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on the left posted:This anger happens because entire families get forced into single bedroom micro apartments, recreating early 20th century slums. My childhood (with three siblings)!
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Feb 12, 2016 05:00
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Re: Micro apartments, the reason people in Seattle hate them so much is because those 200 sq ft closet is going for $900+/mo. If they were actually affordable it wouldn't be an issue, but as it stands now a lot of people blame them for other rents in the area increasing.
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Feb 12, 2016 07:52
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Is there any reason for the US to not take advantage of super cheap debt to work on public works like modernizing airports and bridges and better telecom infrastructure other than politicians being obstructionist.
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Feb 12, 2016 08:08
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cheesetriangles posted:Is there any reason for the US to not take advantage of super cheap debt to work on public works like modernizing airports and bridges and better telecom infrastructure other than politicians being obstructionist. The US budget is exactly like my household budget. I, too, have special interests ordering me to spend money I don't have on unusable military hardware instead of vegetables.
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Feb 12, 2016 08:10
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on the left posted:This anger happens because entire families get forced into single bedroom micro apartments, recreating early 20th century slums. Lacrosse posted:Re: Micro apartments, the reason people in Seattle hate them so much is because those 200 sq ft closet is going for $900+/mo. If they were actually affordable it wouldn't be an issue, but as it stands now a lot of people blame them for other rents in the area increasing. I'm not denying how much that situation sucks (I'm currently paying $1900/month for a 1br mobile home in the bay area for my family of 3, it's not terribly fun), but let's say the micro apartments didn't get built. That would solve the problem for that family, because...?
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Feb 12, 2016 08:36
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So Soros is predicting that Russia will go bankrupt by 2017, which is great because it means that we need to only spend an year homeless and starving before nuclear fire purges us all. Unless their missiles are in so lovely shape that they just explode in silos. Housing situation in Finland's capital area is pretty hosed too, probably to the point where nuclear fire is only thing that will get the people involved to stop loving everything up so we are getting pretty lucky in that department too.
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Feb 12, 2016 10:45
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Reporting from the Munich housing bubble: Most of my friends (around 30, many stuck in part-time jobs or endless internships, the few engineers also working as contractors without steady employment) spend most of their pitiable income on ever-increasing rent - all while developers upgrade/build even more small high-class apartments for double-high earning childless couples in their 40s. The city governement answers with lots of hand-wringing and a toothless cap for rising rents (10% a year). Building social housing on the vast lots of city-owned ground? Why do that if you can sell it for record prices to developers! Also fearing a Russian enonomy collaps - my company's hq's located in Russia and even with our sub-company doing well by itself, it's easily gonna get sucked into that vortex. Have I mentioned that this year I'm gonna spend most of my weekends tending to an urban garden, just in case poo poo really hits the fan? 
SavageGentleman fucked around with this message at 15:05 on Feb 12, 2016 |
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Feb 12, 2016 15:01
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Lacrosse posted:Re: Micro apartments, the reason people in Seattle hate them so much is because those 200 sq ft closet is going for $900+/mo. If they were actually affordable it wouldn't be an issue, but as it stands now a lot of people blame them for other rents in the area increasing. I'm not following this logic. How would adding more apartments (even lovely overpriced ones) make the rent on other more expensive properties go up? You'd think the opposite would happen because of increased competition and lower demand.
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Feb 12, 2016 16:33
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Lacrosse posted:Even if I suddenly started making six figures, I've been poor so long I'd keep buying everything second hand. About 5 years ago when I was almost 30 I went from making $22k a year to about $120k a year over a 2 year period. You get used to that really, really quickly. There's no more "I want this but can't afford it" wishing kind of stuff. You just buy what you want. You find things to spend it on.
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Feb 12, 2016 16:41
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readingatwork posted:I'm not following this logic. How would adding more apartments (even lovely overpriced ones) make the rent on other more expensive properties go up? You'd think the opposite would happen because of increased competition and lower demand. A few years ago I did some research for a home builder to find out what was going on in the world of renting so they could target them better. Even though more apartments were being built than in the last ten years, and people were making roughly 12-15% less than they were a few years prior across the board, rent was going up at a rate of like 30% per year. Granted this was in the DC suburbs, but it's still a high cost of living up there. If landlords get a hint of people needing/wanting to rent more they will gently caress everyone over collectively.
