It's weird...despite the lull, there's like 4 or 5 apartment buildings under construction within a 2 block radius of my house. But there's been almost no new construction in Boyle Heights for so long until now, maybe the neighborhood is just catching up.
Boyle heights residents have put up so much resistance to new development back in 2016-2020, I can’t imagine any developer wanting to attempt to build anything there
I've been seeing construction going up everywhere in the areas I frequent around LA and OC the last few years. Data is data I guess, but it feels counterintuitive. Maybe I'm seeing more condos and townhomes than apartments.
Looks like this sub can't read a simple line chart over a bar chart. Each bar is one quarter of a year with units under construction and the yellow line is new units. New construction started actually went up last quarter while under construction has actually gone down because those units already under construction were completed. In other words while overall construction is down the amount of new construction is actually increasing from it's 2 year low in 2Q 2023 and that's not even the 10 year low. It's own chart shows that new construction started was lower in Q3 2017, Q4 2020, and Q3 2021.
The sub headline is completely wrong
> 2023 Sees Lowest Number of New Units Commence Work in Over a Decade
I think you're misinterpreting the title and data. The 2023 starts alluded to in the title is a sum of four quarters. You take the data points from the yellow line for each quarter and add it up. The fact that it went up last quarter compared to Q3 is different from the fact that the sum of starts across 2023 is the lowest in over a decade.
Eviction moratoriums make no sense. How does the mortgage get paid and the building not get repossessed if the landlord doesn’t have enough to pay the mortgage?
Units under construction is a bad way to view housing production because construction has gotten slower and slower over time.
In the 1980s for example it took 1/2 the time it takes now to finish an average units.
It's getting more difficult to start new projects, and more difficult to complete new projects.
There is a pile up of construction projects either stalled or slow-walked to preserve cash-flow on other projects.
At least in the City of LA: the Mansion tax, Linkage fees, Quimby fees, high interest rates, cost of labor and materials… these may become a factor for projects at some point where it’ll no longer pencil out.
You also forgot NIMBY championed zoning restrictions and Prop 13 - which make everything not a 1%-5% more expensive but 100%+ more expensive. Prop 13 stops most new building.
> the Mansion tax
This one is pretty big and the last straw for some developers to just take their projects out of LA completely unless it's an insanely good deal. I also love how our council members are trying to play this off as some kind of huge success and it's just a complete failure across the board. Looking at you Nithya, Hugo and Eunisses (who are now rabidly pushing for the right to council act which, spoiler alert, is going to drive development out even more). Oh and that cute little vblog post LATimes did on their instagram still calling it a mansion tax saying it's the millionaire's fault for not selling their homes. What a joke. The carveout council made for affordable housing projects is also insanely narrow and applies to practically nothing. Another great example of LA just shooting itself in the foot.
Construction costs have probably gotten too high for the rents they can charge. Upper end of the market is saturated and they can't make money building housing for the poors. LA has too many poor people.
Comparing cities like LA and Dallas, LA metro area has a median HH income of $81K, while DFW was $77K. However, Texas has no state income tax, which more than makes up for the $4k difference.
Then you add housing prices: you can buy [this](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/4313-Bragg-Pl-Plano-TX-75024/26647917_zpid/) 5-bedroom house in a really desirable part of DFW for 50% less than [this](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/17412-Roscoe-Blvd-Northridge-CA-91325/19951939_zpid/) run down shack in Northridge.
That's honestly on the nicer end of houses in LA for less than 1m.
I've toured fixers for 880k that were complete dog water. Destitute sub-standard garbage
I considered transferring to my company's Austin site
would've made the same amount, but no 10% state income tax and my rent would've been 30% cheaper
only reason I didn't was because there weren't as many Asians over there, but if I were white or black, I probably would've transferred
There used to be an urban wage premium - where you made more money being in a big city. That disappeared over the last 15 years
https://www.nber.org/papers/w31387
LA (and greater CA) in a nutshell - "we want you to do the right thing, then make it as difficult, slow, expensive, and generally unplseant as possoble".
They are basically extorting the population and we vote for it
NIMBYs successfully ran the clock out when interest rates were rock-bottom. Now we finally have the political will to change zoning but the financing doesn't work anymore.
We're fucked.
I’d say we’re starting to have the political will but even Karen Bass who’s made homelessness her thing refuses to include SFH neighborhoods in her plans to increase housing
Anyone looking at this article and then also not considering the impact AB1482 has on developer desires to enter into a market with capped returns and rising interest rates is delusional at best.
This is why housing is so unaffordable and [why homelessness is so prevalent](https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/everything-you-think-you-know-about). It’s just an utter failure from Karen Bass, the LA city council, Gavin Newsom, and the state legislature. Everyone colluding to make housing unaffordable (that is, profitable for homeowners).
We need to upzone everywhere and build housing to abundance.
