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Wow that's pretty bad. Would be interesting to see a breakdown in costs.
distortion park fucked around with this message at 15:23 on Jul 6, 2019 |
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Jul 6, 2019 15:20
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19% profit margin being 108,000 means the cost of building each apartment is $570,000. Jesus Christ. Kind of surprised having more prefab stuff hasn't caught on. Seems like it would let you save on labor costs a lot, even if the labor hours stayed the same you'd be able to shift them from the bay area or other high cost metros to cheap areas.
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Jul 6, 2019 15:23
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pointsofdata posted:Do you have a link for that? I'm skeptical that there are permissioned developments in SF which add a significant number of units and aren't profitable. Markets like SF and NYC can support building very expensive skyscrapers so it seems weird that an ordinary development wouldn't make money. aren't profitable enough. in a market this hot developers are going to try to maximize their profits, which means targeting the upper income strata as they naturally have more money to spend san francisco's labor market is pretty hosed because of a super high cost of living. san francisco is significantly more expensive than london, and london is an expensive city to live in. this has two effects we care about regarding new housing starts -construction labor cost. there is a labor shortage in san francisco because wages have not yet hit an equilibrium that is attractive to a sufficient number of construction workers, so they continue to rise and rise. meanwhile, there are not enough construction workers to build all projects which are approved and in various early phases of the building process. there's already a bunch of construction going on in san francisco, but there's only so many things that can be built at one time because of constraints like all the heavy construction vehicles being booked (think cranes) also, keep in mind that large housing towers have to compete with office towers and corporate clients for construction resources like labor https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Labor-shortage-could-cripple-Bay-Area-rebuilding-13312821.php -extreme rents. average rents are unaffordable. let's assume a median rent of $3.5k/m, and rule of thumb is that you should spend no more than 1/3 of your income on housing, so for that to be affordable you would need to make (3.5)*36=$126,000 per year in household income just to tread water. median household income around the bay area is generally $100k (for the whole united states it's just shy of $60k) https://sf.curbed.com/2019/6/13/18663215/san-franciso-rent-numbers-record-prices-median-graphs https://sf.curbed.com/2019/2/25/18239828/report-middle-class-income-ranges-sf-bay-area-salary so, households that make close to double the national income can barely afford an average apartment. great but remember, developers in the united states don't generally bother with anything less than average. they want to, again, maximize their profits, which means targeting people who are above the average income range. nobody is building middle class or lower level housing without government incentive to do so Cicero posted:Kind of surprised having more prefab stuff hasn't caught on. Seems like it would let you save on labor costs a lot, even if the labor hours stayed the same you'd be able to shift them from the bay area or other high cost metros to cheap areas. large towers are already pretty prefab, but if you go full prefab it looks obviously cheap
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Jul 6, 2019 15:33
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BarbarianElephant posted:"Luxury" is a marketing term in housing development. It's about as meaningful as "artisanal" in food. Bonus points when the 70-year-old, self-described Progressive arguing against new market-rate development shows up at a different City Council meeting to rage that their neighborhood just isn't the type for affordable housing to be built in because it would damage the neighborhood's well-off white character. But hey, they have an "All Are Welcome Here" sign in their yard, at least! Cicero posted:19% profit margin being 108,000 means the cost of building each apartment is $570,000. Jesus Christ. Actually, I'd really love to see a serious look at the accusation often bandied about that all modern building materials are destined to fall apart in twenty years. Sure, construction is often using newer, cheaper materials different than those used in 1920, but a poorly-constructed/maintained building is going to fall apart regardless. I also often (but not always) see the argument made without an alternative being offered and alongside other bad-faith, anti-renter arguments, so it's hard to take seriously.
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Jul 6, 2019 15:53
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Cugel the Clever posted:It is maddening that a lot of old-school left-wing folk are unable to get their head around this idea. Gentrification happens to in-demand areas, regardless of whether new multi-family construction is going in. Sure, new, "luxury" development can make an area more "trendy", but rich assholes are already tearing down old single-family homes to replace them with ludicrous new single-family homes; limiting new multi-family construction is only going to raise the price barrier for entry. And yes, of course we 100% should construct more outright public housing and institute tenant protections—allowing new market-rate buildings is just part of the solution. McMansion Hell has documented the decline of ten year old McMansions pretty extensively. Using that as an excuse against increasing density is complete bullshit.