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Feb 12, 2016 16:56
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fknlo posted:About 5 years ago when I was almost 30 I went from making $22k a year to about $120k a year over a 2 year period. You get used to that really, really quickly. There's no more "I want this but can't afford it" wishing kind of stuff. You just buy what you want. You find things to spend it on. This doesn't stop at the $120k level either. Households making over half a million dollars a year find ways to get to the point where they "need" every dollar of income - there's always a more elite private school, always a bigger mansion/penthouse, always a more expensive country club out there. Our glorious capitalist society, in its infinite capacity for equality, assures that living paycheck-to-paycheck can be a way of life for every level of income. EDIT: not saying that you, fknlo, or anyone else always or necessarily gets to the point of living paycheck-to-paycheck - just that a hell of a lot of people do.
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Feb 12, 2016 17:22
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With oil hitting terminal velocity I cannot count the number of people I know in my age range(lower 30s) that are completely loving boned because they were making ~200k a year at the height of it and their bills totaled $199,999.99.
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Feb 12, 2016 17:27
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:EDIT: not saying that you, fknlo, or anyone else always or necessarily gets to the point of living paycheck-to-paycheck - just that a hell of a lot of people do. I work with quite a few people in this boat, so, yeah. Thankfully I'm not one of them.
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Feb 12, 2016 17:41
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fknlo posted:About 5 years ago when I was almost 30 I went from making $22k a year to about $120k a year over a 2 year period. You get used to that really, really quickly. There's no more "I want this but can't afford it" wishing kind of stuff. You just buy what you want. You find things to spend it on. I think it depends on what your attitude was towards spending to begin with. My income jumped up by a pretty huge amount over the last two years (although not quite a 600% increase) and the only thing that's really changed is that I save a much, much larger portion of it than I did before. Like, it's hard for me to imagine myself trading in my ten year old car any time soon even though I could pretty easily just go buy a new one at this point.
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Feb 12, 2016 18:10
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At some point I'll eventually trade potential salary increases for time. My dream is puttering around the world on a bicycle until I die; it's something that's both cheap and cannot be accomplished at a desk.
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Feb 12, 2016 20:20
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readingatwork posted:I'm not following this logic. How would adding more apartments (even lovely overpriced ones) make the rent on other more expensive properties go up? You'd think the opposite would happen because of increased competition and lower demand. But the biggest reason some people think more development = higher prices is because of the obvious correlation: when there's a big economic boom, demand for housing goes up, driving both higher rents and more development. But some people see how they go together and think that somehow the development is what's driving the rents, even if you think about it that makes no sense. edit: oh yeah and the rents for the new places tend to be higher than what they replaced, for much the same reason that new cars cost more than used cars: they have better features and they're not as worn down. But it turns out, much like how you have to make new cars to eventually get used ones, you have to make new housing before you can get old housing. Cicero fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Feb 12, 2016 |
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Feb 12, 2016 21:26
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That analysis ignores the fact that new development rarely reflects the current housing stock mix. In Denver, for example, there are *far* more luxury apartments and townhomes going up than single family homes, driving up average rents while not reducing demand for lower-end housing as areas become more desirable. The "new cars vs old cars" argument also doesn't work here because, again, there are far more luxury multi-family apartments going up than anything else, and these won't magically morph into single family homes or working class housing stock any time soon. I'd also take issue with the assertion that new housing stock has "better features" in any meaningful way.
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Feb 12, 2016 22:06
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One of the big issues with the housing market is that developers always think "what will make me the most money?" and luxury *thing* is what they tend to go to. This is why you have so drat many empty McMansions in America right now. The target market is always suburban white people with money. It also doesn't help that people living in areas where stuff that gets developed absolutely do not want low-income or affordable housing to go up because those people come with it.
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Feb 12, 2016 22:27
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ToxicSlurpee posted:One of the big issues with the housing market is that developers always think "what will make me the most money?" and luxury *thing* is what they tend to go to. This is why you have so drat many empty McMansions in America right now. The target market is always suburban white people with money. It also doesn't help that people living in areas where stuff that gets developed absolutely do not want low-income or affordable housing to go up because those people come with it. Not to mention that banks actively withhold houses from the market to cut off supply and jack up prices even further.
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Feb 12, 2016 22:32
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Radbot posted:That analysis ignores the fact that new development rarely reflects the current housing stock mix. In Denver, for example, there are *far* more luxury apartments and townhomes going up than single family homes, driving up average rents while not reducing demand for lower-end housing as areas become more desirable. Pretty sure I saw something about how vacancy rates Denver are starting to climb, so a correction in prices might be close.
