average salary/cost of living usually goes unmentioned... Seattle has two huge tech companies, a lot of mid sized tech companies, and a growing startup scene... and it's not that far away from the bay.
It rains too much, like 14 months per year is just rain. And the Seattle freeze...ya, people in Seattle don't like to talk to other people, it is like Northern Europe. /s
We've always made up crazy lies just to keep the Californians away, but ultimately it isn't working. Seattle is a nice place to live/work, and has plenty of jobs for techies.
On top of the weather, which is a big deal to a lot of people, the problem is exactly in what you said: there are two huge tech companies. And that's it.
Basically, if you move to Seattle, you are pretty much restricted to working for Microsoft or Amazon and that's it. Period. Nothing else.
It's a huge career limiting move, make sure you're okay with it.
There is so much pressure, career-wise, to move to either the Bay Area, the West Coast in general, or a major urban hub.
I honestly like living in a semi-rural part of the Midwest. I like seeing fields and forests while driving to work. If I want to get out to some wilderness, I can do so in 15-30 minutes. I travel in a car that, I feel, offers me freedom. To boot, I have a nice, reserved spot in the garage below my apartment. I live downtown and I still feel great freedom/"space". I cant imagine being able to do anything like this in a place like SF or even Chicago.
My cost of living is very cheap. My commute is 15 minutes. I live close to my family. Why should I want to leave?
I have 11 acres, horses, a goat, cats, a dog, and I live 15 minutes from downtown and 17 minutes from work. This is in a mid-sized midwest city (Grand Rapids, MI). While I realize that I could achieve a substantial pay raise on one of the coasts, a similarly sized plot there would cost millions. I paid under 200k 5 years ago with a 1500sf house on it, and it's still probably only worth the mid 200k range after we improved it (cleared 6 acres of trees, planted and fenced a bunch of pasture, made significant improvements to the house). I could not achieve a similar lifestyle on an engineer's salary near a major urban center on a coast ... and I have no desire to move to one :).
Plus, I get to make avionics, which is on my short list of the best jobs ever.
I think this endorsement should be qualified. While it's true there is more space here in GR, there is a reason for that: people leave as soon as they can (for various reasons; the lack of sun (http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ccd-data/pctposrank.txt), lack of opportunity or even this vaguely defined yet very strong pressure to conform to an invisible fence of ideology. Change and outside ideas are slow to take root, to put it mildly.
I have worked in tech here for over 10 years and there are very few jobs. I've already used up Plans A, B and C. My next move will probably be somewhere else (if I'm still competitive). This is where you go to retire, not to advance your career.
That's an awesome setup and cost of living. If most of family and friends didnt have deep roots here I'd totally consider saying screw this place. Actually, I still may, but gonna ride it out a bit longer.
I know I found a Rails shop there in a search years ago, but generally speaking is there a tech career scene in GR? If so, are there any trends as far as the tech that companies are using that you can tell? I've got 3 acres with dogs and chickens here in NJ, but we have no family for a 10 hour radius and my wife's family is in Livingston county (don't want to be too close).
The cost of living is definitely infinitely higher than living in the midwest but you certainly can find fields and forests (and actual mountains!) in the SF area. For example, the minute you cross the Golden Gate bridge, you are in Marin County, a county with a rich agricultural history, amazing natural places like Muir Woods (the setting for the ape's home in the latest Planet of the Apes), and 85.5% of it's land protected from development forever. Here's a photo from the Headlands (http://www.robertcampbellphotography.com/Images/Marin/Marin-...), you can see SF just in the background, it's about 10 miles away from Downtown to the place in the photo. If you live in Marin, you can also choose to take the Ferry which drops you off in Downtown SF as well.
If you go South-West of SF, you will hit Pacifica and Half Moon Bay which are quaint coastal towns that will make you forget that you're only 20 miles away from San Francisco.
Go East, past the hills of Berkeley and you hit more rural spread out developments near Orinda, Diablo, etc.
I'm glad you found balance with the things that are important to you which is what really matters. Me personally, I'm drawn to the coast and the great expanse of the Pacific Ocean. The SF area has it's fair share of urban problems, but then you also have amazing restaurants, a close-to-world-class arts scene, some of the best schools and hospitals in the country, the most impactful technology companies in the world, and the fair share of folks who have come West looking to make their mark on the world in Gold Rush 2.0.
P.S. I've spent a fair share of time in Detroit/Michigan and the area and as much as I love being able to buy a city block there, I can't live in a place that calls soy sauce on rice "Fried Rice".
^ this is true. I was born and raised in south bay area and went to school in Berkeley. The Bay Area is an ecological treasure trove.
But over the years I've seen the hills dotted with houses, untouched swamp land (great for the local wildlife) turned into generic commercial offices, and roads developed deeper into the outskirts. Noise and air pollution is getting worse. Parking and congestion is a nightmare anywhere there are new offices or apartments in old neighborhoods (SF/PA/MV). Public transportation takes hours to get you anywhere (though I'm optimistic about Bart expansions).
I haven't heard anyone in favor of housing development talk about these problems, problems that are bound to get worse if more units are built unless equally aggressive solutions are implemented.
Like others here have said, the Bay Area pressures career-oriented individuals to move here. Although I love the diversity of backgrounds, it is clear that the vast majority of my friends who moved here haven't developed the affinity or interest in non-career-related aspects of the culture/geography. They are not emotionally invested in everything else the bay area has to offer (I theorize that this is because their families and their childhood memories are elsewhere).
I'm not saying new housing shouldn't be built (affording housing for lower-income families/individuals need to be built ASAP). I can't afford rent here either and commit social suicide by choosing to live with my parents despite being in my mid 20s (fortunate enough to have this option). But I can't in good conscience support development in the Bay Area until it comes bundled with discussions on environmental protection, transportation expansion, tax changes (who is going to pay for the extra firefighters/police offers needed if population increases), infrastructure projects (pumping water into the bay, electricity, etc). As of right now, it is so singly-focused on lowering rent that these other issues don't seem to matter in comparison.
I appreciate sama's attempt to get us to call our representatives. As an active voter and lifelong bay area resident, I will do so too.