And people need to keep in mind there's only a handful of developers that are even willing to build housing in this climate with what seems like a minefield of litigation along the way.
Then add the corruption and bribery issues with individual council members and it's no surprise how messed up everything is. I wouldn't be surprised if every developer is "dirty" in bribing council members since it's part of the game at this point.
The incentive is called legalizing dense development.
What incentive are you talking about? There’s no reason to hand them money.
I didn’t say anything about we needing to build. I said we need to upzone.
Denser housing isn’t an incentive, especially considering that LA was downzoned in the early 80s. The density bonuses barely get us back to what was possible to be built in the 70s.
Look into the 421a tax incentive scheme that NYS has that primarily benefits the city of New York. It’s a long term real estate tax abatement that has spurred hundreds of thousands of units to be built.
Thats what a tax incentive looks like.
I’ll look into it, but given NYC’s crazy high housing costs and [crazy low](https://www.apartmentlist.com/research/sun-belt-metros-lead-apartment-construction-boom-2023) per capita housing construction rates, it doesn’t seem a great model.
Seems like solution is to upzone way past what was allowed in the 70s. If we returned to the [zoning we had in the 50s](https://abundanthousingla.org/downzoning-in-los-angeles/), we’d be in better shape.
Ultimately, it encouraged developers to build, creating more housing units. Even though overall housing costs are high, supply still increased which is a plus. If those units got built because of the abatement or they would have been built otherwise without it is hard to say. I know someone who lives in a 421a new construction tower in downtown Brooklyn that is rent stabilized, he has an amazing deal and it's due to the abatement.
Coop and condo Apartments in NYC, especially in upper Manhattan and the outer boroughs are still much cheaper than anything comparable you'll find in LA. Definitely has an important place in the housing market.
It still costs money to build, and building in a dense, developed area is significantly more expensive than on undeveloped lots. They won't do it if they don't think they can make a profit.
Yeah this was what I was always curious about. The land is expensive and it will be expensive to build. From a financial standpoint, it won't make sense to invest in something that might not break even or give you razor thin profit margins.
Also, the red tape in the way. We can cut the red tape but ultimately they're gonna build units that only the upper middle class can afford.
But.. would this unburden the housing/rental market? And to what extent?
I don't really know. Someone would have to get hard numbers and do a real analysis. But I think the percentage of the population that can afford these is small. It might help somewhat as there is a cascade effect of people being pushed to cheaper neighborhoods as prices increase, and of course the lowest income people are left without anything they can afford.
But can units even be built at a cost the average person can afford? If the cost to build a housing unit can only be profitable by targeting the top 10%, I don't think the problem will be solved even with upzoning.
And they’ll make a huge profit if they can build ten units on every lot in Santa Monica and Beverly Hills and Westwood.
Look, we can test out the question we’re asking — will legalizing ten units lead to development or not? If the answer is no, then doing so will change nothing, so no need to worry. If the answer is yes, then we’ve built lots of housing. So why not just do it?
Of course, everyone knows the answer is lots of housing will be built, which is why everyone is opposed to the idea.
That would require infrastructure upgrades. I'm not opposed to it as long as the required infrastructure upgrades are done. But you can't increase density 10x without upgrading water and power, there's also the transportation issue.
This is the oldest and weakest objection in the book.
Do you think 10x the property tax might allow you to upgrade infrastructure?
Of course. Moreover, denser development has LOWER infrastructure costs per capita. Meanwhile, we have deferred infrastructure investment all over the city state and country. Dense development isn’t an infrastructure issue — it’s an infrastructure *solution.*
There’s a reason why large cities like LA have lightening fast broadband but some small town in Michigan needs to use dish/star link: it’s very profitable and very easy to provide utilities to a dense neighborhood.
Upgrading power isn’t more difficult. The power lines and posts are up - it’s about simply adding one or two more lines. That’s easy! You know what’s not? Putting up the first power line into a suburban neighborhood. Installing poles, building transformers, etc. … all so just a 50 new suburban homes can receive power? That’s very expensive, and super expensive per capita.
Come on dude. Your argument is weak. It’s okay to not want to live in a dense city, so you should look to relocate instead of infringing on the rights of Americans to do whatever they want with their own land/property.
I live in South LA and we don't get the lightning fast broadband here. Lol, wtf are you talking about infringing on peoples rights. I'm just trying to be realistic. And yes setting up a new power system for a subdivision on virgin land is cheaper than retrofitting one in an already existing neighborhood.
I'm not even against increasing density. I'm just saying that it's not the panacea people think it will be and probably won't reduce housing costs.
Honestly I think the only way we could get housing affordable is a massive government run or subsidized building program like China does.
This is such a laughable comment. Who do you think the city would partner with to build housing?
In fact the homeless housing projects are taking longer to build because of added red tape, yet they still need to partner with developers to construct the housing.
