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VitalSigns posted:This is genius. I mean, barring some impossible black-swan world-destroying event like people being unable to continue to afford sky-high housing costs if there's an ever-so-slight economic slowdown...the law of averages proves that the senior tranche can never default, it's a safer bet than the US government! Rent seems a lot more stable than the underlying price of the house. Remember that the last time we had armageddon in the housing market, rental yields jumped. If you bought during the panic, you could still charge the same rent, but sell the house for a nice profit 5 years later. And after all, if people can't afford rent, what are they going to do, buy a house?
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# ? Jun 10, 2014 10:40 |
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# ? Jun 11, 2024 08:28 |
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Well rents are high now, so it's not like during the bubble when you could drop back from your McMansion mortgage to a cheap rental. If a family can't afford the rent, you evict them and hope they don't trash the place over however long that takes. If a lot of people can't afford the rent, you could see the same issue as with foreclosures: too many defaults, not enough resources to process all the evictions and get sherriffs out to all these homes, and suddenly you can't collect from huge swaths of properties. Is the hedge fund free to lower rents to attract tenants if the market starts falling, or are they locked into it by the terms of the however they securitized it? That was a big problem in the mortgage crisis right, that banks often couldn't modify mortgages even when it was in their best interests because it was so hard to untangle the actual ownership of the note?
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# ? Jun 10, 2014 10:56 |
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VitalSigns posted:Well rents are high now, so it's not like during the bubble when you could drop back from your McMansion mortgage to a cheap rental. Bloomberg put together an infographic: http://www.bloomberg.com/infographics/2013-12-20/blackstones-big-bet-on-rental-homes.html Most of the homes are 3-4 bedrooms, and the broad trend is lower home ownership and higher rents. The trend of higher rents has apparently continued through the recession with not much variation. Also, the coupons being paid are pitiful.
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# ? Jun 10, 2014 11:06 |
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on the left posted:Also, the coupons being paid are pitiful. Holy poo poo, I can buy a bottom-of-the barrel F-level tier for a coveted 3.8% return?! I'd be a fool not to do it! gently caress these 30-year Treasuries at their pathetic 3.4%.
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# ? Jun 10, 2014 11:14 |
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etalian posted:Yeah the OP covered it, after the bubble piles of big money places like Blackrock bought foreclosures and short sales in places like california to flip into high priced rental properties. I take some issue with people saying that all MBS is bad no matter what. If you package an MBS right, that is you aren't fraudulently packing it full of poo poo, it's a perfectly legitimate investment vehicle. That said, a security made up of monthly rent seems really iffy from a risk perspective. How the hell do you tranche that? on the left posted:You don't understand how asset backed securities work. On a large enough scale, you can expect a certain return on rental income, due to law of averages. For attracting capital, you can divide up these cash inflows into senior (always get paid first) and junior (might get paid, but high returns) and have the underlying capital be the value of the house. To clarify, what I'm saying is, a traditional MBS is able to tranche because the stuff most likely to pre-pay is in the upper tranches while the stuff most likely to default is in the lower tranches. With loans you can determine this by FICO, LTV, etc. How the gently caress do you determine that for a rental? LTV is one of the most highly correlated variables for 30-year probability of default. Rental units have no loan so there's no loan to value. I guess you could still use credit scores but since renting isn't really borrowing I'm not sure it's appropriate. And then how do you deal with rent increases/decreases if the rental income is going into a security? You can never really decrease the rent level ( ) if rental income is tied up in a security. Unless all the securities are 12-months but then what's the loving point, you can buy corporates or 1-year treasuries if you have that short a time horizon. axeil fucked around with this message at 12:41 on Jun 10, 2014 |
# ? Jun 10, 2014 12:35 |
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axeil posted:That said, a security made up of monthly rent seems really iffy from a risk perspective. How the hell do you tranche that? Cashflows from mortgages are processed monthly the same way rent would be. Also, it's not at all out of the capability of a competent real estate company to predict and model rental cashflows taking into account in vacancy. axeil posted:To clarify, what I'm saying is, a traditional MBS is able to tranche because the stuff most likely to pre-pay is in the upper tranches while the stuff most likely to default is in the lower tranches. With loans you can determine this by FICO, LTV, etc. How the gently caress do you determine that for a rental? In an MBS, the senior tranches have to be protected from prepayment by the junior tranches.