>P.S. I've spent a fair share of time in Detroit/Michigan and the area and as much as I love being able to buy a city block there, I can't live in a place that calls soy sauce on rice "Fried Rice".
While Detroit doesnt have a huge asian population, and thus doesnt have great asian food - it does have huge middle eastern and mexican populations. You can get some of the best mexican, greek, and middle eastern food you'll ever have right in Detroit, as well as Detroit specialty foods like Coney Dogs, Detroit style pizza, and Hani.
Detroit is well regarded for its food, so its surprising for me to see someone disliking that part of the city.
If you're ever back in Michigan, you should visit the west side ... and also check out lake Michigan. Grand Rapids isn't as big as Detroit, but our economy is growing at a healthy clip and there's a lot of interesting things going on here.
I prefer having friends over and cooking. Restaurants are too impersonal. It is often hard to hear, and they can't be that intimate in nature as you are out in public. There is nothing like eating the meal of a friend or cooking for a friend.
> My cost of living is very cheap. My commute is 15 minutes. I live close to my family. Why should I want to leave?
You shouldn't. If you have a good job in such a location and are happy with the opportunities available, enjoy!
The problem is that markets naturally congregate in distinct locations so anyone who is looking to advance their career needs to make their way to a hub.
I am enjoying my time here. :) I just am a bit anxious because my speciality means there is just one player in the area. Outside of that speciality, there are other attractive, but not my calling, opportunities.
This also complicates my conundrum about whether to continue to rent vs purchasing some property to start some real roots.
why do we keep clinging to this idea that creative work is somehow "market captureable". Theres almost 0 friction to work for a company in new york or san francisco but somehow being on-prem is this career enhancing move. Why. What does it get you?
Some of the best engineers I know work remote and visit occasionally. Maybe theyre outliers, but we really need to kill this narrative where to be the best you need to live in the valley.
If you're a developer, like many here, you can work remotely.
Of course you will have less opportunities that if you're willing to move to Bay Area or NYC, but that's a choice to make. Do you prefer to prioritize on your career completely or are you will to compromise on that for a better living environment for you and your family?
Nobody said it's a obvious choice to live in a smaller city, but it's important to know that (if you're a developer) you have that choice. You can opt out of the rat race and make less, or work on less exciting projects, but still make a decent living.
For me people trumps nature. I like living in a big international city with a lot of culture, getting to meet a lot of new people all the time. At least not being closed off to those possibilities.
It doesn't have to be SF. It's not just that rent is expensive, it's that for the price you pay you most likely aren't even living in a nice neighborhood (most parts of Mission, parts of Soma, Market, parts of Haight, Divis, most of Western Addition, Lower Nob Hill, etc. - these aren't nice places at all for $3500/ month, which would put you in the very best areas of pretty much any other city in the world).
I think we would make our industry better not by trying to fix Bay Area housing, but by decentralizing it.
That typically means companies should stop forcing their new hires to move to SF/Bay Area, and VC should stop forcing companies they fund to move there too. Same goes with London/Paris for Europe.
I used to live in SV but now I'm in a medium-to-big French city. I'm 20 minutes bike/light rail from downtown but I still live in a house with a garden. I'm also at 5 minutes bike from the forest or shops.
Unfortunately, 7B people who think they are entitled to midwestern living is ecologically disastrous. The responsible ecological future is in density. General misanthropy (or targetted misanthropy, see: white flight) leading to sprawl is a privilege of Americana (hopefully a temporary one). Dense living still means you can get to forests and fields within 20-30 minutes (instead of 10-15 minutes).
Not to mention the economical benefits of dense living when ideas are forced to live next to each other to create new ideas through osmosis [1].
You're right, you can't have anything like that in SF. (Well, there are some pretty nice forests nearby.)
You also can't have any of the culture and city life that a major city like SF has. You see easily 10x as many people in a day in SF than you see all week in a semi-rural town in the Midwest. There's 10 cafes within a 10 minute walk. The nightlife is extensive and amazing. The restaurant scene, world class.
And that's fine if it has no value to you. But clearly for many there is more to consider than just cost of living and space. There is a reason startup hubs happen in major cities.
Pros:
* I live the heart of downtown in a major Canadian city
* Rent is $1025/mo, plus $100 for underground heated parkin. (Hey it's Canada)
* Work is across the street (it's not abused)
* Wilderness is only 15-20 minutes away
* Montreal/Boston are only 12 hours away
Cons:
* I'm a "devops lead" and making $70k/yr
I've come to the realization it'll take six figures plus to get me to move away.
That seems like a very low salary for any technical lead position. Are the wages in Canada generally that low? Most lead positions in the US regardless of geographic area start in the low six figures.
Certainly good points, but one of the unique things about the Bay Area,especially compared to the east coast megalopolis, is that you can also be in the wilderness in 15-30 minutes.
Yes, but many young people like myself do not. Ok, I'm not so young now, I am 30. Still, I could not wait to leave my mid-size sunburn hell of hole of a city. In my mid twenties I did move to a west coast tech hub. Best decision I ever made.
If you like where you are, then you should definitely stay there.
Sounds like life here in Bend, Oregon (where we have some nice mountains, to boot). The same housing situation as SF is playing out though: it's becoming prohibitively expensive for middle class people like teachers and firefighters because not enough housing is being built.
I like it, too, and built a valley-style VC-backed startup here. Really, the only people who can understand why Midwesterners like it here are Midwesterners, and in that category even it's people with family/homeowners/etc.
I used to take it personally when people would look down on any other non-SF locales, especially the Midwest. Now I realize that they just don't know what they're talking about, and that's okay, they don't need to. I've already used the advantages of our location to compete on hiring with talent that does get it, and I'm happy to keep doing that!
I think it's more likely that many of the people know what they are talking about (plenty of the people I've seen talk down about the Midwest are in the group you say understand it -- people who were homeowners and/or has families in the Midwest) and just don't share your preferences.
Why is it so hard for people to accept that not everyone wants the same thing, so that any disagreement offer preferences must be grounded in someone's ignorance?
The only reason I live in an apartment in an urban area is because I have to. The minute I get the financial ability to do so, I am moving. I like privacy, nature, real communities, space, etc. None of these things are available where I live.