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Jul 6, 2019 16:12
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Cugel the Clever posted:Actually, I'd really love to see a serious look at the accusation often bandied about that all modern building materials are destined to fall apart in twenty years. Sure, construction is often using newer, cheaper materials different than those used in 1920, but a poorly-constructed/maintained building is going to fall apart regardless. I also often (but not always) see the argument made without an alternative being offered and alongside other bad-faith, anti-renter arguments, so it's hard to take seriously. survivor bias - cheaply made homes from a century ago aren't around anymore
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Jul 6, 2019 16:17
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Cicero posted:19% profit margin being 108,000 means the cost of building each apartment is $570,000. Jesus Christ. I looked this up, construction costs in expensive markets are $3000 - $4000 psm, so the construction costs are a sizable chunk of apartment costs but not the majority.
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Jul 6, 2019 19:22
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pointsofdata posted:I looked this up, construction costs in expensive markets are $3000 - $4000 psm, so the construction costs are a sizable chunk of apartment costs but not the majority. In Boston (and certain communities in the outer ring) buying an empty lot can run you $750,000 for a quarter acre of land. However, to me that makes me even a bigger proponent of density. More units, more dedicated units to be affordable please. I usually roll my eyes at the developers who decry the fact they need to turn a profit. Make a profit on 30, use another 20 for affordable and low-income please.
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Jul 6, 2019 19:34
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luxury handset posted:survivor bias - cheaply made homes from a century ago aren't around anymore While there is some truth to that McMansion Hell actually touches on a lot of the reasons modern residential construction often doesn't last. However Kate Wagner also touched on various reasons why; people move around a lot more. It just doesn't matter all that much if the house is going to leak and collapse in 30 years as most people aren't planning on being wherever they're living that long. All that matters is that it impresses people for the 5 years I'm wherever I am right now before I have to move because this job has no advancement, the raises all loving suck, and the only way to move up is to get a different job. That job is not likely to be local. It's the confluence of a lot of things all coming together to make big, impressive houses that maximize square feet at the cost of basically everything else built shoddily and meant to look fancy rather than actually be fancy. You also see this in new "luxury" apartments where things look fantastic when the building is new but within two or three years the complex's amenities are all broken, nothing ever gets fixed because nobody wants to pay for a maintenance budget, and nobody is even aware what the gently caress is going on as the building has changed owners five times.
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Jul 7, 2019 04:46
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lol whoopsquote:The rejection of an upscale rental townhouse project next to a Vancouver hospice has led to a new round of controversy.
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Jul 7, 2019 19:55
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Mooseontheloose posted:In Boston (and certain communities in the outer ring) buying an empty lot can run you $750,000 for a quarter acre of land. However, to me that makes me even a bigger proponent of density. More units, more dedicated units to be affordable please. A quarter acre is (or should be considered) a massive lot for an urban environment. You should be able to fit 9 units minimum on that space. ProperGanderPusher posted:My relatives think raising kids in an apartment is child abuse because the kids can’t go outside unattended (assuming this is one of those gated condo communities in the suburbs or a building in an urban core) and all the neighbors will hear them screaming and carrying on all the time and will hate us. I'd argue the opposite. Newer buildings are built like poo poo and tend to be really loud. My 100-year-old apartment building is quieter than the 1980s single-family house that I grew up in, despite being in a much denser area.
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Jul 8, 2019 00:30
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Some pretty heavy survivorship bias going on there. Will that house last 100 years? What about the lovely buildings built 100 years ago thar got replaced because they were lovely?
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Jul 8, 2019 00:47
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Its really not that building materials are inherently more prone to premature aging nowadays. Its the complete lack of care from developers who just want it built as quick and cheap as possible. My team was hanging fire protection pipe in the attic of a 4 story “luxury condo” building over the last few weeks, and the number of half- nailed or not-loving-nailed-at-all truss braces was staggering. If that roof doesn’t blow over in the next hurricane it will be cause our pipe hangers kept it together more than the braces did.