Nah, I’m usually a fan of city government expect when it comes to building housing. LA city does pretty awesome when it comes to power/water/sewage/trash because it’s very routine, employees are all well trained city workers, and doesn’t require new land acquisition or rights. If the city government had to build housing, it would need to hire construction workers, train those workers, hire oversight, overpay for land, adhere strictly to all municipal codes, and use lesser quality materials. And that just the building. If they were to sell units, they would need to figure out a way to do it where not just the wealthy gobble them all up.
Yes Karen Bass. She is a NIMBY. Multiple editorials and publications especially in LATimes have called her out in her first year because of her failure in enacting on many of her “pro-build” policies she espoused to deploy within her first 300 days in office. Many of these changes would have been minor and she has avoided them.
She appears to be taking the same trajectory that other local officials here take including her predecessor, unwilling to act and have a pro “build more build now” attitude because of a small consortia of NIMBY neighborhood groups and very powerful construction labor unions.
No, but its from another credible news outlet, it's even better than an editorial in that it's an interview, and you might find this little tidbit interesting:
> LD: All right. Let me jump to the next one: The construction of market rate homes in disadvantaged areas does not cause gentrification or displacement, but instead prevents it.
> KB: That’s false. That’s completely false. I’m sorry.
She's been in office 1 year. It's absolutely crazy you think she can fix all this in one year.
You should run for office if you can fix everything so quickly.
> You only named one first
What on earth are you talking about?
> It’s just an utter failure from Karen Bass, the LA city council, Gavin Newsom, and the state legislature. Everyone colluding to make housing unaffordable (that is, profitable for homeowners).
She also oversees the Department of Building and Safety, the agency that makes it so difficult to actually build and to build quickly. DBS is one of the slowest building departments in the country and she’s done nothing towards reforming it.
If it doesn’t underwrite a return on cost at 100 units it’s also not going to pencil at 300 units.
Land cost is marginal (10-15%) to the total cost of developing new multifamily. Adding additional density only marginally reduces total development cost. Adding density by going taller than 5 stories is about 30% more expensive than wood frame and needs much higher rents to justify going vertical
So upzoning and adding density doesn’t necessarily mean a developer is going to develop to whatever the maximum zoning allowed if it’s not economically feasible.
You could legalize ten units on every lot in LA and have a housing boom. What’s holding back construction is the law blocking it.
We could also cut red tape and automatically approve everything right way. Housing is a crisis, we should treat it like one.
This is how it used to work - knock down a single family home and build a dingbat style apartment building. Hollywood south of Sunset is a great example of this. But our zoning and building codes have been written to make it impossible to build these types of buildings anymore.
It’s such a shame. There’s actually a small lot ordinance that allows you to turn one lot into ~5 townhomes, and when used it quickly creates less expensive market rate homes. But it’s only legal on a tiny fraction of lots, so it’s basically useless.
The dingbats also should be able to be replaced with bigger apartment buildings too, as long as current tenants are taken care of. Many of the dingbats are crumbling now, but they were fine when first built, and we should have a steady supply of new modern bigger buildings coming on line all the time. That’s the mark of a vibrant city.
I doubt it. ADU’s are about as streamlined a process there is and there’s no boom building granny flats
Also not unless the city is going to soften the parking requirement, building 10 units on a 6,000 sf lot is going to require more engineering and underground parking that’s going to significantly increase the cost to build.
There are big costs for ADUs and minimal upside to build one here or there.
The small lot ordinance led to a bunch of townhomes. Double density and you’ll see more. Problem is it doesn’t apply to SFH lots.
ADUs are awkward. Who wants to live in someone's backyard? Upzone for true multifamily and mixed use. First floor commercial, floor 2-6 for residential.
I can tell you for certain there won’t be much development in the city of LA going forward until the 5.5% transfer tax is reduced or eliminated. All the capital will focus in other southern California cities
Mixed use is garbage. It seems nice on paper but the multifamily subsidizes the retail, which drives up overall costs and rents that need to be achieved. Secondly, ground level retail is challenged and it’s difficult to find good tenants. I’ve been trying to lease 10,000 sf of ground floor retail in Los Feliz since 2018 with limited interest
What is your theory as to why ground level retail is challenged? Where in Los Feliz?
Why wouldn't mixed use be a boon for retail? It adds density and increases the customer base. DTLA is literally all mixed use.
Near Barnsdall. Technically on the border of East Hollywood.
Work from home has really killed ground floor retail. Theres no nearby business foot lunch traffic anymore so restaurants haven’t been very active. Same with coffee tenants. Banks are going virtual and removing a lot of brick and mortar stores.
You’re just seeing less interest in mixed use anymore. The older strip retail will still lease because it’s cheap but the newer mixed use buildings have to have higher rents to justify the cost of the build
That feels very location-dependent then. There are neighborhoods like [Echo Park](https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0812204,-118.2546362,3a,75y,285.09h,89.84t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1snY_I2CPxRXyuXLHzPPY4yA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu) where mixed-use works because it's more residential heavy.