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# ? Jun 10, 2014 12:39 |
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on the left posted:Cashflows from mortgages are processed monthly the same way rent would be. Also, it's not at all out of the capability of a competent real estate company to predict and model rental cashflows taking into account in vacancy. I agree from a transaction standpoint you can do this the same way, my issue comes with properly structuring the security for credit risk. I guess it might be easier since you don't really have pre-payment risk so the only risk you have to balance is the usual credit risk. on the left posted:In an MBS, the senior tranches have to be protected from prepayment by the junior tranches. I believe you have it the other way around. Senior tranches are exposed to prepayment risk in exchange for being protected from default risk. Junior tranches are exposed to default risk in exchange for being protected from prepayment risk. For those who have no clue what I'm talking about, let's have a capital and derivatives market lawyer explain it. Charles Davi posted:What Is A Tranche? from: http://derivativedribble.wordpress.com/2008/12/01/tranches-and-risk/ axeil fucked around with this message at 12:55 on Jun 10, 2014 |
# ? Jun 10, 2014 12:46 |
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axeil posted:I believe you have it the other way around. Senior tranches are exposed to prepayment risk in exchange for being protected from default risk. Junior tranches are exposed to default risk in exchange for being protected from prepayment risk. It depends on how the security is structured actually. The example that stood out in my mind used a z-tranche to protect senior tranches from prepayment.
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# ? Jun 10, 2014 13:01 |
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on the left posted:It depends on how the security is structured actually. The example that stood out in my mind used a z-tranche to protect senior tranches from prepayment. Ohh okay yeah that makes a lot of sense. I was thinking you were saying that all MBS was structured like that.
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# ? Jun 10, 2014 13:14 |
axeil posted:I take some issue with people saying that all MBS is bad no matter what. If you package an MBS right, that is you aren't fraudulently packing it full of poo poo, it's a perfectly legitimate investment vehicle. You see they have an algorithm that solves it all. Also if the MBS servicing companies are any indication of the quality chosen for securities the property management side of these things is going to be a special kind of awful with low-bids and zero upkeep. edit: Landlording houses is Hard to get right, it really is. You are balancing a small monthly income against long term depreciation AND betting that your tenant selection was good enough to prevent massive unexpected damages or missed rent. Getting owed money out of absconded tenants ranges from a 50/50 chance for high end rentals (where lawyer's fees often will take out any potential recouping of owed money because the tenants will fight back) to absolutely impossible for low end (because they don't have any money to take). Most landlords that make money off of it do a bunch of work themselves (or have a full time handyman/woman on duty) and have enough properties concentrated in a small enough area to make that possible. Shifty Pony fucked around with this message at 14:01 on Jun 10, 2014 |
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# ? Jun 10, 2014 13:55 |
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I'm skeptical about the notion that small time landlords are better at landlording. It's like small retail shops versus big box retail - in a lot of cases, individual business owners can be just as sleazy.
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# ? Jun 10, 2014 14:08 |
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In my experience, small-time landlords will vary from really awesome to totally horrible, while large corporate landlords almost universally land in the region of being thoroughly mediocre and eager to screw tenants exactly one hair short of where they will leave en masse/take legal action. This probably changes when you are a high-end luxury rental, maybe, who knows. The advantage to small-time landlords is that they are individuals, and are therefore more willing to act like actual human beings. That can be really important for people operating at the margins. I always wanted to own a home, but as I have gotten older and realized how impossible it will be, I would happily settle for renting for life if I could just get some stability out of it. What I really want is some level of assurance that I am not going to have to uproot my family and move across town just because my landlord decides not to renew or wants to jack up our rent several hundred dollars. Moving is always a pain but it gets worse once you have kids - moving means making them potentially change schools, probably lose touch with friends, give up their favorite spaces. I feel like doing that every couple years takes a toll. I wish that we would develop decent protections for renters, or that someone in the world would be willing to sign a ten-year lease.