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Feb 12, 2016 22:34
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fknlo posted:Pretty sure I saw something about how vacancy rates Denver are starting to climb, so a correction in prices might be close. I saw that too, but I think the pain is going to be around for awhile as vacancies climb in luxury dwellings but remain historically low for more affordable places. Zillow predicts a 4.0% increase in rents across the metro this year, among the highest in the nation. People like to say we've got San Francisco prices and St. Louis salaries out here. It's hyperbolic, but we definitely face slightly different affordability issues than, say, the Bay Area. There simply aren't that many six figure+ jobs here.
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Feb 12, 2016 22:46
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Radbot posted:I saw that too, but I think the pain is going to be around for awhile as vacancies climb in luxury dwellings but remain historically low for more affordable places. Zillow predicts a 4.0% increase in rents across the metro this year, among the highest in the nation. I'm actually trying to transfer out there right now with a low 6 figure job and the housing market is pretty solidly out of what I feel comfortable spending to buy. At least if I'm paying too much in rent I'm not hosed when the bubble pops and my house is now worth half of what it was.
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Feb 12, 2016 22:54
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fknlo posted:I'm actually trying to transfer out there right now with a low 6 figure job and the housing market is pretty solidly out of what I feel comfortable spending to buy. At least if I'm paying too much in rent I'm not hosed when the bubble pops and my house is now worth half of what it was.  Just kidding. I just bought a house a few months ago, but luckily it was like $230k (aka as cheap as it gets in the metro for something that's habitable and somewhat decent) so I hope I don't get hammered that hard when the bubble bursts.
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Feb 12, 2016 22:57
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Radbot posted:That analysis ignores the fact that new development rarely reflects the current housing stock mix. In Denver, for example, there are *far* more luxury apartments and townhomes going up than single family homes, driving up average rents while not reducing demand for lower-end housing as areas become more desirable. But luxury development often does become working class housing. I lived in a Victorian inner ring suburb full of big houses with minarets and stained glass, now inhabited by old Italians and young African American families. It's not magic and it won't happen anytime "soon," but the use of this kind of housing stock inevitably changes, even if it's hard to grasp the timescales on which these processes operate. I don't want to apologize too much for developers, unrestrained they would never provide the kind of mixed income housing known to benefit communities, but places like San Francisco must have more housing. And there are many obvious better features you get in newer buildings. Features like no lead in the paint or pipes, or a garage.
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Feb 12, 2016 23:00
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Squalid posted:But luxury development often does become working class housing. I lived in a Victorian inner ring suburb full of big houses with minarets and stained glass, now inhabited by old Italians and young African American families. It's not magic and it won't happen anytime "soon," but the use of this kind of housing stock inevitably changes, even if it's hard to grasp the timescales on which these processes operate. I don't want to apologize too much for developers, unrestrained they would never provide the kind of mixed income housing known to benefit communities, but places like San Francisco must have more housing. This is a process that takes many decades, and doesn't really address the issue - housing affordability NOW, or at least in the forseeable future. quote:And there are many obvious better features you get in newer buildings. Features like no lead in the paint or pipes, or a garage. Or features like formaldehyde in the drywall, and PVC pipes instead of copper ones. New buildings are by no means always better.
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Feb 12, 2016 23:05
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Radbot posted:Or features like formaldehyde in the drywall, and PVC pipes instead of copper ones. New buildings are by no means always better. Plus from what I hear (from older contractors) the general craftsmanship of new homes has slowly gone to poo poo over the past few decades as developers constantly try to find quicker and cheaper ways to get houses up.
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Feb 12, 2016 23:16
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Trying to outrace demand by building new supply seems like a losing proposition unless you address the population growth issues. America has added about 70 million people since 1990.
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Feb 13, 2016 00:14
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Brannock posted:Trying to outrace demand by building new supply seems like a losing proposition unless you address the population growth issues. America has added about 70 million people since 1990. All told we could easily house everybody that just can't happen because  SOCIALISM . If you look at just houses there are like 6 empty houses for every homeless person. Apartments are basically never 100% full either but there's just this massive disconnect between development, where development needs to happen, where development is happening, and who it is targeting.The biggest issue is this "homes are an investment" thing though that connects to problems happening in America overall. Something only has value if you put money in one end and get more money out the other. Treating houses that way is stupid; homes are where you live.