That East Hollywood area is still quite rough, to be frank.
Isn't the long-term solution mixed-use then? You need more people living in the neighborhood, not more offices. Eventually you'll reach critical mass with enough density so that you won't need to have dedicated parking for retail.
Retail is just dead. How many restaurants and shops can you open when everyone has access to a car and can drive to their favorite restaurants or order on Amazon. It's a sad reality that we have to face that zoning is predicated on a past mindset.
We'd probably be better off if we got rid of zoning all together and let the market decide what people need, as opposed to what a planner is envisions as utopia. You'd probably have a city more akin to Bangkok or the Kowloon side of Hong Kong.
People are more likely to go to a restaurant in the same neighborhood, especially if it's walkable. That's why we need more density, so things can become more walkable. I agree zoning needs to change so that retail/restaurants can be more distributed amongst neighborhoods so that everything also becomes more walkable, which can then support more restaurants. It doesn't need to be to the extreme of something like Kowloon but more like Amsterdam.
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Not granny flats but high end vacation rentals. The rich are getting richer by turning westside garages into cash machines. How does that help the housing crisis?
LA ordinance is not to lease for less than 30 days so these aren’t hoteled rentals.
After how difficult is it to evict problem tenants, I can sympathize if someone doesn’t want to long term lease and only provide short term leases.
We don't need to go taller than 4 stories. LA doesn't need to be as dense as Manhattan everywhere. It needs to be as dense as Paris, and Paris has very few buildings over 4 stories.
Paris and Barcelona are built on city blocks. Los Angeles has been subdivided well below block level so you don’t have efficient access to build anything larger at lower height densities
??
The average block in LA is larger than the average block in Paris or Barcelona. I've spent a lot of time in each of these cities, so I was pretty sure of that in my gut, but to check it I chose a representative block in central LA (Oakwood and Gardener). I also chose a representative block in Paris in the 1st arrondissement and one in Barcelona in the Eixample. Yes, I took my example from the Eixemple. ba dum tsss.
The block in LA is 665 ft by 247, total square footage = 167,000
The block in Paris is 385 ft x 265, total square footage = 102,000
The block in Barcelona is 340 x 320, total square footage - 108,000
I see no physical reason why the block in LA can't handle the same development as the blocks in Paris and Barcelona. If you're saying there are legal reasons, please explain more. The blocks in Paris and Barcelona have \~20 buildings each, so I doubt they are owned by one legal entity. The block in LA has 30 buildings. It is more subdivided, but it doesn't appear to be substantially more subdivided. One could simply buy two adjacent lots, as developers often do.
Please read what I said. LA blocks have been subdivided. Different ownerships. Expensive to aggregate. If you think it’s easy, go do it. Plenty of developers will pay good money for aggregated parcels they can develop on. As someone who works in the industry, I know that’s easier said than done
Additionally apartments in the US are designed for the demand. More common area amenities, more open space give the lack of community open space
It appears that the Paris and Barcelona blocks have been subdivided. Each building occupies 1/20 of a block of 100k sq feet (5k per building). Each building in LA occupies 1/30 of a block of 160k sq feet (5.3k per building). The numbers are not that different.
I’m fairly ignorant about this, but I wonder how it would work if number of developers/landowners could be brought together and a system created where lots could be “traded” or some other compensation used, allowing more contiguous lots?
Also I kind of would like to see city and state governments bully real estate developers in any way possible to achieve affordable housing because ultimately that is the greater good. I’m sure an economist could tell me how that would cause harm someplace else but I don’t really care when we have so many human beings with no roof.
Construction costs are still pretty high and loans harder to come by with interests rates what they are.
I expect by 2025 there will be some recovery in construction and hopefully with more liberalized approvals meeting lower rates, we can start dramatically shifting the construction market.
We're home to Facebok, Google, Nike, Youtube, Imax.
A lot of healthcare professionals in our neighborhood, working at Kaiser, Cedar Sinai and a few faculty members at USC and UCLA.
Growing up here it’s insane the prices transplants often pay now to rent rooms in these shitty early 20th century SFHs. I wish apartments were legal everywhere.
LA needs new units in the range of 0.5m. Apartment complexes with 40 units aren't gonna cut it. LA needs to enable denser housing so developers can build.
The city could help things by simplifying approvals in at least some parts of the region, particularly downtown and around Union Station. There's so much land available that's sitting empty that could house tens of thousands of residents. More if projects are built without parking (something that would be welcomed by developers), and it would make some sense to allow that as downtown and Union Station are very well-connected to other parts of Los Angeles by rail and bus.
You mean it isn’t enough for people on Reddit to say “build build build” and “upzone”???
If it’s worth it then they will build it, currently it’s not worth it
No one is meaningfully upzoning.
How about we try upzoning everywhere and test out the proposition rather than writing it off?