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# ? Jun 10, 2014 14:51 |
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shrike82 posted:I'm skeptical about the notion that small time landlords are better at landlording. It's like small retail shops versus big box retail - in a lot of cases, individual business owners can be just as sleazy. It's more like there are three tiers of landlords: giant property management companies, small-scale professional landlords with say half a dozen properties or a small apartment block, and then amateurs renting out their second property or basement suite. It's like the difference between big box, small mom-and-pop stores, and a guy selling out of the trunk of his car. This comes up a lot in the Canadian thread, since realtors, especially in Vancouver, often push prospective buyers to get into being amateur landlords. Lots of new houses are getting built with not one but two basement suites ("mortgage helpers!"), and the idea of buying a "rental condo" is a thing. Except that being a one-property landlord is loving hard, with significant opportunity costs. And even ignoring that, the market is such in Vancouver that rents would have to double (from already being the highest in Canada) for something like a rental condo to be profitable (when bought on a mortgage).
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# ? Jun 10, 2014 17:09 |
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Shifty Pony posted:Cross-post from the politics thread: I know this is from a few pages back, but I actually saw a bit of this in, of all places, Kearney, Nebraska. My partner interviewed for job out there a little less than two weeks ago. He's making 13.70 an hour with no benefits here, there he'd be making $17 an hour with free medical insurance, pension plan, sick and vacation time, etc. I'm sure I can find something to do out there with my banking, insurance, or (if all else fails) retail experience. Meanwhile, a nice two bedroom apartment would be roughly $600 per month. We should know if a few days if he got it, if he did, we're off to tornado alley. I've went out there with him a couple of times, and noticed just a few tiny touches of hipsterdom that were sprouting up there. The first time we went there we drank Jalapeno beer at a microbrewery. I also noticed a restaurant opened up in a former auto repair shop complete with food truck, and the last time we were there we had a beer in a place right across the street from the Museum of Nebraska Art that served nothing but top shelf bourbon, microbrews, organic fair trade coffee, local produce and meat, and $4000 paintings from local artists. The city has a 5,000 student college (University of Nebraska Kearney), and it wouldn't shock me if some stayed or a few came back to try to be starving artists in a place where they won't literally starve. Compared to Denver, which has all of the problems described about Austin earlier in the thread, it sounds like it might be a good bet. We make 65-70k a year combined and have two paid off cars, but at the rate costs are going up compared to wages, the chances of us ever being able to do things like "buy a house" or even "rent an apartment in a not totally lame area of town and actually go out and do things" doesn't seem that great. Just got a notice on our door regarding an upcoming lease renewal. I was actually overjoyed that if he doesn't get the job and we stay in Denver, the rent will only go up $35 a month (about 3%) for a 13 month lease. That's considered a great deal these days, and I'm 90% sure we'll take it if the job doesn't come through.
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# ? Jun 10, 2014 22:35 |
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axeil posted:I take some issue with people saying that all MBS is bad no matter what. If you package an MBS right, that is you aren't fraudulently packing it full of poo poo, it's a perfectly legitimate investment vehicle. Well most of the scariness at least from the investor perspective is it's a new type of security so you really don't have any historical performance information and other good ways to evaluate potential. Either way I certainly wouldn't buy it seeing as you can similar yields from things such as a REIT ETF e.g Vanguard VNQ which have less fog of war and also more diversification for the actual real estate assets.
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# ? Jun 10, 2014 23:01 |
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Buffer posted:Then poo poo like mommy and daddy buying kiddo a condo for their stay at Harvard. I live near Boston, and the condo next to my apartment was up for sale. The front door is next to my bedroom window, so I could see everyone who visited the condo - it was mostly married couples, but a large percentage were college-age kids with people who were obviously their parents in tow. Anyway, the Boston area is definitely messed up. Some friends of mine are losing their apartment because it was purchased by an investor in the UK who owns ~30-40 units in town. Another friend (who works as an ER doctor) tried to buy a condo, but was outbid by almost $90k by someone who could pay all cash. I have a decent salary and a down payment saved up in the bank. If the market had stayed the same as it was a few years ago, I could think about buying a modest place. But now, there's no loving way.