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Jul 8, 2019 02:26
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SpaceCadetBob posted:Its really not that building materials are inherently more prone to premature aging nowadays. Its the complete lack of care from developers who just want it built as quick and cheap as possible. My team was hanging fire protection pipe in the attic of a 4 story “luxury condo” building over the last few weeks, and the number of half- nailed or not-loving-nailed-at-all truss braces was staggering. If that roof doesn’t blow over in the next hurricane it will be cause our pipe hangers kept it together more than the braces did. Can you confidently assign blame for the encountered issue to the developer vs. the constructor? Presumably you notified the developer—did they decline to correct the issue? Don't get me wrong: developers are largely rich shitheels skimming profit off the back of a basic human necessity and would in a perfect world be replaced by a public entity operating expressly for the betterment of the community. I just often see rage against developers for issues that pop up that may be just as easily explained by mistake or negligence from parties the developer is relying on to perform adequately. Plus, as others have already added, it is hard to picture the current state of affairs being uniquely different from past eras. Building codes exist because developers and construction companies built poo poo buildings because they were cheapskates and/or incompetent and public outcry brought about change. Massive swathes of buildings from earlier eras have been torn down because they became unsafe or simply no longer met contemporaneous expectations. Massive swathes of still extant buildings from previous eras exist only because someone along the way was able to throw oodles of money at major problems that arose (or were smart/lucky enough to catch and correct them before they cost so much). We can and should expect more from all involved, but acting from the questionable premise that things are now uniquely bad may damage our ability to make meaningful advances. I'm also kind of okay with expecting buildings to have an end-of-life date that doesn't greatly exceed a human lifespan. The needs of the denizens and would-be denizens of an urban area can change wildly in the intervening period. New construction can also, done right, offer a better platform for modern living. The desire to preserve all old structures places a wicked bottleneck on a city's ability to adapt and results in harm to disadvantaged residents when more people want to live in an area than there are homes available to them. (And yes, wild, unmanaged development can acutely harm those same residents if cities and developers are not forced to take them into account) Cugel the Clever fucked around with this message at 03:36 on Jul 8, 2019 |
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Jul 8, 2019 03:34
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In my case, we work in small to midsize residential developments where developers might have project managers to oversee construction, but don’t utilize separate general contractors to oversee construction like we have on our commercial/business projects. We complained about to subpar construction to the project manager and so did the electricians, but no one has seen a carpenter in weeks and now that we’ve moved out of the attic I’m sure it will be forgotten. There is also a pretty big difference between a building aging gracefully over 60-80 years, and one that is in complete shambles in less than 30. For example we just started work on a 30 unit building built in the mid 90s that was again luxury condos when it was sold out. Now the homeowners are stuck with massive repair bills because the whole roof structure is rotting, the siding is falling off, and well their fire protection piping wasn’t installed properly and has completely rotted away as well.
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Jul 8, 2019 03:59
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Cugel the Clever posted:Here's me betraying my ignorance of the relationship between developer (the entity coordinating the project) and constructor(s) (the entity or entities implementing the building of the project). It's my understanding that these are not typically one and the same, though they often have a close relationship. Is that accurate? developers are groups which purchase land, pay for construction, and attempt to find some kind of profit by selling the building for more than it cost to construct. constructors are subcontractors, either explicitly so for small developers, or in the case of very large developers as either exclusive contracts or even in-house teams directly owned/employed by the developer. though generally given the different specializations necessary to construct buildings, it's better to just deal with subcontractors as an example, i used to work as a subcontracted employee on single family housing tracts. it roughly goes like this: -old farmer johnson has an 80 acre cow pasture or whatever and doesn't want to farm anymore. maybe he died or is retiring and he/the family wants to cash in. whatever. they sell the land to a developer -the developer will subdivide the land (hence why subdivisions are called, well, yeah). meaning that what was legally one big plot of land is now legally a bunch of little chunks of land. let's say a quarter acre each, shave off a bit for roads, drainage ponds, land that isn't viable to develop, figure it's now 200 plots of land -the developer will put in utilities and access on the old cow farm. this means digging sewer if necessary or putting in septic, adding hookups for gas, power, etc. and paving roadways. if we're fancy, maybe a community pool, playground, whatever. organizing the permits and constructing these things to local government specifications is the role of the developer -there's a bonus step here. if