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There are a few office building conversions happening in NYC where they just core out the whole building like an apple, making a big central courtyard.
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Jul 28, 2023 01:34
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The one in that NYT article looks like the world's saddest courtyard. And I can't imagine that even a bigger ones would work very well on any highrise...
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Jul 28, 2023 01:41
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OddObserver posted:The one in that NYT article looks like the world's saddest courtyard. And I can't imagine that even a bigger ones would work very well on any highrise... Do like Singapore and go sideways https://twitter.com/xavierlur/status/1493134245384327169?s=61&t=Q_MG2HXdCXipsm84GALAyQ
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Jul 28, 2023 23:28
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Carew posted:https://i.imgur.com/F8Wh5fb.mp4 Something something zoning laws
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Jul 29, 2023 21:42
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Something something insecure owner.
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Jul 29, 2023 21:49
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One thing I've never seen properly addressed among the 'Housing is a Human Right' set (and this includes me, I also believe it's a human right) is that there are absolutely more and less desirable houses. I live in a pretty posh part of my city, but there are definitely less-good parts, more run-down or less accessible by bus. If housing is a human right, and we are meant to just give people housing, how do we distribute it? Obviously the current method (rich people get everything  ) isn't working, but what other method would work? A central housing authority that assigns you housing based on your job to make it close to you? What about when the supermarket is farther away? We'd need to drastically reform every city but NYC to make them accessible from anywhere instead of car-focused/-required.I know there's plenty of extra houses being hoarded by banks, but how do we determine who gets what house? Obviously if I'm homeless I would prefer the 17th floor penthouse suite to ramshackle cabin by the train-tracks, but I can see the craven, cruel and selfish rest of America having a problem with that.
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Jul 31, 2023 13:35
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There's a minimum standard for what makes housing livable. It varies by state, but basically there are minimum room sizes, heating/cooling requirements, etc. We don't have to build and assign housing to individual people, we just need to build enough housing, at a baseline minimum standard, and subsidize it based on what people can afford. When there's not enough housing available, we can tweak things like vacancy taxes, increasing subsidies to developers, etc. The market will still determine who gets what house, but just like minimum wage, there should be minimum housing available to all.
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Jul 31, 2023 13:54
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Shrecknet posted:One thing I've never seen properly addressed among the 'Housing is a Human Right' set (and this includes me, I also believe it's a human right) is that there are absolutely more and less desirable houses. I live in a pretty posh part of my city, but there are definitely less-good parts, more run-down or less accessible by bus. If housing is a human right, and we are meant to just give people housing, how do we distribute it? Obviously the current method (rich people get everything Raise marginal and progressive taxes and use that money to build housing in the less dense areas of cities and increase public transport funding. That means going into Beverly Hills and Atherton with bulldozers and making space for denser housing. Probably have to all-but-ban cars, too. No, I do not think any of this is actually going to happen.
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Jul 31, 2023 15:35
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1) Build more public housing either directly or through private-public partnerships. and 2) Increase taxes on vacant properties to discourage hoarding. Public housing doesn’t have to be bad. South Korea has pretty good public housing. It’s not as popular as private but it’s clean and safe and near public transportation. Shrecknet posted:We'd need to drastically reform every city but NYC to make them accessible from anywhere instead of car-focused/-required. That’s true. If we can do that we’d be halfway there. nelson fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Jul 31, 2023 |
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Jul 31, 2023 16:16
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MickeyFinn posted:Raise marginal and progressive taxes and use that money to build housing in the less dense areas of cities and increase public transport funding. That means going into Beverly Hills and Atherton with bulldozers and making space for denser housing. Probably have to all-but-ban cars, too. No, I do not think any of this is actually going to happen. Yes and reduce budgets for highways, gas/oil subsidies, and even EV subsidies. Less money for car-centric infrastructure would be a win-win if the money went to public transportation instead.
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Jul 31, 2023 16:22
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Landlord corporations learned a while ago that its better to have 40% occupancy on units at an inflated market rate than 100% occupancy at an ethical/sane market rate. Good luck fixing this when they've used decades of moneyball economics to perfect housing scarcity as the new normal. Anyone who has looked at Zillow and seen their bullshit price "zestimates" can tell what they're doing. Good luck instituting a minimum occupancy tax when the average landlord has 900+ units and nothing but time to gently caress with politics. The more desperate we are for housing the more they can raise their rents, and have enough left over to inflate police budgets to prevent a pitchfork and torch mob from forming. 