This is a contentious issue and in case you are not from SF and wondering why Y Combinator is taking a stand on it, it has to do with the politics of the tech boom.
The plain truth is that the housing crisis is a combination of too much sudden demand fueled by the tech boom and too little supply. The tech community likes to deflect criticism of their sudden influx of relatively high-income workers and say "don't blame us, it's a supply problem."
This bill focuses mainly on juicing supply by removing restrictions on builders. But part of that is weakening the affordable housing restrictions on them.[1] The problem with that is, increasing market-rate housing alone may not make an appreciable difference in prices where it matters most from a macroeconomic perspective: for low-to-mid income residents.
Cities need teachers, service industry workers, artists, etc. Already the restaurant industry is facing a major worker shortage.[2] Let's not even get into the cultural effects of long-term residents getting displaced en masse. So if market-rate supply alone can't solve this, then you need affordable housing regulations to set aside spots.
Sam has offered a rather simplistic statement on the law of supply and demand on this. But that masks the real question: whether weakening affordable housing demands as this bill does is a smart move. Will juicing mostly market-rate housing be enough?
I don't live in SF, but having spent most of the past 15 years in Europe, which is dense: it's almost completely a supply problem. SF is not really very dense at all for a place with such a high demand for housing.
Apples to oranges. SF has always been more of a boomtown. Neither of the cities you mention have experienced the sudden, massive surge in demand that SF has in recent memory.
When you have sudden surges in demand you can't just pin it on supply. You have to think about macroeconomic objectives for the city (i.e. preserving low and mid income housing) as well as how to plan for the long term, like when the boom turns to bust and lots of those new residents leave.
It's even worse in the suburbs. Everything is incredibly sprawled out. Every major city I've been to has apartment towers. It's just a more economical way to use land. Given how much demand for housing there is, there are obviously regulations in place keeping anything very tall from being built. The bay area doesn't want to grow.
While the cost of housing in the bay area gets a lot of press the entire infrastructure of the bay is getting stretched by the current tech boom. The traffic is already the second worst in the nation [1], and existing public transportation like bart[2] and caltrain[3] are already overloaded.
While I'm generally in favor of development I think that this simplistic approach of just going around local planning departments is just going to lead to more problems. I think it would be better to cut state and local funding of counties if they don't match growth targets that region commits to. This way we incentivize communities to embrace growth while letting the residents still have a strong say in how and where their community grows. Letting developers call the pace hasn't made for good urban planning in other parts of the country and there is no reason to expect it to do a lot better here. Let's incentivize these parties to work together rather than giving one all the power to drive the process.
> The tech community likes to deflect criticism of their sudden influx of relatively high-income workers and say "don't blame us, it's a supply problem."
Well duh, ostensibly high-paying jobs are good, remember? Like, the tech sector is one of the few remaining industries with lots of jobs that pay well, and now we gotta demonize them too? Would it be preferable for everyone to be equally poor?
And it obviously is a supply problem. The California Legislative Analyst Office was pretty clear on that:
> While many factors have a role in driving California's high housing costs, the most important is the significant shortage of housing in the state's highly coveted coastal communities. We advise the Legislature to address this housing shortfall by changing policies to facilitate significantly more private home and apartment building in California's coastal urban communities.
It's important to understand the other factors alluded to by the California Legislative Analyst Office, among others. Specific to SF is a sudden influx of wealthier residents. With such a huge gap between their income levels and say service industry or blue collar folks, they are going to throw the market rate for housing way high. Increasing the supply of market-rate housing alone may not bring things down enough, at least, not without much greater developer concessions than have been suggested.
"Well duh, ostensibly high-paying jobs are good, remember?"
To whom, exactly? If those jobs are going to people who are moving here from somewhere else, then who benefits? There was a thriving city here long before tech startups came along.
The cruel irony of this kind of job growth is that it doesn't benefit the people who are being displaced. I personally think we need a more balanced approach: we need to build more housing, but we also need to start implementing some disincentives for companies to locate offices in San Francisco. It makes no sense, for example, that we're giving tech companies tax breaks to move their employees here.
Articles by Tim Redmond are usually full of misinformation, and that one (link #1) is no exception. I could go on forever, but eg., he says:
"The problem is that the building and real-estate industries have a huge lock on California politics."
San Francisco is the #1 most development-hostile major city in the world. According to World Bank data, even in places like Ethiopia and Zimbabwe, it's still much easier to get planning permits than it is in SF. Blaming the power of the real estate industry for San Francisco's rents is like blaming the Chinese famines on capitalist saboteurs.
> increasing market-rate housing alone may not make an appreciable difference in prices where it matters most from a macroeconomic perspective: for low-to-mid income residents.
This may well be possible to argue, but you're going to need a source for a claim that goes against the basic concept of supply-and-demand.
It doesn't go against it. The question is how elastic is the demand curve. If it's not elastic enough to make SF affordable for low-to-mid income residents then we may face bad macroeconomic and cultural effects. That's where price controls come in.
I don't think the tech community is deflecting criticism. As a minority voting group, what are they supposed to do about the problem?
The limited supply is not their fault. The refusal to bid in the market would be a meaningless self-sacrifice. The lack of healthy leverage and organization by workers in other industries have nothing to do with tech workers, who, again, are a minority power in politics.
Your premise that the tech community is not a major player in local politics because of their relatively small body count does not hold water. Money plays a large influence in local politics. Ron Conway is a perfect example of this: he dines with the mayor and provides major funding to local campaigns and initiatives, which usually win.
My understanding is the bill has weaker requirements (as little as 5%) on affordable housing than alternatives. Think of cities and negotiating with developers over affordability, and this is a more developer-friendly offer.
I don't see how worker shortages in the service industry could possibly be seen as a bad thing. Service industry workers will be required regardless of cost of living. If supply is constrained because of cost of living, these workers will simply be paid more. Rather than trying to legislate our way to $15/hr, how is it not better to achieve the same thing with less government intervention? 'affordable housing', as required by the government, is not necessary at all.