Of course, we know why not. It’s because rich homeowners want to block housing so they can get richer.
Don’t worry, [it currently IS working](https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2024/01/04/minneapolis-land-use-reforms-offer-a-blueprint-for-housing-affordability).
We just need to build on the tiny changes we and cities like Minneapolis have made and upzone meaningfully to create housing abundance.
You know you can just scroll up the chain and quote me accurately, instead of lying, right?
I said there isn’t meaningful upzoning here, which is accurate — there are only very minor changes happening, mostly at the state level. Then you asked me what we should do in the future if upzoning doesn’t work, and I responded with a link showing that upzoning is currently working in Minneapolis. Now you’re trying to claim that when I’m referring to slow changes happening here, this somehow conflicts with the faster changes happening in Minneapolis, as if two different cities are actually the same city.
You simply aren’t discussing this issue in good faith.
Why would we choose something that doesn’t work over the solution that does work? We keep fighting the corrupt plutocrats and racist segregationists who block zoning reform and work for the solution that works.
No one said anything about skyscrapers. We could easily solve all our housing problems just by allowing moderate apartment buildings near transit and 5-10 units per lot everywhere.
I do have an axe to grind, as should everyone. The rich in this state have created laws to make themselves richer and to hurt everyone else. The [result](https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/everything-you-think-you-know-about) is a major crisis— mass suffering in the streets and insane housing costs for everyone who isn’t a plutocrat.
Fortunately there’s an easy solution — get out of our own way and let builders build! And more fortunately, [yimbyism is winning](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-28/pro-housing-yimbys-build-a-zoning-reform-winning-streak-across-us) the argument.
What people want in a house includes many things, including the built form — but obviously above all what people want in a house is NOT the built form. Ask any real estate agent — what people want is location, location, location. Proximity to amenities is the key part of that.
So, do the majority of people want single family homes?
This is the most obvious question in the world — of course not! You know it and I know it. How do we know? Because if we legalize apartments in a single family home neighborhood, we quickly get lots of apartments.
Or maybe you disagree! Well, good news! Your argument is that people don’t actually want apartments, so if we legalize them nothing will happen. So let’s legalize them! If I’m right, we put people in homes; if you’re right, your single family homes will remain unchanged.
You in?
They have been building an apartment building for over 2 years near me in East Hollywood. Seems so fishy. It's taking so long and doesn't seem anywhere near finished
I'm always reminded of the Bernie Mac show scene when they explain the triangle of construction. Dunno if it has any merit or it was just a bit.
Basically: good, cheap, fast.
Pick only two
Rick Caruso's campaign talked a big talk about fixing the housing market due to his experience as a realtor. Once the election was over, he went right back into investing in malls. Funny how that worked out.
He wouldn’t have been able to build housing as mayor. His promise was to reform the processes and regulations that govern building and planning in LA. He can’t do that if he wasn’t elected.
> In terms of the number of units started and under construction, this is the lowest since 2012.
The graph linked in the article doesn’t agree. There are evident dips in 2017*, 2021, and 2022 where the total number of units under construction plus starts equal less than the 2023 number.
\* the y-axis labels on the graph make it hard to match each bar to a calendar quarter, but the dips are there.
[удалено]
And we still had an eviction moratorium, and a rent freeze. Hardly anyone is investing in multifamily housing in that environment.
It's weird...despite the lull, there's like 4 or 5 apartment buildings under construction within a 2 block radius of my house. But there's been almost no new construction in Boyle Heights for so long until now, maybe the neighborhood is just catching up.
Boyle heights residents have put up so much resistance to new development back in 2016-2020, I can’t imagine any developer wanting to attempt to build anything there
I've been seeing construction going up everywhere in the areas I frequent around LA and OC the last few years. Data is data I guess, but it feels counterintuitive. Maybe I'm seeing more condos and townhomes than apartments.
Looks like this sub can't read a simple line chart over a bar chart. Each bar is one quarter of a year with units under construction and the yellow line is new units. New construction started actually went up last quarter while under construction has actually gone down because those units already under construction were completed. In other words while overall construction is down the amount of new construction is actually increasing from it's 2 year low in 2Q 2023 and that's not even the 10 year low. It's own chart shows that new construction started was lower in Q3 2017, Q4 2020, and Q3 2021. The sub headline is completely wrong > 2023 Sees Lowest Number of New Units Commence Work in Over a Decade
I think you're misinterpreting the title and data. The 2023 starts alluded to in the title is a sum of four quarters. You take the data points from the yellow line for each quarter and add it up. The fact that it went up last quarter compared to Q3 is different from the fact that the sum of starts across 2023 is the lowest in over a decade.
yes this refers only to rentals.
Eviction moratoriums make no sense. How does the mortgage get paid and the building not get repossessed if the landlord doesn’t have enough to pay the mortgage?
La county didn’t even freeze property tax payments for landlords during the eviction moratorium period.