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Feb 13, 2016 00:29
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Radbot posted:That analysis ignores the fact that new development rarely reflects the current housing stock mix. In Denver, for example, there are *far* more luxury apartments and townhomes going up than single family homes, driving up average rents while not reducing demand for lower-end housing as areas become more desirable. - Of course the new stuff is higher density, I'm guessing Denver doesn't have a ton of undeveloped space for new detached SFHs, plus increasingly people want to live within good walking/biking/transit distance of the core, which means less sprawl. quote:The "new cars vs old cars" argument also doesn't work here because, again, there are far more luxury multi-family apartments going up than anything else, and these won't magically morph into single family homes or working class housing stock any time soon. I'd also take issue with the assertion that new housing stock has "better features" in any meaningful way. - Of course it won't happen anytime soon, just like the working class apartments in the middle of major cities are usually older apartments that have been around at least a few decades. But if those apartments didn't get built, then the people who would've been in them would do what, exactly? Disappear into the aether? No, they'd be bidding up the price of some other kind of housing around the city. ToxicSlurpee posted:One of the big issues with the housing market is that developers always think "what will make me the most money?" and luxury *thing* is what they tend to go to. quote:This is a process that takes many decades, and doesn't really address the issue - housing affordability NOW, or at least in the forseeable future. readingatwork posted:Plus from what I hear (from older contractors) the general craftsmanship of new homes has slowly gone to poo poo over the past few decades as developers constantly try to find quicker and cheaper ways to get houses up. Brannock posted:Trying to outrace demand by building new supply seems like a losing proposition unless you address the population growth issues. America has added about 70 million people since 1990. Cicero fucked around with this message at 00:41 on Feb 13, 2016 |
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Feb 13, 2016 00:38
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Cicero posted:It's almost like businesses will do what makes them the most money, and if you can only create a small number of new units due to zoning, of course you're gonna target the high end. Why wouldn't you? It's like if you said Toyota could only produce 10,000 cars a year and then acting surprised that they chose to only make Lexuses. Except the developers are frequently shooting themselves in the foot by creating entire developments of stuff nobody in the area can afford. Hence mentioning the McMansions. There are places where entire neighborhoods of fancy houses are just sitting empty because they are crappily built, overpriced giant houses nobody wants. Then they're whining "we gotta make our money!!!!" It'd be like if Toyota only made 10,000 cars a year but asked $1,000,000 for each of them. How many would they sell? It's strange because the same social class that's demanding bigger profit margins and exponential growth is loving it up for everybody else and now wondering how they can keep the growth up. They can't and the housing market is a prime example of that.
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Feb 13, 2016 00:43
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Radbot posted:This is a process that takes many decades, and doesn't really address the issue - housing affordability NOW, or at least in the forseeable future. Yeah well unfortunately it's hard to conjure up billions of dollars in infrastructure overnight.
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Feb 13, 2016 00:51
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Except the developers are frequently shooting themselves in the foot by creating entire developments of stuff nobody in the area can afford. Hence mentioning the McMansions. There are places where entire neighborhoods of fancy houses are just sitting empty because they are crappily built, overpriced giant houses nobody wants. Then they're whining "we gotta make our money!!!!" Plus, I thought we were talking about the major metro areas where housing prices are rapidly increasing. I'm pretty sure you're not seeing huge numbers of empty homes in the SF bay area or Seattle or Denver proper.
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Feb 13, 2016 00:53
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Cicero posted:Source on developers constantly building McMansions that nobody wants to buy? I know that around the great recession that happened as demand for these dumb exurban developments basically evaporated overnight, but when they were still building them it did seem like the demand would be there. No but those areas are not the rest of the country and have their own problems. Last I heard those are full of demand shooting upward but supply stagnating because of NIMBYism and FYGMism. Pretty sure that's already been talked to as much as it can in this thread, though; not much you can do when nobody wants to let high-density housing anywhere near them.
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Feb 13, 2016 01:20
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Cicero posted:"I don't care if we already know of a sensible solution, we need the problem to disappear TODAY!"
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Feb 13, 2016 11:31
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A Buttery Pastry posted:A solution that's "Wait literally decades" is not really a solution, is it? Especially when you consider continually growing populations. If luxury apartments becoming regular affordable apartments (+ construction of the latter) doesn't happen faster than the growth of the portion of the population who demand these affordable apartments, then the issue won't ever actually go away. And even if population growth is outpaced by the creation of affordable homes, the fact that the population is growing will still delay supply matching demand in a manner that's not economically crippling for many people. Having too many people who want to live in the same area drives higher prices. There is no real solution to this outside of increasing supply via larger buildings with smaller apartments. Or are you intending to propose insanity like rent caps? I don't see why society at large should be obligated to subsidize the costs of living in a high-demand area (or even concerned about it). This isn't food or water we're talking about. If the price is too high, then move somewhere else. But I suppose there's "literally no jobs" anywhere outside of San Fransico etc so suggesting that people who can't afford to live in high demand areas shouldn't live there is the equivalent of letting families starve in the streets or something.