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Jul 31, 2023 16:25
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Shrecknet posted:We'd need to drastically reform every city but NYC to make them accessible from anywhere instead of car-focused/-required. I think there's a few cities on the East Coast that could work with just some additional density and more mixed use planning. They already have sufficient public transit to work. Boston, Philly, Baltimore (maybe, their transit is the weakest of this group), DC could probably all work. Chicago is probably there now too, though I can't speak to how good their non-loop transit is. Minneapolis is probably going to get there with their existing trajectory though they need better rail/brt connections to its own outlying cities and Chicago for you to be able to realistically go without having a car in the household. Nitrousoxide fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Jul 31, 2023 |
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Jul 31, 2023 16:29
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Mr Lanternfly posted:Landlord corporations learned a while ago that its better to have 40% occupancy on units at an inflated market rate than 100% occupancy at an ethical/sane market rate. Good luck fixing this when they've used decades of moneyball economics to perfect housing scarcity as the new normal. Yeah, the idea that we (our government) would just flip a switch that could possibly reduce the profit of corporations for any % is a bit laughable. But it's nice to dream! Honestly, I'd be okay with lining the pockets of landlord corporations if it meant everyone had housing. Just subsidize the right things!
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Jul 31, 2023 16:37
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Mr Lanternfly posted:Landlord corporations learned a while ago that its better to have 40% occupancy on units at an inflated market rate than 100% occupancy at an ethical/sane market rate. Good luck fixing this when they've used decades of moneyball economics to perfect housing scarcity as the new normal. Anyone who has looked at Zillow and seen their bullshit price "zestimates" can tell what they're doing. Good luck instituting a minimum occupancy tax when the average landlord has 900+ units and nothing but time to gently caress with politics. I always hear this, but is this an actual problem on a city-wide scale? I know there are a few buildings here and there where it's true, such as some of Chicago's lakefront properties, but does this end up ever making a noticeable impact with long term rental costs for a metro area? Using a quick example of Austin, they have a pretty high vacancy rate of 9.1%, but their most costly submarket had rents fall by 2.9% over the past year. So this would suggest that property owners are not sitting indefinitely on vacant units without lowering prices. However, I know this is an anecdotal example and I'm not informed enough to know the full scope. So if you have additional information/studies/etc, I would appreciate it! E: For more context/another anecdote about leaving units vacant vs lowering rent, I dug up a news article from a few years ago about a luxury apartment building in Washington that specifically did lower rents to get units filled. Looking at one of the apartment buildings in this project now, it looks like there are not many currently vacant units. So I would consider that project an easy example of a corporation who would rather have more units filled than fewer units filled at an [even more] inflated price. Nitrousoxide posted:Minneapolis is probably going to get their with their existing trajectory though they need better rail/brt connections to its own outlying cities and Chicago for you to be able to realistically go without having a car in the household. I feel like Minneapolis has been doing a fantastic job recently. We haven't had a city-wide average year-to-year rent increase of more than... I think over 4% the past 23 years? And most of the time it's been under 3%, with a couple years under 0%. And we're building more units in the metro than we have in the past 35+ years. Unfortunately, you're correct about trying to go car-less for a household. I've lived here for 13 years without a car, but it'd be impossible if I had kids/pets or lived/worked more than a few miles away from downtown. Kalit fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Jul 31, 2023 |
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Jul 31, 2023 16:48
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https://twitter.com/JosephPolitano/status/1680003037316743168 https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/current/index.html The whole thing about mass vacancy doesn't really pan out except at the absolute extremes of the ultra-high end. That's not landlords, but foreign oligarchs trying to park money in the US. For those oligarchs, they would turn up their noses in disgust at mere $1-2 million houses/condos. Landlords want high occupancy because that's money in their pocket. You can't get desperate high salary renters if they have another option, and if you think Zillow is successfully running a housing conspiracy let me remind you Zillow lost $881 million trying to flip houses in 2021. How did they even manage to lose money flipping houses in 2021? Property values were going to the moon back then! https://www.wsj.com/articles/zillows-shuttered-home-flipping-business-lost-881-million-in-2021-11644529656
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Jul 31, 2023 18:45
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There’s a home in my neighborhood that has some roof damage from a fallen tree and has been vacant for a couple of years now. Last I looked it was owned by a bank but it doesn’t have a “For Sale” sign in front of it. I can only speculate why. My theory is that the house is worth more to the bank on its balance sheet than the cash they could get for it if they were serious about selling it. Is that plausible?