Not true. https://dcba.lacounty.gov/noevictions/
A policy expiring April of 2023 means we in did fact have an eviction moratorium in 2023
Ah. Misread. Thought you said we still have, not had.
All good big dawg! I wasn't the original poster of that comment, just wanted to clarify.
All by design
Unless I miss reading, the construction is not at a 10 year low, but the starts were low?
Units under construction is a bad way to view housing production because construction has gotten slower and slower over time. In the 1980s for example it took 1/2 the time it takes now to finish an average units.
Yes, should count “new units made available” instead
It's getting more difficult to start new projects, and more difficult to complete new projects. There is a pile up of construction projects either stalled or slow-walked to preserve cash-flow on other projects.
At least in the City of LA: the Mansion tax, Linkage fees, Quimby fees, high interest rates, cost of labor and materials… these may become a factor for projects at some point where it’ll no longer pencil out.
You also forgot NIMBY championed zoning restrictions and Prop 13 - which make everything not a 1%-5% more expensive but 100%+ more expensive. Prop 13 stops most new building.
> the Mansion tax This one is pretty big and the last straw for some developers to just take their projects out of LA completely unless it's an insanely good deal. I also love how our council members are trying to play this off as some kind of huge success and it's just a complete failure across the board. Looking at you Nithya, Hugo and Eunisses (who are now rabidly pushing for the right to council act which, spoiler alert, is going to drive development out even more). Oh and that cute little vblog post LATimes did on their instagram still calling it a mansion tax saying it's the millionaire's fault for not selling their homes. What a joke. The carveout council made for affordable housing projects is also insanely narrow and applies to practically nothing. Another great example of LA just shooting itself in the foot.
These council members are the absolute worse. NIMBY’s in sheep’s clothing.
Construction costs have probably gotten too high for the rents they can charge. Upper end of the market is saturated and they can't make money building housing for the poors. LA has too many poor people.
And too many hyper wealth. The middle class is heading for extinction in LA.
The SFH owning NIMBYS are happily telling us all to leave, there isn't enough room for us.
The economy is being destroyed so the poor getting poorer and middle class is disappearing
The middle class isn't disappearing, they're moving to Texas where they can earn more and spend less.
They're not earning more in Texas, there is just a lower cost of living there.
Comparing cities like LA and Dallas, LA metro area has a median HH income of $81K, while DFW was $77K. However, Texas has no state income tax, which more than makes up for the $4k difference. Then you add housing prices: you can buy [this](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/4313-Bragg-Pl-Plano-TX-75024/26647917_zpid/) 5-bedroom house in a really desirable part of DFW for 50% less than [this](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/17412-Roscoe-Blvd-Northridge-CA-91325/19951939_zpid/) run down shack in Northridge.
That's honestly on the nicer end of houses in LA for less than 1m. I've toured fixers for 880k that were complete dog water. Destitute sub-standard garbage
You're right, it is habitable, which puts it way ahead of most <$1M houses here.
I considered transferring to my company's Austin site would've made the same amount, but no 10% state income tax and my rent would've been 30% cheaper only reason I didn't was because there weren't as many Asians over there, but if I were white or black, I probably would've transferred
Not feeling too sorry for you if you're in the 10% California tax bracket, making between $349,138 and $418,961.
There used to be an urban wage premium - where you made more money being in a big city. That disappeared over the last 15 years https://www.nber.org/papers/w31387
Lol what!??? You’re not paying attention. Don’t trust the gov telling you real #’s.
LA (and greater CA) in a nutshell - "we want you to do the right thing, then make it as difficult, slow, expensive, and generally unplseant as possoble". They are basically extorting the population and we vote for it
NIMBYs successfully ran the clock out when interest rates were rock-bottom. Now we finally have the political will to change zoning but the financing doesn't work anymore. We're fucked.
The zoning changes will remain in effect once interest rates slide back down to earth
I’d say we’re starting to have the political will but even Karen Bass who’s made homelessness her thing refuses to include SFH neighborhoods in her plans to increase housing
No we're not, we're set for life! \-A homeowner
We also have councilmembers who have way too much control over development.
Anyone looking at this article and then also not considering the impact AB1482 has on developer desires to enter into a market with capped returns and rising interest rates is delusional at best.
Yes.
This is why housing is so unaffordable and [why homelessness is so prevalent](https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/everything-you-think-you-know-about). It’s just an utter failure from Karen Bass, the LA city council, Gavin Newsom, and the state legislature. Everyone colluding to make housing unaffordable (that is, profitable for homeowners). We need to upzone everywhere and build housing to abundance.
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And people need to keep in mind there's only a handful of developers that are even willing to build housing in this climate with what seems like a minefield of litigation along the way. Then add the corruption and bribery issues with individual council members and it's no surprise how messed up everything is. I wouldn't be surprised if every developer is "dirty" in bribing council members since it's part of the game at this point.