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# ? Jun 11, 2014 18:33 |
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It's apparently quite common here to buy a house for your kid to live in for four years and then you sell it later. You only need ~30k for the down payment (which is about the price of a new car) and you can just get the rent off of the roommates the kid has. And at the end of it you can sell it for a reasonable profit (house prices here never really boomed or busted so the market's fairly stable).
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# ? Jun 11, 2014 18:57 |
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computer parts posted:It's apparently quite common here to buy a house for your kid to live in for four years and then you sell it later. You only need ~30k for the down payment (which is about the price of a new car) and you can just get the rent off of the roommates the kid has. And at the end of it you can sell it for a reasonable profit (house prices here never really boomed or busted so the market's fairly stable). Pretty much this - it's common in a lot of university towns where real estate is often relatively cheap in comparison to rent (because student populations tend to be renters.). If a parent can swing it, it can make a lot of sense to buy a condo for four years with the intention of selling it at the end - I mean, you know what your holding window is so you can structure the financing as favorably as possible (e.g. 36 month ARM) and it's long enough that the fixed costs of the purchase are often going to be drowned out.
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# ? Jun 11, 2014 19:03 |
If anyone wants an example of just how hosed the housing situation in San Francisco is... This house: Just sold for $916,000, which is $317,000 above asking price, and it's in the heart of one of the roughest neighborhoods in the city/entire state (the Bayview/Hunters Point). To be fair, the area is improving in terms of crime rate/poverty levels, as are many bad parts of most big cities these days, and the asking price was a more reasonable (by SF standards) $600k ...but still This is a neighborhood with 30,000 residents, that just several years ago was seeing 20-30 murders a year, giving it quite a high murder rate as far as bad American neighborhoods go. It's home to some of the most run down public housing in the entire nation (as described by the US dept. of Housing and Urban development), and has plenty of old industrial poo poo to go along with that, along with a superfund site (abandoned navy shipyard that was used to decontaminate ships used in nuclear bomb tests, among other things). The neighborhood has some of the highest cancer and asthma rates in the state due to that plus the industrial stuff (which until recently also included the oldest and most polluting power plant in CA). I mean poo poo, in 2007 through 2008, there were 41 murders in the neighborhood, the vast majority of which were shootings in the street (so innocents get hit by stray bullets relatively often). 14 of those murders were within a half mile radius of that home, and one of them was on the same block...a few more happened with 2-3 blocks of it. It's the type of neighborhood that over the past decade alone has been the subject of multiple documentaries about gangs/poverty/drugs/violence/urban decay. Nowadays the neighborhood "just" has maybe 5-15 murders per year, instead of 20-30 (so maybe "just" a few of those murders happen within a couple blocks of that house these days), but that's still kind of a high murder rate, especially for an area where you pay $1 million for a house. Imagine a house going for $1 million in a bad part of Chicago's south side. It's like that. It's entirely possible that the owners bought that house without even realizing it was a rough neighborhood with crime problems though. I've heard of that happening with more than a few of the tansplants who moved into the mission district, expecting it to be ultra nice and safe due to the high prices and "cool" reputation, who are then shocked to find out that it has tons of poor people, crime, gang violence, etc. I guess that's to be expected when the popular image of crime in SF is that there's little of it (which is the opposite of the truth...note: do NOT believe SF's Wikipedia page on the topic of crime, it's hilariously wrong in many ways). Stereotypes sure are something aren't they! In SF's case, they're definitely helping gentrification quite a bit. TL;DR: the housing situation in SF has gotten so ridiculous that people are now paying $1 million for small houses in the ghetto. fake edit: we need to build a poo poo ton more housing, obviously. Rah! fucked around with this message at 01:23 on Jun 18, 2014 |
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# ? Jun 17, 2014 23:35 |
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Well, now I don't feel as terrible about the price I just agreed to pay for a first home in Austin. Like, today. I'm not too worried about it; I mean, if it all goes to hell there's always one way out
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# ? Jun 18, 2014 00:19 |
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VitalSigns posted:Well, now I don't feel as terrible about the price I just agreed to pay for a first home in Austin. Like, today. Got a decent 2 bedroom place in Culver City for like 360k and now similar places are going for 475+ a few years later. poo poo's crazy out here.