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Aug 1, 2023 02:28
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nelson posted:There’s a home in my neighborhood that has some roof damage from a fallen tree and has been vacant for a couple of years now. Last I looked it was owned by a bank but it doesn’t have a “For Sale” sign in front of it. unless the house is worth millions it seems hard to believe it would even rise to the level of them doing that kind of analysis on it. they probably just don't care. or it's not owned by the bank anymore
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Aug 1, 2023 02:46
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golden bubble posted:The whole thing about mass vacancy doesn't really pan out except at the absolute extremes of the ultra-high end. That's not landlords, but foreign oligarchs trying to park money in the US. For those oligarchs, they would turn up their noses in disgust at mere $1-2 million houses/condos. Landlords want high occupancy because that's money in their pocket. Landlord 1 owns a one-plex. They slap a price/rent on it at 125% of the average for neighborhood X, but there are no other vacancies because residential supply is capped by bad zoning laws and NIMBY opposition. Homeseeker 1 wants to live in neighborhood X. With no other vacant options available to them, either they meet Landlord 1's exorbitant demands or are forced to find a home in cheaper neighborhood Y, which is less desirable for them due to their commute. If Homeseeker 1 pays out, Landlord 1 wins! They get exactly what they asked for because Homeseeker 1 found the alternative more costly. If Homeeker 1 instead chooses a home from Landlord 2 in neighborhood Y, Landlord 1 loses out on income and incurs recurring costs for maintenance and taxes. However, if vacancies are low across the neighborhoods, Landlord 1 knows they needn't wait long for Homeseeker 2 to come along and be the one to pay out. Meanwhile, Homeseeker 3 wanted to live in neighborhood Y, but Landlord 2 had similarly jacked up the prices expecting Homeseeker 1 would trickle down to them! Homeseeker 3 has to find another, even cheaper neighborhood, perpetuating a vicious cycle that ends in Homeseeker X living in their car or on the street. poo poo's hosed! Landlord 1 can sit pretty for a little while knowing they'll inevitably catch a mark who can pay out for lack of alternatives, so the easiest option available to us is to introduce alternatives into the market through a mixture of public housing and upzoning. The city changes the maximum occupancy and height limit, as well as shuts down the mechanisms landlord-friendly exclusionary groups used to throw a wrench in the works, to enable denser construction at a cheaper price point. Suddenly, Landlord 1's aging and minimally maintained one-plex doesn't enjoy the exclusivity—the city has constructed a six-story, mixed-use building with a mixture of market-rate and affordable units! Landlord 1 wails and gnashes their teeth as they realize the next few dozen homeseekers are likely to jump on the new building rather than pay bank for their rat trap. The likelihood of a homeseeker coming to them within the time horizon for which they can tolerate losing money becomes vanishingly small, so Landlord 1 is forced to lower their rates and even gasp maintain and improve their property to outcompete the alternatives. Homeseeker 1, 2, 3, and many others can now find homes in the neighborhoods they wanted and at better price points than they might have otherwise. While I'd prefer the city, state, or even the feds to be the purveyor of these now homes, enabling construction by private developers achieves the same effect, just with the consequence of the new private owner of the homes, Landlord 3, immediately turning around to pull up the ladder behind them so they can achieve the same position as Landlords 1 and 2 were in at the outset. The key is to never let them do that. That all said, this needn't preclude a vacancy tax, but there's little reason it would do a drat thing to address the root causes of the affordability crisis. Worse, it's typically bandied about as a better alternative to, rather than minor complement of, increasing home supply in place people want to live. A vacancy tax might at best reduce the time horizons landlords before they hit their limit, but would have knockon effects in landlords cheaping out elsewhere to make up the difference. Ultimately, if prices are high because 3 different homeseekers are all chomping at the bit for the same property, then the only durable solution is to construct more homes. tl;dr: build more homes. Public homes; private homes; gnome homes; more homes.
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Aug 1, 2023 03:30
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Property owners do sit on vacant apartments sometimes because of loan conditions IIRC, where if they lowered the rent then this would decrease the nominal value of the property. But yeah broadly speaking, higher vacancies cause prices to go down, and it's awful hard to find counterexamples.
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Aug 1, 2023 03:54
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Cugel the Clever posted:It baffles me that parts of the left have taken the "landlords are sitting indefinitely on vacant homes to jack up prices" thing as gospel. Even without all the data to back up the case, it's a fairly trivial thought exercise to explore the cost/benefit calculations to find that adding more homes to the market will force the landlord to respond to demand: It’s not just about homes, it’s about land speculation. Empty / derelict buildings in valuable areas of my city sit there for decades, owned by someone who’s waiting for the prices to rise to resell or redevelop. They probably pay less property tax than I do while doing so. Taxes need to be based on land value only (Georgism) or there need to be specific huge penalty charges or land seizure to prevent this. Most of these properties are potentially hundreds of homes.