I highly doubt this bill would pass without severe modifications. The problem is that we have two groups in population: One who own houses and other who don't. First group don't want new houses and dilute value of their property. Politicans very well knows that making this group unhappy will end their careers. The second group is often in minority outside large cities. This is why its very hard to pass laws that would allow build new houses. It's great that SamA is taking interest in this. If enough valley billionaires can pay for lobbing then politicians can finally ignore their majority constituents and do the "right thing" :).
Around 65% of the population in SF are renters. If it were simply homeowners vs renters, renters would win in a landslide.
Who do you think was pushing for proposition I (an 18 month development moratorium in the mission) to pass? It wasn't homeowners, that's for sure. It was renters living in the Mission who were (not incorrectly) terrified that new development means they will get evicted and displaced.
Why did 60% of SF voters (keeping in mind only 30% are homeowners) vote for Proposition B, requiring a city wide up-or-down vote on all new waterfront development over 40-80 feet? A measure that was also endorsed by multiple major newspapers? Because people are afraid of everything changing too quickly and the nice beautiful waterfront turning into midtown Manhattan.
It's complicated. This isn't homeowners giving the middle finger to everybody else. The situation is more akin to existing residents fighting against future residents. Though whatever the situation is, pointing fingers at individual constituencies instead of trying to understand the problem holistically is not helping anything.
This is an excellent writeup by Jason Furman, chief economic adviser to President Obama, which explains in detail how land use restrictions make cities expensive (and cause other problems besides):
Are you sure that only 30% of SF voters are homeowners? Maybe in presidential elections (with 70% turnout), but in all the other elections where turnout ranges from 30-50% I wouldn't be surprised if homeowners make up more than half of actual voters.
We don't in practice have "1 person, 1 vote". Because of the influence of money in politics, the effective reality is somewhere in between "1 person, 1 vote" and "1 dollar, 1 vote". There are far more dollars on the property owning side.
You've described why it's almost impossible to do anything about housing policy at the local level. That's why state-level action such as this bill is so important. The state legislature represents a much broader constituency, including lots of people who would like to live in SF but can't currently afford to.
This is exactly what is happening. Those who own homes don't care what the consequences of preventing new housing nearby are. The consequence is income segregation, especially in areas zoned for single family homes. Single family zoning is inherently segregationist—you can only live in those neighborhoods if you can afford the most expensive type of housing. Our homeowner-run local governments feign concern about housing costs while it's literally illegal to build cheaper homes on less land in so many neighborhoods.
To repeal segregation laws that are supported by the public, you're going to need a desegregation movement. Here's one: https://www.facebook.com/DesegregateATX/
This is a big argument going on in Austin too. Housing prices are going through the roof, yet home owners don't want multi family units in their neighborhood.
I can't say I blame them, either. It's nice having some quiet - four families in the lot next door means 4x more noise, cars, dogs, parties, etc.
Difference here is that you can live insanely cheap in the suburbs, so most end up doing that, but with no reasonable public transport and no current ridesharing, it's a mess that will continue to grow.
"Just move to the suburbs" is a solution that sounds fine, but it's really not. Wealthier folks feel entitled to central living because a market economy distributes scarce goods to the wealthiest. But the middle class is perfectly capable of outbidding the rich for housing: they do it by buying cheaper homes on less land. Four middle class families in a fourplex spend more on housing than most Central Austin families, but those are illegal to build. Every single family homeowner got a leg up in the housing market because it was illegal for the middle class to bid against them.
Our affordability crisis is a charade. It was manufactured by selfish people looking out for their own interests without caring about the consequences. They have segregated our cities by income, and pushed people away from jobs and communities that would've improved their lives. Our cities must be desegregated. This injustice must end.
Ditto. If only we could next rationalize and overhaul our property tax system / prop-13[1] of 1978. Then we might have a fighting chance of [ more ] affordable housing.
Maybe instead of paying linear tax based on purchase price, we could implement a reverse logarithmic scale for property tax % based on state / national / something average sales prices / sqft that would be re-assessed yearly. And then either apply that to all new home purchases, and when enacted, allow existing home owners to opt-in ( recent buyers ), or opt-out.
There is a third group - landlords. Those are the ones that have the means to scoop up multiple properties and collect the rents. I believe this to be the main problem in the build more housing plan...
This is one of the worst piece of advice, IMHO. Here's why.
1) You can't add housing without adding proper infrastructure (transportation, sewage, power, etc). Adding infrastructure is expensive and takes a very long time. There will be no budget for proper infrastructure increase if the population keeps rising - remember that hundreds of thousands of people work for companies that offshore their taxes.
2) Most people need financial advice on what real estate investment means. If there's another bubble burst, a lot of average income people will have their life ruined. They would have bought an apartment for, say, $1M, with 200k down, only to see its value decrease by 30-35%, essentially wiping out their savings and forcing them into unsustainable debt.
3) I wish there was an easy way to fix the housing problem in SF. There isn't. Let's be realistic about it.
Please don't downvote me just because you disagree with me. Instead, tell me why.
> Please don't downvote me just because you disagree with me. Instead, tell me why.
I'll do both, because you are acting like an informed person but wrong about very basic things.
> 1) You can't add housing without adding proper infrastructure (transportation, sewage, power, etc). Adding infrastructure is expensive and takes a very long time. There will be no budget for proper infrastructure increase if the population keeps rising - remember that hundreds of thousands of people work for companies that offshore their taxes.
One, you don't "offshore taxes", you offshore profits. Two, corporations don't pay local taxes based on profits, so I'm not sure what you're on about. Tech workers? They pay quite a lot in local taxes.
> 2) Most people need financial advice on what real estate investment means. If there's another bubble burst, a lot of average income people will have their life ruined. They would have bought an apartment for, say, $1M, with 200k down, only to see its value decrease by 30-35%, essentially wiping out their savings and forcing them into unsustainable debt.
It is not the purpose of an economy to coddle wealthy people with artificial market restrictions, so I don't have any sympathy here. Also, mortgage debt isn't like college debt or credit card debt; it's secured by your house alone. Banks can't go after you for it. All they can do is give you a bad credit score for seven years. Which is bad, but I'm sure people who can afford million-dollar homes can afford to face the consequences of their actions.