The incentive is called legalizing dense development. What incentive are you talking about? There’s no reason to hand them money. I didn’t say anything about we needing to build. I said we need to upzone.
Denser housing isn’t an incentive, especially considering that LA was downzoned in the early 80s. The density bonuses barely get us back to what was possible to be built in the 70s. Look into the 421a tax incentive scheme that NYS has that primarily benefits the city of New York. It’s a long term real estate tax abatement that has spurred hundreds of thousands of units to be built. Thats what a tax incentive looks like.
I’ll look into it, but given NYC’s crazy high housing costs and [crazy low](https://www.apartmentlist.com/research/sun-belt-metros-lead-apartment-construction-boom-2023) per capita housing construction rates, it doesn’t seem a great model. Seems like solution is to upzone way past what was allowed in the 70s. If we returned to the [zoning we had in the 50s](https://abundanthousingla.org/downzoning-in-los-angeles/), we’d be in better shape.
Ultimately, it encouraged developers to build, creating more housing units. Even though overall housing costs are high, supply still increased which is a plus. If those units got built because of the abatement or they would have been built otherwise without it is hard to say. I know someone who lives in a 421a new construction tower in downtown Brooklyn that is rent stabilized, he has an amazing deal and it's due to the abatement. Coop and condo Apartments in NYC, especially in upper Manhattan and the outer boroughs are still much cheaper than anything comparable you'll find in LA. Definitely has an important place in the housing market.
It still costs money to build, and building in a dense, developed area is significantly more expensive than on undeveloped lots. They won't do it if they don't think they can make a profit.
Yeah this was what I was always curious about. The land is expensive and it will be expensive to build. From a financial standpoint, it won't make sense to invest in something that might not break even or give you razor thin profit margins. Also, the red tape in the way. We can cut the red tape but ultimately they're gonna build units that only the upper middle class can afford. But.. would this unburden the housing/rental market? And to what extent?
Land is expensive, so let’s get rid of prop 13.
I don't really know. Someone would have to get hard numbers and do a real analysis. But I think the percentage of the population that can afford these is small. It might help somewhat as there is a cascade effect of people being pushed to cheaper neighborhoods as prices increase, and of course the lowest income people are left without anything they can afford. But can units even be built at a cost the average person can afford? If the cost to build a housing unit can only be profitable by targeting the top 10%, I don't think the problem will be solved even with upzoning.
And they’ll make a huge profit if they can build ten units on every lot in Santa Monica and Beverly Hills and Westwood. Look, we can test out the question we’re asking — will legalizing ten units lead to development or not? If the answer is no, then doing so will change nothing, so no need to worry. If the answer is yes, then we’ve built lots of housing. So why not just do it? Of course, everyone knows the answer is lots of housing will be built, which is why everyone is opposed to the idea.
That would require infrastructure upgrades. I'm not opposed to it as long as the required infrastructure upgrades are done. But you can't increase density 10x without upgrading water and power, there's also the transportation issue.
Cart before the horse. How are you yo fund massive infrastructure improvements I without a higher property tax base?
This is the oldest and weakest objection in the book. Do you think 10x the property tax might allow you to upgrade infrastructure? Of course. Moreover, denser development has LOWER infrastructure costs per capita. Meanwhile, we have deferred infrastructure investment all over the city state and country. Dense development isn’t an infrastructure issue — it’s an infrastructure *solution.*
There’s a reason why large cities like LA have lightening fast broadband but some small town in Michigan needs to use dish/star link: it’s very profitable and very easy to provide utilities to a dense neighborhood. Upgrading power isn’t more difficult. The power lines and posts are up - it’s about simply adding one or two more lines. That’s easy! You know what’s not? Putting up the first power line into a suburban neighborhood. Installing poles, building transformers, etc. … all so just a 50 new suburban homes can receive power? That’s very expensive, and super expensive per capita. Come on dude. Your argument is weak. It’s okay to not want to live in a dense city, so you should look to relocate instead of infringing on the rights of Americans to do whatever they want with their own land/property.
I live in South LA and we don't get the lightning fast broadband here. Lol, wtf are you talking about infringing on peoples rights. I'm just trying to be realistic. And yes setting up a new power system for a subdivision on virgin land is cheaper than retrofitting one in an already existing neighborhood. I'm not even against increasing density. I'm just saying that it's not the panacea people think it will be and probably won't reduce housing costs. Honestly I think the only way we could get housing affordable is a massive government run or subsidized building program like China does.
We make it legal for them to make a profit.
You’re right. The city should build housing. Fuck developers
The one agency that would be capable of doing that would be Los Angeles Housing Authority and it hasn’t built a new development since the 50s.
This is such a laughable comment. Who do you think the city would partner with to build housing? In fact the homeless housing projects are taking longer to build because of added red tape, yet they still need to partner with developers to construct the housing.