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Aug 1, 2023 06:31
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Cugel the Clever posted:tl;dr: build more homes. Public homes; private homes; gnome homes; more homes. (FWIW this is my take, we need more people living on less land closer together rather than suburban sprawl and blight. Close down towns and revert control to the counties, unincorporate these places and tell people they no longer get services. Buy out their homes, eminent domain them and get them to move in to the cities.)
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Aug 1, 2023 15:39
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Kalit posted:I feel like Minneapolis has been doing a fantastic job recently. We haven't had a city-wide average year-to-year rent increase of more than... I think over 4% the past 23 years? And most of the time it's been under 3%, with a couple years under 0%. And we're building more units in the metro than we have in the past 35+ years. Yeah, I agree. They've made some really incredible changes to their zoning recently and probably have some of the best biking infrastructure in the country. They also have a reasonably well-developed BRT network that's actual BRT with dedicated lanes. This is unlike a lot of places which just slap "rapid" on a regular line. I think they have between 4-6 new BRT lines going up in the next few years too which should help in ton in connecting St. Paul and the other outlying communities to Minneapolis. Rail would have better throughput and reliability than BRT I'm sure, but the latter can get up and running wayyyy faster with less red tape and has the existing rights of way through the highways. If someone was a remote worker and could choose to move anywhere in the country Minneapolis would be in my top 3 list of suggestions to them.
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Aug 1, 2023 15:43
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Shrecknet posted:How do you square this with the fact there are more vacant homes than homeless people currently? Are we discounting every home that isn't in an A-tier city? Are the homes in West Plattsburg, PA (pop 436) just not viable as housing to put people in? Nitrousoxide posted:Yeah, I agree. They've made some really incredible changes to their zoning recently and probably have some of the best biking infrastructure in the country. They also have a reasonably well-developed BRT network that's actual BRT with dedicated lanes. This is unlike a lot of places which just slap "rapid" on a regular line. I think they have between 4-6 new BRT lines going up in the next few years too which should help in ton in connecting St. Paul and the other outlying communities to Minneapolis.
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Aug 1, 2023 16:35
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mobby_6kl posted:Isn't it cold as gently caress though I mean, I grew up in the Midwest, so maybe I'm more resistant. But I don't mind the cold at all.
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Aug 1, 2023 16:45
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Cold is one thing, but my brain doesn't function very well with so little sunlight.
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Aug 1, 2023 16:49
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Nitrousoxide posted:I mean, I grew up in the Midwest, so maybe I'm more resistant. But I don't mind the cold at all. Look, people throw hissyfits about stuff being cold in mild places like upstate NY and even barely-has-winter places like Boston, and Minnesota is actually cold.
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Aug 1, 2023 16:54
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I used to live in Texas and moved to Chicago a few years ago and I can say definitively the cold is not as bad as weeks upon weeks of 100+ degree days. Get a coat, it’s fine.
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Aug 1, 2023 17:50
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Shrecknet posted:How do you square this with the fact there are more vacant homes than homeless people currently? Are we discounting every home that isn't in an A-tier city? Are the homes in West Plattsburg, PA (pop 436) just not viable as housing to put people in? It's not about forcing people to do anything, but letting their existing preferences come out. The vast majority of California homeless have spent years living in California before becoming homeless. They spent a couple years renting before personal disasters or issues caused them to lose housing, or they grew up in California, lost housing elsewhere, and then decided being homeless back "home" is better than being homeless somewhere else. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/06/us/homeless-population.html https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/07/california-homelessness-housing-crisis/674737/ quote:90 percent [of surveyed California homeless] lost their last housing in California, and 75 percent lost it in the same county where they were experiencing homelessness. Of the 10 percent who came from elsewhere, 30 percent were born in California. Most of the others had familial or employment ties, or had previously lived in the state. Who are we to force the homeless to go live in West Plattsburg, PA when they clearly don't want to? To force people to abandon friends and families to live in a rural building hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles away.
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Aug 1, 2023 20:50
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Also, well, if someone helped them pay for a move (which are expensive!) maybe some would gladly move to West Plattsburgh --- if there are jobs there.