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# ? Jun 18, 2014 00:58 |
First off, thanks for that OP. I've kept up a little with the state of housing and rentals around the country, and while I knew that it was bad, I didn't have the specifics and the OP did a great job of filling in some blanks. Second, not that I don't love some doom and gloom, it's been pretty well established ITT that the housing market is hosed (especially for millennials) and probably will be hosed for some time. So my question is, what avenues are available to make things better? Obviously voting and pushing for better policy are the best options, but I'm curious as to what people can do besides those two things to improve their own lot and the lot of others in the same situation. More specifically, I'm interested in learning about co-operative housing and how viable it might be on a larger scale. To give some background: I moved to Austin four years ago, and managed to find a 1 BR studio apartment two blocks from UT Austin for $600, plus utilities (~$100 per month), which is a pretty good deal. Each year my rent would go up about $50, until it got to $750 per month and I bailed out. After spending a summer out of the country, I moved into a student run co-operative housing (http://collegehouses.org/), where I have my own fully furnished room and bathroom in a shared suite with a fully furnished kitchen for about ~$550 per month (which includes all utilities, parking, internet, etc.) Contrary to what I believed or knew about co-ops before this, the organization runs well, the leadership is quite good, all the houses are well maintained and generally improve as time goes on. I guess I'm just curious if something like a housing co-operative for low-income young professionals or low-income families would be a viable option for addressing some of the problems facing the rental market in places like Austin or SF. A bunch of high density, multi-family buildings that reduced costs by using a co-operative model could open up housing options for people, especially millenials who are crunched between low paying jobs and high debt burdens. Of course, it doesn't sync with the American ideal of owning your own home, or at least having a home to call your own, but that ideal is probably due to be put out to pasture any day now anyway. Does HUD give out grants for non-profit housing that isn't specifically geared towards students?
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# ? Jun 18, 2014 01:04 |
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VitalSigns posted:Well, now I don't feel as terrible about the price I just agreed to pay for a first home in Austin. Like, today. I seem to remember there was a house in SF that was owned by a horder or something and it had stuff just coming out of the walls and garbage everywhere. The asking price? $450,000.
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# ? Jun 18, 2014 01:24 |
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San Francisco is a place you expect housing to work differently though. There are land constraints so land pricing is going to work differently than a place where you can just build outwards. I'm sure the house the hoarder lived in was basically worthless while the land accounted for most of the price. Modifying the restrictions on building height would help, but who knows how much.
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# ? Jun 18, 2014 01:44 |
mike- posted:San Francisco is a place you expect housing to work differently though. There are land constraints so land pricing is going to work differently than a place where you can just build outwards. I'm sure the house the hoarder lived in was basically worthless while the land accounted for most of the price. Modifying the restrictions on building height would help, but who knows how much. The reason it's so expensive is because there aren't nearly enough housing units for all the people who want to live here. Land constraints play a part, but the biggest contributor has been decades of lovely NIMBY policy restricting development. despite SF's small geographic size, there's more than enough space to provide enough housing for everyone. If SF had been allowed to densify and build upwards at a natural pace over the decades, prices wouldn't be quit as insane. Of course much of the city would have a different feel than it does now, as it would be a lot denser and have a lot more highrises. The land constraints on 3 sides and the fact that we will never be able to annex the towns to the south, means that the only way to build enough housing is to build upwards, and we haven't done nearly enough of that.
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# ? Jun 18, 2014 02:05 |
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High rises rule anyways. Who is like "god, I hate this city of the world and just wish I lived in a town of short buildings." Oh right, NIMBY assholes where their 'scenic views' are more important than affordable housing.
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# ? Jun 18, 2014 02:21 |
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mike- posted:San Francisco is a place you expect housing to work differently though. There are land constraints so land pricing is going to work differently than a place where you can just build outwards. I'm sure the house the hoarder lived in was basically worthless while the land accounted for most of the price. Modifying the restrictions on building height would help, but who knows how much. San Francisco isn't the only place where there are land constraints - a significant number of the world's alpha-class cities are hemmed in by water. San Francisco just combines a larger than normal oceanic coastline with ridiculous land use caps. San Fran is an Alpha- city, same as Atlanta, and while Atlanta has no geographic obstacles it still has higher residential zoning densities than San Francisco.