> 3) I wish there was an easy way to fix the housing problem in SF. There isn't. Let's be realistic about it.
Even if this bill passes and substantially more multi-family housing starts getting built, do not be surprised if house prices remain extremely high.
Vancouver doesn't have the same anti-development issues that SF has, and has been building multi-unit condos and apartments all over the region for decades. Multi-unit housing starts are about at its highest level ever. The average price of a detached house however is C$1.3 million (~US$998k thanks to the weak Canadian dollar) and rising. Low interest rates, "fear of missing out," incredible amounts of real estate speculation and a dash of foreign investment can go a long way.
It's likely that the strongest benefits to increased supply in SF will manifest itself in lower rents and/or lower rate of rent increases.
Vancouver is a bit of an anomaly, and much of the housing pricing there is being driven by foreign investment rather than occupation rates.
I moved out of the sea-to-sky about 6 years ago (I'm from Whistler) but I seem to recall huge amounts of apartment vacancy in Yaletown and even Coal Harbour areas. From what I've been reading in Canadian news, it seems that many of these properties remain empty and are not in the rental pool as the act as a shell game for foreigners to move money our of other contries (mostly China, but others too I'm sure).
SF is a very small city, even compared to Vancouver, and from what I understand, vacancies are almost nil.
The official vacancy rate is low but the unofficial vacancy rate is much higher. Many empty units are kept off the rental market due to how tilted the rights are in favor of tenants. 39 percent of the landlords surveyed in 2003 said they kept vacant apartments off the market because of regulations. [1]
Nobody's expecting housing prices to drop by half overnight. It's just the best thing we can do to limit future growth and make it SOMEWHAT affordable.
(and, frankly, as a homeowner, I don't WANT my housing prices to drop in half overnight, but I DO what the region to be affordable to more people, and hence I support this even though it's against my own personal interest).
Detached homes will not fall in price, pretty well ever. Since San Francisco is pretty well "out of space," when it comes to developing land, building up is the only option and will come to the detriment of detached housing.
This sort of development however should, as you say, assuage high rents and perhaps expand the condo market in SF.
I think what you mean to say is cheaper, not affordable.
a software engineer makes over 80K if he is lucky, you would be considered an exception if you make anything over 100K. also pretty much everything else costs more in Canada than it does in US which leaves even less money for housing,
Readit News
I managed to talk to someone at both of my representatives' offices within a minute, without any sort of delay. It's very easy, please do call in if you support this measure!
Also, when you do call in, post here afterwards with how long it took you. A lot of people don't bother because they think it'll be a hassle, but it's about a 100 times easier than calling to book a restaurant reservation.
It still surprises me that an industry that's all about connecting the world through the internet and allowing anyone to work with anyone else on anything says "yeah but you need to work in this small area of the country to do it."
The armchair economist in me says that high housing prices in the Bay Area will cause a market "correction" of sorts with other cities exploding as tech sectors -- see NY, Boston, Chicago, Austin, Las Vegas -- as those cities can get away with much better housing for cheap, even if the opportunities aren't as plentiful (yet.)
<conspiracy theory> The cynic in me likes to think that VC's and other wealthy tech execs are trying to keep housing prices high by artificially creating this in-elasticity ("you can have my funding if you live in SF" or "we don't allow remote workers"), as they all probably own houses in the area; the incentives for them would be to have housing prices keep rising, NOT fall, as they would lose significant real-estate equity. </conspiracy theory>
I'd love to see NYC co-opt SV as the world capital of the tech industry, and I think it could totally happen. The only thing SV has going is historical inertia, and it's eroding. This housing problem in SV is going to make it erode faster.
Honestly I don't understand SV at all. They say NYC has a housing cost problem, and it sure does, but it's nothing compared to SV -- in SV you have people paying Manhattan prices so they can live in SF... yet somehow still commuting an hour to the suburbs where the offices are! At least here you can either pay Manhattan prices and get a 10 minute commute for it -- or take an hour-long commute and at least get a much cheaper and/or larger place in exchange. And your commute won't require you to drive, unless you want that.
NB: I've never lived in the SV area so maybe I have some misconceptions that need correcting? :-)
The size of the campuses in Silicon Valley literally cannot fit in NYC. No comparison.
Its fantastic that Google bought a block of Manhattan for 1 billion dollars, but Google's Mountain View campus is ALL of Mountain View. These are sprawling districts that cannot fit inside of a skyscraper.
The next fundamental difference is the variety of VCs. NYC cannot replicate this, and there is nothing eroding about it. NYC has one or two VCs looking at the same industry trends. Silicon Valley has many VCs interested in completely different things, different portfolio niches.
NYC has variety of industries and conveniences.
Silicon Valley doesn't even know how backwards its infrastructure is, while trying to change a world that functions better than it does already.
San Francisco masquerades as Silicon Valley and an international city but it is neither. New York, London and Hong Kong are international cities, SF struggles to keep up with the tech bubbles that it remains on the periphery of and only recently gained relevance for.
There is more tech focused stuff in SF and Silicon Valley, but New York has enough satellite offices to keep you occupied.
I think the benefits of more people meeting, networking, and starting new things in the area vastly outweighs their interest in their homes. It's not like this really affects the pricing of mansions much anyway, and if they aren't living in a mansion, it's probably such a small amount of their overall wealth that it's inconsequential.
The key will be those other cities/hubs having their own successes, bringing in the capital and expertise to nurture new talent. It's likely that the number of successful hubs that can be supported is pretty low. I happen to believe that the amount of (awful word) synergy needed to flip a few percent of startups from fail/borderline to success is pretty high. In other words, all those know-a-guy-who-can-help connections have to have a high concentration before it starts to pay off.
But then mine is just a theory as well and has a high chance of being wrong.
We've always made up crazy lies just to keep the Californians away, but ultimately it isn't working. Seattle is a nice place to live/work, and has plenty of jobs for techies.
I just hope housing there is affordable without a roommate by the time I can graduate.
Basically, if you move to Seattle, you are pretty much restricted to working for Microsoft or Amazon and that's it. Period. Nothing else.
It's a huge career limiting move, make sure you're okay with it.