your subdivision isn't too fancy - no pool, no sewer maybe - the developer will peace out and sub-develop the land, as in sell the plots of land to wildcat developers who are real small time. sort of your petit bourgeoisie land scrapers. the big time developer takes a cut for improving and subdividing the land, the only step that's left is to build houses. one way to spot these is if the houses are all wildly different vs. kind of the same, or one of half a dozen or so repeated floor plans -either way, more money is made by actually building homes. the big time developer or just some guy with a truck can do this. the way you do this is by hiring crews - framing crews, roofing crews, windows, drywall, plumbing, electrical, sod and landscape. some crews only do one thing, like framing. some crews do lots of stuff, like take a house that's just studs and plywood and insulate it, drywall it, carpet and paint and finish it. these are the subcontracted constructors who actually do all the hard work. depending on what part of america you're in, probably a lot of these guys don't have papers -as an aside, if you're building a larger structure (more than a four story wooden condo which is really just a big drat house) then you'll need more specialized concrete and hvac guys also, but really just more crafts and tradespersons -as another aside, really big homebuilders like DR Horton will probably have in-house crews to handle this poo poo. but at the same time homebuilding is a fairly easy market to get into with a small amount of capital, i've seen subdivisions where six or seven small time developers are all partnered up to build the homes and to save time they all just collectively hired the same crews to go down the line and work on each house in turn -anyway now the homes are done and ready for habitation you set up an HOA, or not, sell the houses directly or pass them off to a real estate firm, and walk away with your profits SpaceCadetBob posted:There is also a pretty big difference between a building aging gracefully over 60-80 years, and one that is in complete shambles in less than 30. yeah. i've seen homes younger than me where the entire porch is detatched and sliding downhill. whoops! construction sometimes comes in waves, and the allure of profit is such that crews might be pushed to finish six houses a day instead of four, and the developer doesn't really care if the house falls apart in a decade since they'll be long gone, so the profit needs of today matter more than the longevity of tomorrow. always always always get an inspector, even on a relatively new property Mr. Fall Down Terror fucked around with this message at 04:21 on Jul 8, 2019 |
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Jul 8, 2019 04:09
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To add on to all that which is great. The big issue we often come across is that since the developer just needs to get the property over the goal line for a sale, they can happily use materials or design concepts that look great up front but go to poo poo super quick. Homeowners rarely get much legal support to clawback from shoddy developers when poo poo gets bad 5+ years later (though laws to this effect are slowly gaining steam). As much as landlordism is a four letter word around here, when we work on apartment projects built by the landlord directly we are more likely to see some consideration to decent build quality.
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Jul 8, 2019 04:18
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SpaceCadetBob posted:To add on to all that which is great. The big issue we often come across is that since the developer just needs to get the property over the goal line for a sale, they can happily use materials or design concepts that look great up front but go to poo poo super quick. Homeowners rarely get much legal support to clawback from shoddy developers when poo poo gets bad 5+ years later (though laws to this effect are slowly gaining steam). That and it’s hard to claw back money when the developers or contractors close down their businesses and reform under new legal entities.
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Jul 8, 2019 04:52
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SpaceCadetBob posted:
Shouldn't the municipality care? They are the ones setting the building code, aren't they?
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Jul 8, 2019 12:41
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OddObserver posted:Shouldn't the municipality care? They are the ones setting the building code, aren't they? building codes are typically a state-level thing. sometimes municipalities are allowed to set their own codes but this is a big pain in the neck so most dont. it's enough of a struggle to enforce code and inspect to ensure compliance. larger municipalities can generally afford to scrutinize plans, issue permits, and send someone around in a hard hat to visibly confirm everything is taken care of. smaller municipalities are more cavalier about these things for lack of resources
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Jul 8, 2019 13:28
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Cool article about how public engagement at the local level is insanely toxic: https://twitter.com/rottenindenmark/status/1147494116885798912?s=21 I know some people have problems framing it as age rather than class, but I think the basic problem (public engagement processes are fundamentally broken and do not improve outcomes at a Citywide level) can work either way you look at it.
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Jul 8, 2019 17:56
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The only solace I can get from that trend is that I've seen my own boomer parents consciously try to become less nimby after meeting an old friend from SF and get spooked from how much of a nimby rear end in a top hat he'd become since they'd last seen him.