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# ? Jun 18, 2014 02:37 |
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What the gently caress is an alpha city
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# ? Jun 18, 2014 02:43 |
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shrike82 posted:What the gently caress is an alpha city Something put out by these guys apparently. http://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/gawcworlds.html
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# ? Jun 18, 2014 02:46 |
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Berke Negri posted:High rises rule anyways. Who is like "god, I hate this city of the world and just wish I lived in a town of short buildings." The joy of being a hipster dumping ground of a city means that the people who think this way are non-rich people who simultaneously believe that people who aren't cool and authentic like them should be forcibly evicted from the city to keep prices down.
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# ? Jun 18, 2014 02:52 |
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Rah! posted:The reason it's so expensive is because there aren't nearly enough housing units for all the people who want to live here. Land constraints play a part, but the biggest contributor has been decades of lovely NIMBY policy restricting development. despite SF's small geographic size, there's more than enough space to provide enough housing for everyone. If SF had been allowed to densify and build upwards at a natural pace over the decades, prices wouldn't be quit as insane. Of course much of the city would have a different feel than it does now, as it would be a lot denser and have a lot more highrises. The land constraints on 3 sides and the fact that we will never be able to annex the towns to the south, means that the only way to build enough housing is to build upwards, and we haven't done nearly enough of that. A big factor is things such as neighborhood associations got meltdowns over attempts to add more high density infill in 70s calling it "Manhattanization". To this day it's only around Market Street/Soma were you can find high density type blocs similar to NYC or Chicago. Also most of the new housing development will be around Market Street given how it's pretty much impossible to add new buildings to the more snobbish areas like North Beach.
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# ? Jun 18, 2014 05:31 |
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I said this earlier in the thread buuuuuut... all this talk about anti-NIMBY and we could build more affordable housing by going upwards begs the question... ... you want this country to be overcrowded? I'm kind of glad that this stuff exists. Populate areas nearby but not IN it. Also quit having so many babies.
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# ? Jun 18, 2014 06:14 |
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Runaktla posted:I said this earlier in the thread buuuuuut... all this talk about anti-NIMBY and we could build more affordable housing by going upwards begs the question... Population in the US is more or less stable as is (whatever growth there is is primarily driven by immigration). All that restrictions on high density housing do is drive up the price.
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# ? Jun 18, 2014 06:17 |
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Runaktla posted:I said this earlier in the thread buuuuuut... all this talk about anti-NIMBY and we could build more affordable housing by going upwards begs the question... This country isn't overpopulated at all. Maybe you do not realize how big the United States are.
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# ? Jun 18, 2014 06:18 |
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Runaktla posted:I said this earlier in the thread buuuuuut... all this talk about anti-NIMBY and we could build more affordable housing by going upwards begs the question... Plus, living in higher density areas actually helps with overpopulation because people consume fewer resources (for example, relying more on walking/biking/public transport instead of cars).