They can make billions from funding startups.
I honestly like living in a semi-rural part of the Midwest. I like seeing fields and forests while driving to work. If I want to get out to some wilderness, I can do so in 15-30 minutes. I travel in a car that, I feel, offers me freedom. To boot, I have a nice, reserved spot in the garage below my apartment. I live downtown and I still feel great freedom/"space". I cant imagine being able to do anything like this in a place like SF or even Chicago.
My cost of living is very cheap. My commute is 15 minutes. I live close to my family. Why should I want to leave?
I have 11 acres, horses, a goat, cats, a dog, and I live 15 minutes from downtown and 17 minutes from work. This is in a mid-sized midwest city (Grand Rapids, MI). While I realize that I could achieve a substantial pay raise on one of the coasts, a similarly sized plot there would cost millions. I paid under 200k 5 years ago with a 1500sf house on it, and it's still probably only worth the mid 200k range after we improved it (cleared 6 acres of trees, planted and fenced a bunch of pasture, made significant improvements to the house). I could not achieve a similar lifestyle on an engineer's salary near a major urban center on a coast ... and I have no desire to move to one :).
Plus, I get to make avionics, which is on my short list of the best jobs ever.
I have worked in tech here for over 10 years and there are very few jobs. I've already used up Plans A, B and C. My next move will probably be somewhere else (if I'm still competitive). This is where you go to retire, not to advance your career.
Thanks in advance.
If you go South-West of SF, you will hit Pacifica and Half Moon Bay which are quaint coastal towns that will make you forget that you're only 20 miles away from San Francisco.
Go East, past the hills of Berkeley and you hit more rural spread out developments near Orinda, Diablo, etc.
I'm glad you found balance with the things that are important to you which is what really matters. Me personally, I'm drawn to the coast and the great expanse of the Pacific Ocean. The SF area has it's fair share of urban problems, but then you also have amazing restaurants, a close-to-world-class arts scene, some of the best schools and hospitals in the country, the most impactful technology companies in the world, and the fair share of folks who have come West looking to make their mark on the world in Gold Rush 2.0.
P.S. I've spent a fair share of time in Detroit/Michigan and the area and as much as I love being able to buy a city block there, I can't live in a place that calls soy sauce on rice "Fried Rice".
But over the years I've seen the hills dotted with houses, untouched swamp land (great for the local wildlife) turned into generic commercial offices, and roads developed deeper into the outskirts. Noise and air pollution is getting worse. Parking and congestion is a nightmare anywhere there are new offices or apartments in old neighborhoods (SF/PA/MV). Public transportation takes hours to get you anywhere (though I'm optimistic about Bart expansions).
I haven't heard anyone in favor of housing development talk about these problems, problems that are bound to get worse if more units are built unless equally aggressive solutions are implemented.
Like others here have said, the Bay Area pressures career-oriented individuals to move here. Although I love the diversity of backgrounds, it is clear that the vast majority of my friends who moved here haven't developed the affinity or interest in non-career-related aspects of the culture/geography. They are not emotionally invested in everything else the bay area has to offer (I theorize that this is because their families and their childhood memories are elsewhere).
I'm not saying new housing shouldn't be built (affording housing for lower-income families/individuals need to be built ASAP). I can't afford rent here either and commit social suicide by choosing to live with my parents despite being in my mid 20s (fortunate enough to have this option). But I can't in good conscience support development in the Bay Area until it comes bundled with discussions on environmental protection, transportation expansion, tax changes (who is going to pay for the extra firefighters/police offers needed if population increases), infrastructure projects (pumping water into the bay, electricity, etc). As of right now, it is so singly-focused on lowering rent that these other issues don't seem to matter in comparison.
I appreciate sama's attempt to get us to call our representatives. As an active voter and lifelong bay area resident, I will do so too.
https://twitter.com/kimmaicutler/status/735561614368202752
While Detroit doesnt have a huge asian population, and thus doesnt have great asian food - it does have huge middle eastern and mexican populations. You can get some of the best mexican, greek, and middle eastern food you'll ever have right in Detroit, as well as Detroit specialty foods like Coney Dogs, Detroit style pizza, and Hani.
Detroit is well regarded for its food, so its surprising for me to see someone disliking that part of the city.
A Planet of The Apes remake? That's the first anchor you reach for?
Muir Woods is the planet Endor!
I prefer having friends over and cooking. Restaurants are too impersonal. It is often hard to hear, and they can't be that intimate in nature as you are out in public. There is nothing like eating the meal of a friend or cooking for a friend.
You shouldn't. If you have a good job in such a location and are happy with the opportunities available, enjoy!
The problem is that markets naturally congregate in distinct locations so anyone who is looking to advance their career needs to make their way to a hub.
This also complicates my conundrum about whether to continue to rent vs purchasing some property to start some real roots.
Some of the best engineers I know work remote and visit occasionally. Maybe theyre outliers, but we really need to kill this narrative where to be the best you need to live in the valley.
Of course you will have less opportunities that if you're willing to move to Bay Area or NYC, but that's a choice to make. Do you prefer to prioritize on your career completely or are you will to compromise on that for a better living environment for you and your family?
Nobody said it's a obvious choice to live in a smaller city, but it's important to know that (if you're a developer) you have that choice. You can opt out of the rat race and make less, or work on less exciting projects, but still make a decent living.
It doesn't have to be SF. It's not just that rent is expensive, it's that for the price you pay you most likely aren't even living in a nice neighborhood (most parts of Mission, parts of Soma, Market, parts of Haight, Divis, most of Western Addition, Lower Nob Hill, etc. - these aren't nice places at all for $3500/ month, which would put you in the very best areas of pretty much any other city in the world).
I think we would make our industry better not by trying to fix Bay Area housing, but by decentralizing it.
That typically means companies should stop forcing their new hires to move to SF/Bay Area, and VC should stop forcing companies they fund to move there too. Same goes with London/Paris for Europe.
I used to live in SV but now I'm in a medium-to-big French city. I'm 20 minutes bike/light rail from downtown but I still live in a house with a garden. I'm also at 5 minutes bike from the forest or shops.