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Jul 8, 2019 19:11
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looking for really nuts-and-bolts-level policy and finance analysis on creating public housing through bonds which are then paid back through 80-120% AMI renters in those public housing units. The end goal is to have sufficient amounts of those projects to begin building public housing for lower AMI renters. Working with my local DSA to infuence the local housing authority. Post your policies and pro formas, I'm tryna change poo poo
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Jul 13, 2019 22:25
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Couple of interesting links for y'all. https://sfb.nathanpachal.com/2019/07/study-shows-walkable-neighbourhoods-can.html?m=1 - A study of metro Vancouver showed substantially lower healthcare costs for some diseases based on walkable a neighborhood is. I'm not sure how much of that is causation vs correlation (more older people in car-dependent neighborhoods?). https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/apartment-oversupply-puts-squeeze-on-rents-20190705-p524cp.html - Significant drop in rents in Sydney after an apartment building boom. quote:An investor-led building boom has almost doubled the size of the Sydney apartment rental market in two years, forcing landlords to drop rents more than $100 a week in some areas to secure tenants, and casting a shadow over the thousands of units still under construction.
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Jul 18, 2019 17:26
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Am I alone in liking the modernist housing styles that have sprung up in American cities over the past five years? Yea a lot of them are cookie cutter but there's some impressive architecture there on occasion.
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Jul 18, 2019 18:19
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thats kinda true of any architectural style though, if you spend a lot of money or otherwise secure real talent in design it will look great no matter what, if you're just following trends then it will look meh and dated fairly quickly
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Jul 18, 2019 19:00
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I wonder what the ven diagram of nimby and demographics looks like. Gentrifying black people out from their existing neighborhoods while simultaneously blocking new (probably not white millennials) seems like a no-brainer and I don't understand why this isn't more of the discussion.
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Jul 18, 2019 20:57
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luxury handset posted:thats kinda true of any architectural style though, if you spend a lot of money or otherwise secure real talent in design it will look great no matter what, if you're just following trends then it will look meh and dated fairly quickly I feel like these are fairly striking though, they definitely seem...dareisay...futuristic?
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Jul 19, 2019 01:43
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El Mero Mero posted:I wonder what the ven diagram of nimby and demographics looks like. Gentrifying black people out from their existing neighborhoods while simultaneously blocking new (probably not white millennials) seems like a no-brainer and I don't understand why this isn't more of the discussion. I pulled out one of my master's papers on gentrification and this article may be helpful for you. In either case my partner on this paper saw four key parts of gentrification: 1. Disinvestment in low-income, particularly black and latinx areas. 2. Captial reinvestment (both big and "sweat" equity investment) 3. High income residents start to move into the area (a good indicator is that more college degrees popped up in the community) 4. Rents go up, displacing the old residents and the demographics become whiter. At least as defined in the US and places like South Africa.
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Jul 19, 2019 03:11
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Cicero posted:Couple of interesting links for y'all. I heard an interview with a doctor on the radio a few weeks ago about walkable neighborhoods being associated with lower rates of disease, so that new study doesn't surprise me. Also shocker: building housing lowers rents  It's bizarre how many people refuse to believe that. Someone was telling me not long ago that he didn't believe there was a housing shortage in San Francisco because he could see new residential construction in his neighborhood. It was the housing equivalent of global warming isn't real because it's cold outside. I don't understand how people can be like that.
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Jul 19, 2019 03:18
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I’ve heard the theory before that a major cause of gentrification is cities only allowing apartment buildings to be built in poor areas, not rich ones. The idea is that if building is only possible in historically poor areas, new development will be concentrated in those areas; since people like living in new buildings, rent will go up, and people already living in the neighborhood will find it expensive to stay. As someone who likes upzoning for myriad other reasons, it would be very convenient for me if this were true, since it would imply that allowing denser development everywhere doesn’t cause much gentrification. But I have no clue if it’s actually true or if it’s just a convenient thing to believe for left-leaning urbanists. Is there any evidence for this? I suppose this sort of policy is rare so it’s not like there’s a bunch of natural experiments lying around.
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Jul 19, 2019 03:24
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It's easier to develop in poor communities because what are the poor people going to do, take time off work to petition? Rich people on the other hand have money and time, which makes it more difficult to upzone
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Jul 19, 2019 03:40
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nrook posted:I’ve heard the theory before that a major cause of gentrification is cities only allowing apartment buildings to be built in poor areas, not rich ones. The idea is that if building is only possible in historically poor areas, new development will be concentrated in those areas; since people like living in new buildings, rent will go up, and people already living in the neighborhood will find it expensive to stay. I recall hearing it before and it makes intuitive sense. The one complication is that I'm not sure gentrification in the poor neighborhood will be less acute in a scenario where there is no upzoning, as in that case the supply shortage will be even more acute. We'll have to check back in on this issue in five to ten years when we can assess the impact of the state and city wide rezoning in Oregon and Seattle. I'm hopeful this is the start of a trend.