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Feb 13, 2016 12:45
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Admiral101 posted:Having too many people who want to live in the same area drives higher prices. There is no real solution to this outside of increasing supply via larger buildings with smaller apartments. Or are you intending to propose insanity like rent caps? One of the major reasons people want to move to the Bay Area is that there's a poo poo load of high paying tech jobs there and said techies end up driving a lot of demand. Tech giants offer tons of perks and that requires manpower, which creates jobs in the area. Plus that's been an urban area for quite a long time so you have a lot of families with a century of roots in the area. The other big issue is that when cost of living gets too high it can become impossible to move out. Unless you get a job offering relocation expenses you have to foot the bill for that yourself. A lot of the rest of the country is completely in the shitter. Sure you could move to, say, Pennsylvania which has a low cost of living but...why would you? Not a ton of jobs here. Pittsburgh is growing again but really like a third of the city is still 100% abandoned. Why willingly move into the Rust Belt?
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Feb 13, 2016 12:52
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ToxicSlurpee posted:One of the major reasons people want to move to the Bay Area is that there's a poo poo load of high paying tech jobs there and said techies end up driving a lot of demand. Tech giants offer tons of perks and that requires manpower, which creates jobs in the area. Plus that's been an urban area for quite a long time so you have a lot of families with a century of roots in the area. The other big issue is that when cost of living gets too high it can become impossible to move out. Unless you get a job offering relocation expenses you have to foot the bill for that yourself. Why should society subsidize what is essentially your lifestyle preferences?
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Feb 13, 2016 14:04
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Because it subsidizes the lifestyle preferences of wealthy white people http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/03/18/business/economy/taxes-take-away-but-also-give-back-mostly-to-the-very-rich.html?referer=
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Feb 13, 2016 15:13
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Admiral101 posted:I don't see why society at large should be obligated to subsidize the costs of living in a high-demand area (or even concerned about it). This isn't food or water we're talking about. If the price is too high, then move somewhere else. On the flip side - why should society subsidize the lifestyle preferences of those that want to live in neighborhoods of single family homes in a high demand area? In most in-demand cities every renter and new resident is paying a premium because there are large swaths of area where existing homeowners don't want to have anything but single family housing (usually detached) near them and have used the zoning power of the local government to systematically block people who don't share their preferences from building (and thus living in) anything denser. Of course once the demand hits a high enough level developers will slog their way though getting variances or paying off people let them out of deed restrictions, but they will do so in the areas with the least political ability to throw roadblocks in their way - which just so happens to be where the poor and minorities live. readingatwork posted:Plus from what I hear (from older contractors) the general craftsmanship of new homes has slowly gone to poo poo over the past few decades as developers constantly try to find quicker and cheaper ways to get houses up. That's not really true actually, it just seems that way because there is a large selection bias at work. For the most part the only older homes which are around today are the best constructed ones from that era because the shoddily built older homes long ago fell apart and were replaced. My neighborhood is made up of 1950s tract home construction and for the most part it is absolutely terrible quality unless major renovations have been done - bad insulation, strange layouts, poorly graded lots, crumbling/shifting foundations, failing plumbing/sewer, and woefully inadequate (and often unsafe) electrical are all the norm. To fix them costs more than it does to demolish them and start from scratch, so nearly every time one of these houses goes on the market it gets bought by a developer, torn down, and rebuilt into something modern.
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Feb 13, 2016 16:05
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Oh look:quote:To low-income residents and the groups that fight for them in expensive cities, new market-rate housing often feels like part of the problem. If San Francisco and Washington are becoming rapidly unaffordable to the poor, why build more apartments for the rich? A Buttery Pastry posted:A solution that's "Wait literally decades" is not really a solution, is it? Especially when you consider continually growing populations. If luxury apartments becoming regular affordable apartments (+ construction of the latter) doesn't happen faster than the growth of the portion of the population who demand these affordable apartments, then the issue won't ever actually go away. And even if population growth is outpaced by the creation of affordable homes, the fact that the population is growing will still delay supply matching demand in a manner that's not economically crippling for many people.
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Feb 13, 2016 19:03
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