Not to mention the economical benefits of dense living when ideas are forced to live next to each other to create new ideas through osmosis [1].
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzgMRvQLdXI
You also can't have any of the culture and city life that a major city like SF has. You see easily 10x as many people in a day in SF than you see all week in a semi-rural town in the Midwest. There's 10 cafes within a 10 minute walk. The nightlife is extensive and amazing. The restaurant scene, world class.
And that's fine if it has no value to you. But clearly for many there is more to consider than just cost of living and space. There is a reason startup hubs happen in major cities.
I do not want to move to a city where I can't afford to buy a good home within walking distance of my workplace.
The world should provide this for me.
Maybe there are good answers to that question, but that should be the default.
Pros: * I live the heart of downtown in a major Canadian city * Rent is $1025/mo, plus $100 for underground heated parkin. (Hey it's Canada) * Work is across the street (it's not abused) * Wilderness is only 15-20 minutes away * Montreal/Boston are only 12 hours away
Cons: * I'm a "devops lead" and making $70k/yr
I've come to the realization it'll take six figures plus to get me to move away.
If you like where you are, then you should definitely stay there.
I used to take it personally when people would look down on any other non-SF locales, especially the Midwest. Now I realize that they just don't know what they're talking about, and that's okay, they don't need to. I've already used the advantages of our location to compete on hiring with talent that does get it, and I'm happy to keep doing that!
Why is it so hard for people to accept that not everyone wants the same thing, so that any disagreement offer preferences must be grounded in someone's ignorance?
The plain truth is that the housing crisis is a combination of too much sudden demand fueled by the tech boom and too little supply. The tech community likes to deflect criticism of their sudden influx of relatively high-income workers and say "don't blame us, it's a supply problem."
This bill focuses mainly on juicing supply by removing restrictions on builders. But part of that is weakening the affordable housing restrictions on them.[1] The problem with that is, increasing market-rate housing alone may not make an appreciable difference in prices where it matters most from a macroeconomic perspective: for low-to-mid income residents.
Cities need teachers, service industry workers, artists, etc. Already the restaurant industry is facing a major worker shortage.[2] Let's not even get into the cultural effects of long-term residents getting displaced en masse. So if market-rate supply alone can't solve this, then you need affordable housing regulations to set aside spots.
Sam has offered a rather simplistic statement on the law of supply and demand on this. But that masks the real question: whether weakening affordable housing demands as this bill does is a smart move. Will juicing mostly market-rate housing be enough?
[1] http://48hills.org/2016/05/22/a-terrible-housing-bill-looms-...
[2] http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/print-edition/2016/0...
Random place in SF: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7718267,-122.4388549,3a,75y,...
Near where I lived in Padova, which is way smaller than SF, and way, way less well off:
https://www.google.com/maps/@45.3850829,11.8706466,3a,75y,18...
They look fairly similar, despite a 3 bedroom, 2 bath house in that area of the suburbs in Padova going for under 200K euro.
Here's what Milan looks like, which does have a decent economy, for Italy: https://www.google.com/maps/@45.4582853,9.2105922,3a,90y,219...
None of this 2/3 story crap, even if it's fairly far out from the city center. They've built up.
When you have sudden surges in demand you can't just pin it on supply. You have to think about macroeconomic objectives for the city (i.e. preserving low and mid income housing) as well as how to plan for the long term, like when the boom turns to bust and lots of those new residents leave.
What is that really narrow, darkly painted building? Is that a house? Whatever it is, it sure looks peculiar (but I like it!)
While I'm generally in favor of development I think that this simplistic approach of just going around local planning departments is just going to lead to more problems. I think it would be better to cut state and local funding of counties if they don't match growth targets that region commits to. This way we incentivize communities to embrace growth while letting the residents still have a strong say in how and where their community grows. Letting developers call the pace hasn't made for good urban planning in other parts of the country and there is no reason to expect it to do a lot better here. Let's incentivize these parties to work together rather than giving one all the power to drive the process.
[1] http://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/trafficindex/list [2] http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/BART-gets-candid-... [3] http://www.caltrain.com/Page3882.aspx
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Transbay_Termina...
http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Transit-plan-to-r...
Well duh, ostensibly high-paying jobs are good, remember? Like, the tech sector is one of the few remaining industries with lots of jobs that pay well, and now we gotta demonize them too? Would it be preferable for everyone to be equally poor?
And it obviously is a supply problem. The California Legislative Analyst Office was pretty clear on that:
> While many factors have a role in driving California's high housing costs, the most important is the significant shortage of housing in the state's highly coveted coastal communities. We advise the Legislature to address this housing shortfall by changing policies to facilitate significantly more private home and apartment building in California's coastal urban communities.
http://www.lao.ca.gov/Publications/Detail/3214
To whom, exactly? If those jobs are going to people who are moving here from somewhere else, then who benefits? There was a thriving city here long before tech startups came along.
The cruel irony of this kind of job growth is that it doesn't benefit the people who are being displaced. I personally think we need a more balanced approach: we need to build more housing, but we also need to start implementing some disincentives for companies to locate offices in San Francisco. It makes no sense, for example, that we're giving tech companies tax breaks to move their employees here.
"The problem is that the building and real-estate industries have a huge lock on California politics."
San Francisco is the #1 most development-hostile major city in the world. According to World Bank data, even in places like Ethiopia and Zimbabwe, it's still much easier to get planning permits than it is in SF. Blaming the power of the real estate industry for San Francisco's rents is like blaming the Chinese famines on capitalist saboteurs.
Deleted Comment
This may well be possible to argue, but you're going to need a source for a claim that goes against the basic concept of supply-and-demand.
The limited supply is not their fault. The refusal to bid in the market would be a meaningless self-sacrifice. The lack of healthy leverage and organization by workers in other industries have nothing to do with tech workers, who, again, are a minority power in politics.
This is such a confusing issue, everyone seems to be making sense.
Who do you think was pushing for proposition I (an 18 month development moratorium in the mission) to pass? It wasn't homeowners, that's for sure. It was renters living in the Mission who were (not incorrectly) terrified that new development means they will get evicted and displaced.