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# ? Jun 18, 2014 06:28 |
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Runaktla posted:I said this earlier in the thread buuuuuut... all this talk about anti-NIMBY and we could build more affordable housing by going upwards begs the question... Except this leads to massive suburban sprawl and you get poo poo like DC where buildings can't be higher than 6 stories so everything is getting pushed further and further out, increasing commute times and making people rely even more on the generally terrible metro system. I'll take 40 story monstrosities all over the city than what DC currently has. Actually, this is the main reason I live in not-DC, they actually can build high rises here and my 4 years in high rises have been much, much better than the 1 year I lived in an actual house. The high rises don't try and steal your $8,000 security deposit that only exists so the landlord can't rent to "undesirables." They also generally don't have fraudulent electric meters that the power company tries to shut off, have functioning a/c and heating systems, and don't put reminders on your door to pay the rent like you're a loving 4 year-old. There also generally are exterminators that come around so you don't have centipedes all over the damned walls. I could go on listing out the abysmal conditions of that house but hopefully I've made my point. Thought about naming and shaming the actual landlord here but that might be doxxing so I won't. Seriously though, housing in DC is only avoiding an SF-style end game because Alexandria City, Arlington/Fairfax/Loudon Counties exist in VA and Montgomery/PG County in MD still can be developed. axeil fucked around with this message at 06:48 on Jun 18, 2014 |
# ? Jun 18, 2014 06:41 |
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Cicero posted:This makes zero sense. How does forcing families to live somewhere else help with overcrowding at a national scale? Berke Negri posted:This country isn't overpopulated at all. Maybe you do not realize how big the United States are. computer parts posted:Population in the US is more or less stable as is (whatever growth there is is primarily driven by immigration). When I read this thread sometimes I feel like the obvious cause and effect is ignored. I mean there are many relevant perspectives and mine isn't the only one but the competing interests are: (1) Availability of low cost housing in desirable areas; and (2) Preference of low population density, less congestion. I tend to prefer #2. My big overwhelming preference is population control which is the best of both worlds but good luck with that one. axeil posted:Except this leads to massive suburban sprawl and you get poo poo like DC where buildings can't be higher than 6 stories so everything is getting pushed further and further out, increasing commute times and making people rely even more on the generally terrible metro system.
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# ? Jun 18, 2014 06:46 |
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Err I guess it does look like I said forcing families to move out helps overcrowding on a national scale... Though I wasn't going for that. I meant local. I should have been more clear.
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# ? Jun 18, 2014 06:49 |
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Runaktla posted:
So your proposal to fix the housing problem in DC is to relocate the federal government? Most private business aren't set up in DC because of all the aforementioned problems. Most of them tend to be in Rosslyn and Crystal/Pentagon City in Arlington, down in Alexandria or over in McLean/Tysons/Reston. Silver Spring, MD also has a lot of businesses (the Discovery Channel being the most well-known) but I don't live/work there so I can't speak to it as well. The only things in DC itself are the government things, which sort of have to be in DC by definition. If the US had an actual functioning public transit system that might work but building more single family homes in the middle of nowhere that require a 90 minute drive to work isn't gonna fix anything. Businesses tend to cluster together for business reasons, not so much due to zoning reasons. And new homebuyers don't want to buy houses in the suburbs, they want to buy houses in the close suburbs/city because this generation doesn't see as much value in having giant McMansions. edit: This is essentially a supply and demand problem. There's intense demand for urban/close suburban housing right now. However, the supply has been choked off due to zoning restrictions, NIMBYism, etc. There's a huge glut of houses in places with very little demand, thus how people can buy houses for 70k. Except buying a house in Northern Indiana means you'll either a) need to work in Northern Indiana or b) commute to Chicago. There's not really any major industrial or commercial centers in Northern Indiana so commuting it is. But then you have to factor the value of 3 hours a day you spend in your car, the price of owning the car, gas, etc. It's not as simple as "this would all be solved if everyone moved to places no one is currently living, like Wyoming." Wyoming doesn't have the sort of infrastructure needed to support a mass movement of people. Neither do the ex-urbs of any major city center. This plan is completely unworkable. It's far, far easier to just build the drat high rises than convince people to live in the boonies who don't want to live in the boonies. edit 2: All of this probably ties into the urban/rural divide that's been running in the US for basically its entire history. Except the urban side has pretty clearly won out but the laws and policies of the country haven't caught up yet. axeil fucked around with this message at 07:01 on Jun 18, 2014 |
# ? Jun 18, 2014 06:50 |
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# ? Jun 11, 2024 08:28 |
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I suppose I am basically saying relocate the federal government, or parts of it. I don't know your industry but it is a case by case situation The options in that scenario are: (1) High density housing that is affordable. This would cause local congestion. (2) These businesses/entities paying employees better to better compete for the local housing available. This will keep driving up prices however. (3) De-centralize the local industry. This is of course case by case depending on industry. As an attorney, the Courts could modify to allow videoconferencing for court hearings. Actually one of my court rooms I appear in regularly is doing a test run of that. The courts already have a court call system for attending via telephone which has been used regularly for at least a decade.
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# ? Jun 18, 2014 07:00 |