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Jul 19, 2019 03:46
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Canuck-Errant posted:It's easier to develop in poor communities because what are the poor people going to do, take time off work to petition? Rich people on the other hand have money and time, which makes it more difficult to upzone Your ROI is also higher in a low-income area. Mooseontheloose fucked around with this message at 04:07 on Jul 19, 2019 |
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Jul 19, 2019 04:01
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JIZZ DENOUEMENT posted:looking for really nuts-and-bolts-level policy and finance analysis on creating public housing through bonds which are then paid back through 80-120% AMI renters in those public housing units. The end goal is to have sufficient amounts of those projects to begin building public housing for lower AMI renters. Uh, seconding this for the exact same reasons.
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Jul 19, 2019 04:04
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nrook posted:I’ve heard the theory before that a major cause of gentrification is cities only allowing apartment buildings to be built in poor areas, not rich ones. The idea is that if building is only possible in historically poor areas, new development will be concentrated in those areas; since people like living in new buildings, rent will go up, and people already living in the neighborhood will find it expensive to stay. nah. there's a complicating factor here which is that wealthier people are more likely to live in historic preservation districts, aka super old housing which is special in some way and so can't be torn down. but otherwise apartments are "allowed" equally in rich and poor areas. it's just that, if you want to buy a dozen rich people homes, you have to fork over a shitload of money to buy out the land. if you want to buy a dozen poor people homes, either the landlords are willing to pay if the price is more than adequate, or you have generally older homeowners who are amenable to a big cash payout as their retirement fund, if not a half dozen heirs of which one is likely to want to cash out. basically you profit more from building in poorer areas to house rich folk because the margin is much higher as it is way way cheaper to get the land and tear down the houses developers generally don't leverage government pressure to secure land. that's not really viable in the us. instead they just write big rear end checks, and the size of the check you need to buy a poor person's 3/2 on a quarter acre is far lower than the size you need to buy out a rich person's historic victorian 6/5 with a garden half acre Mr. Fall Down Terror fucked around with this message at 06:14 on Jul 19, 2019 |
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Jul 19, 2019 06:12
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Mooseontheloose posted:Your ROI is also higher in a low-income area Prices are higher in wealthier areas so it depends on the local market. Wealthy areas here have high enough land value to support incredibly expensive underground construction, building flats would definitely be highly profitable if it was legal.
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Jul 19, 2019 14:43
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Local control for poor areas, upzoning by government fiat for the rich imo
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Jul 19, 2019 14:46
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lol, this lovely conservative article is trying to frame upzoning as a right wing, anti-regulation issue: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/to-win-over-millennials-conservatives-must-fight-income-inequality/ quote:That doesn’t mean abandoning free markets: if anything, it means unleashing them to solve everyday issues. i just want to point out that generalized upzoning without paired investment in mass transit infrastructure is not actually going to solve much - some new housing will be constructed, but still not an adequate amount, and due to income sorting you'll still see this housing go primarily to the upper income bands the best solution to expensive housing is selective zoning reform (because zoning is not the roadblock in all metros, or even all areas within metros) along with transit expansion in a value capture scheme. and we need the federal government to be a major backer behind mass transit expansion if we want to get anything done in any useful timeframe also extreme lmaos at blaming single use and exclusionary zoning on progressives, unless they mean classical 1910s style Progressives 
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Jul 20, 2019 00:24
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gently caress "selective zoning reform", America's zoning is monstrously broken and needs a complete overhaul. The mandatory SFH zoning that dominates the country is classist as all hell, and you can't support it and be a progressive. It shouldn't exist, anywhere. But you're right that without other changes it may not do much. Better transportation, not just mass transit but also walking and biking, is vital. IIRC even the walk-iest big city in America, NYC, has like a third of the walk mode share of big cities in Germany. And they're not even trying very hard! That's really loving sad. More mixed use would help a lot too.
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Jul 20, 2019 00:32
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