Why did 60% of SF voters (keeping in mind only 30% are homeowners) vote for Proposition B, requiring a city wide up-or-down vote on all new waterfront development over 40-80 feet? A measure that was also endorsed by multiple major newspapers? Because people are afraid of everything changing too quickly and the nice beautiful waterfront turning into midtown Manhattan.
It's complicated. This isn't homeowners giving the middle finger to everybody else. The situation is more akin to existing residents fighting against future residents. Though whatever the situation is, pointing fingers at individual constituencies instead of trying to understand the problem holistically is not helping anything.
New development as the cause of displacement is just outright misinformation. There has been very little development in the Mission:
https://rationalconspiracy.com/2015/05/25/new-york-times-mak...
There is an extremely strong negative correlation between development and housing prices across cities:
http://www.spur.org/sites/default/files/wysiwyg/asking.price...
This is an excellent writeup by Jason Furman, chief economic adviser to President Obama, which explains in detail how land use restrictions make cities expensive (and cause other problems besides):
https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/page/files/20...
This is such a bizarre idea.
How exactly do renters get displaced by adding more housing?
We don't in practice have "1 person, 1 vote". Because of the influence of money in politics, the effective reality is somewhere in between "1 person, 1 vote" and "1 dollar, 1 vote". There are far more dollars on the property owning side.
Yes, but many renters are covered by rent control, and thus immune to increasing market rents.
To repeal segregation laws that are supported by the public, you're going to need a desegregation movement. Here's one: https://www.facebook.com/DesegregateATX/
I can't say I blame them, either. It's nice having some quiet - four families in the lot next door means 4x more noise, cars, dogs, parties, etc.
Difference here is that you can live insanely cheap in the suburbs, so most end up doing that, but with no reasonable public transport and no current ridesharing, it's a mess that will continue to grow.
Our affordability crisis is a charade. It was manufactured by selfish people looking out for their own interests without caring about the consequences. They have segregated our cities by income, and pushed people away from jobs and communities that would've improved their lives. Our cities must be desegregated. This injustice must end.
Maybe instead of paying linear tax based on purchase price, we could implement a reverse logarithmic scale for property tax % based on state / national / something average sales prices / sqft that would be re-assessed yearly. And then either apply that to all new home purchases, and when enacted, allow existing home owners to opt-in ( recent buyers ), or opt-out.
[1] http://www.californiataxdata.com/pdf/Prop13.pdf
Increasing as-of-right development opportunities can potentially actually increase land values. Definitely bad for condo owners though.
Why? I would assume, as the area gets denser, more popular, more shops, more restaurants, that also condos go up in price?
They are one of the groups doing the most activism on this issue.
Fun fact: some of you may have seen us canvassing at tech bus stops in SF.
1) You can't add housing without adding proper infrastructure (transportation, sewage, power, etc). Adding infrastructure is expensive and takes a very long time. There will be no budget for proper infrastructure increase if the population keeps rising - remember that hundreds of thousands of people work for companies that offshore their taxes.
2) Most people need financial advice on what real estate investment means. If there's another bubble burst, a lot of average income people will have their life ruined. They would have bought an apartment for, say, $1M, with 200k down, only to see its value decrease by 30-35%, essentially wiping out their savings and forcing them into unsustainable debt.
3) I wish there was an easy way to fix the housing problem in SF. There isn't. Let's be realistic about it.
Please don't downvote me just because you disagree with me. Instead, tell me why.
I'll do both, because you are acting like an informed person but wrong about very basic things.
> 1) You can't add housing without adding proper infrastructure (transportation, sewage, power, etc). Adding infrastructure is expensive and takes a very long time. There will be no budget for proper infrastructure increase if the population keeps rising - remember that hundreds of thousands of people work for companies that offshore their taxes.
One, you don't "offshore taxes", you offshore profits. Two, corporations don't pay local taxes based on profits, so I'm not sure what you're on about. Tech workers? They pay quite a lot in local taxes.
> 2) Most people need financial advice on what real estate investment means. If there's another bubble burst, a lot of average income people will have their life ruined. They would have bought an apartment for, say, $1M, with 200k down, only to see its value decrease by 30-35%, essentially wiping out their savings and forcing them into unsustainable debt.
It is not the purpose of an economy to coddle wealthy people with artificial market restrictions, so I don't have any sympathy here. Also, mortgage debt isn't like college debt or credit card debt; it's secured by your house alone. Banks can't go after you for it. All they can do is give you a bad credit score for seven years. Which is bad, but I'm sure people who can afford million-dollar homes can afford to face the consequences of their actions.
> 3) I wish there was an easy way to fix the housing problem in SF. There isn't. Let's be realistic about it.
This isn't saying anything.
Vancouver doesn't have the same anti-development issues that SF has, and has been building multi-unit condos and apartments all over the region for decades. Multi-unit housing starts are about at its highest level ever. The average price of a detached house however is C$1.3 million (~US$998k thanks to the weak Canadian dollar) and rising. Low interest rates, "fear of missing out," incredible amounts of real estate speculation and a dash of foreign investment can go a long way.
It's likely that the strongest benefits to increased supply in SF will manifest itself in lower rents and/or lower rate of rent increases.
I moved out of the sea-to-sky about 6 years ago (I'm from Whistler) but I seem to recall huge amounts of apartment vacancy in Yaletown and even Coal Harbour areas. From what I've been reading in Canadian news, it seems that many of these properties remain empty and are not in the rental pool as the act as a shell game for foreigners to move money our of other contries (mostly China, but others too I'm sure).
SF is a very small city, even compared to Vancouver, and from what I understand, vacancies are almost nil.
http://missionlocal.org/2015/06/a-closer-look-at-airbnbs-inn...
(and, frankly, as a homeowner, I don't WANT my housing prices to drop in half overnight, but I DO what the region to be affordable to more people, and hence I support this even though it's against my own personal interest).
This sort of development however should, as you say, assuage high rents and perhaps expand the condo market in SF.
a software engineer makes over 80K if he is lucky, you would be considered an exception if you make anything over 100K. also pretty much everything else costs more in Canada than it does in US which leaves even less money for housing,
so cheaper yes, but definitely less affordable.