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Aug 1, 2023 20:57
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OddObserver posted:Also, well, if someone helped them pay for a move (which are expensive!) maybe some would gladly move to West Plattsburgh --- if there are jobs there.
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Aug 1, 2023 21:22
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American right: put the homeless in cattle trailers and drive them into the desert to die American left: put the homeless in cattle trailers and drive them to West Plattsburgh to die
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Aug 2, 2023 00:59
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Shrecknet posted:
Try THAT in a small town. No, seriously, try it. You'd basically have Civil War followed by a few decades of political leaders that make Ron Desantis look like Bernie Sanders.
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Aug 2, 2023 02:31
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Shrecknet posted:How do you square this with the fact there are more vacant homes than homeless people currently? Are we discounting every home that isn't in an A-tier city? Are the homes in West Plattsburg, PA (pop 436) just not viable as housing to put people in? While the homeless population is in critical need of support, it's incorrect to single them out for the comparison when affordability is a whole of society problem. Honing in on the homeless, while their plight is certainly more acute and in need of immediate response, ignores the broad swath of people who are home insecure or otherwise prohibitively cost-burdened. Expanding housing options where people want to live would buoy all of society. Certainly far better than bussing the less fortunate off to a remote place they didn't ask to be.
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Aug 2, 2023 02:39
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OddObserver posted:Look, people throw hissyfits about stuff being cold in mild places like upstate NY and even barely-has-winter places like Boston, and Minnesota is actually cold. Speaking of the twin cities. City Nerd, everyone's super dry urban planning youtuber just put out a video on it today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leZ6vIpwSVA&t=710s
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Aug 2, 2023 18:34
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Ol' Musky is now going to (pretend to?) dig a 68 mile almost-nice tunnel in LV lol. That's certainly going to solve transportation. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/08/musks-boring-company-gets-ok-to-dig-68-miles-of-tunnels-under-las-vegas/
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Aug 2, 2023 19:02
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What I don't get about housing prices is who's really affording it? Who is actually living in these homes and how can they afford these obscene prices? Also, the recent wave of remote workers have done a number on the last bastion of cheap housing. Certain rural areas became gentrified very quickly as speculators beat those remote workers to the punch, robbing both the local community of affordable living and preventing remote workers from seeing an appreciable savings.
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Aug 2, 2023 22:45
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mobby_6kl posted:The North American sprawl is of course a nightmare but just sticking everyone in cities doesn't solve affordability or homelessness, unfortunately. In fact this would probably make that worse by increasing demand in already in-demand places. Just turn the entirety of NA into one continuous city Problem solved?
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Aug 2, 2023 22:51
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Cugel the Clever posted:It baffles me that parts of the left have taken the "landlords are sitting indefinitely on vacant homes to jack up prices" thing as gospel. Even without all the data to back up the case, it's a fairly trivial thought exercise to explore the cost/benefit calculations to find that adding more homes to the market will force the landlord to respond to demand: The other thing to do is a commercial vacancy tax; the vacancy rates on commercial buildings are way higher, and commercial real estate owners are less worried about losing those buildings to not having rent than they are to losing the on-paper value of those buildings that they claim they "can" rent for way more than people are willing to pay (mostly because when that happens, their investors and lenders are going to start Asking Questions). Dropping the value of commercial real estate would make it way more accessible for local businesses.
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Aug 2, 2023 23:09
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5% isn't a very high vacancy rate, a typical historical level is like 7% IIRC. And you WANT a fair amount of vacancy, both to reduce landlord leverage over renters, and also because of certain amount of market liquidity is necessary for anyone to, y'know, rent or buy a home. A market with all occupied homes is one where you can't move there. Because the homes are occupied. It's just weird to me that people are (higher) framing vacancy rates as bad, when they're actually good, at least to a point. quote:A vacancy tax would strongly disincentivize that, driving up the costs of leaving units unoccupied for long periods of time. quote:You definitely couldn't solve Seattle's homelessness problem by filling all of those units
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Aug 2, 2023 23:27
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Cicero posted:A very large percentage of homeless people have serious mental illness or substance abuse issues, such that putting them in random homes will likely end poorly. So many are not in a good place mentally to take care of a regular home, either as a cause or effect of homelessness, this is something that shelters are equipped to deal with that standard apartments or houses are not. We need to build a lot more emergency/temporary housing that's explicitly designed to help people who are currently homeless and may need heavy support. I would argue that living in a home vs living on the street would be a net improvement for society, despite people needing additional help beyond just housing. We can do both.
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Aug 3, 2023 13:38
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