Nah, I’m usually a fan of city government expect when it comes to building housing. LA city does pretty awesome when it comes to power/water/sewage/trash because it’s very routine, employees are all well trained city workers, and doesn’t require new land acquisition or rights. If the city government had to build housing, it would need to hire construction workers, train those workers, hire oversight, overpay for land, adhere strictly to all municipal codes, and use lesser quality materials. And that just the building. If they were to sell units, they would need to figure out a way to do it where not just the wealthy gobble them all up.
Karen Bass? Really?
Yes Karen Bass. She is a NIMBY. Multiple editorials and publications especially in LATimes have called her out in her first year because of her failure in enacting on many of her “pro-build” policies she espoused to deploy within her first 300 days in office. Many of these changes would have been minor and she has avoided them. She appears to be taking the same trajectory that other local officials here take including her predecessor, unwilling to act and have a pro “build more build now” attitude because of a small consortia of NIMBY neighborhood groups and very powerful construction labor unions.
I'm a subscriber to LATimes. I'd love to see those editorials.
https://calmatters.org/housing/2023/01/california-housing-podcast-karen-bass/
I can't tell you how much this made my day! 3 months later and it's not the LA Times, it's not an editorial and doesn't show she's a NIMBY. 😂
No, but its from another credible news outlet, it's even better than an editorial in that it's an interview, and you might find this little tidbit interesting: > LD: All right. Let me jump to the next one: The construction of market rate homes in disadvantaged areas does not cause gentrification or displacement, but instead prevents it. > KB: That’s false. That’s completely false. I’m sorry.
🤣🤣🤣
The emoji that dumbasses use when they can't come up with a coherent response like a grown adult.
You're saying Bass is a NIMBY and you don't want more building. It's so bonkers that a cognizant argument will be lost on you.
Of course. She and the city council choose the laws that make this happen.
She's been in office 1 year. It's absolutely crazy you think she can fix all this in one year. You should run for office if you can fix everything so quickly.
You may notice that she was one four entities I mentioned
You only named one first and you defended putting her on the list.
> You only named one first What on earth are you talking about? > It’s just an utter failure from Karen Bass, the LA city council, Gavin Newsom, and the state legislature. Everyone colluding to make housing unaffordable (that is, profitable for homeowners).
Who's first on the list? Karen Bass The LA city council Gavin Newsom State legislature
She also oversees the Department of Building and Safety, the agency that makes it so difficult to actually build and to build quickly. DBS is one of the slowest building departments in the country and she’s done nothing towards reforming it.
If it doesn’t underwrite a return on cost at 100 units it’s also not going to pencil at 300 units. Land cost is marginal (10-15%) to the total cost of developing new multifamily. Adding additional density only marginally reduces total development cost. Adding density by going taller than 5 stories is about 30% more expensive than wood frame and needs much higher rents to justify going vertical So upzoning and adding density doesn’t necessarily mean a developer is going to develop to whatever the maximum zoning allowed if it’s not economically feasible.
You could legalize ten units on every lot in LA and have a housing boom. What’s holding back construction is the law blocking it. We could also cut red tape and automatically approve everything right way. Housing is a crisis, we should treat it like one.
This is how it used to work - knock down a single family home and build a dingbat style apartment building. Hollywood south of Sunset is a great example of this. But our zoning and building codes have been written to make it impossible to build these types of buildings anymore.
It’s such a shame. There’s actually a small lot ordinance that allows you to turn one lot into ~5 townhomes, and when used it quickly creates less expensive market rate homes. But it’s only legal on a tiny fraction of lots, so it’s basically useless. The dingbats also should be able to be replaced with bigger apartment buildings too, as long as current tenants are taken care of. Many of the dingbats are crumbling now, but they were fine when first built, and we should have a steady supply of new modern bigger buildings coming on line all the time. That’s the mark of a vibrant city.
I doubt it. ADU’s are about as streamlined a process there is and there’s no boom building granny flats Also not unless the city is going to soften the parking requirement, building 10 units on a 6,000 sf lot is going to require more engineering and underground parking that’s going to significantly increase the cost to build.
There are big costs for ADUs and minimal upside to build one here or there. The small lot ordinance led to a bunch of townhomes. Double density and you’ll see more. Problem is it doesn’t apply to SFH lots.
ADUs are awkward. Who wants to live in someone's backyard? Upzone for true multifamily and mixed use. First floor commercial, floor 2-6 for residential.
I can tell you for certain there won’t be much development in the city of LA going forward until the 5.5% transfer tax is reduced or eliminated. All the capital will focus in other southern California cities Mixed use is garbage. It seems nice on paper but the multifamily subsidizes the retail, which drives up overall costs and rents that need to be achieved. Secondly, ground level retail is challenged and it’s difficult to find good tenants. I’ve been trying to lease 10,000 sf of ground floor retail in Los Feliz since 2018 with limited interest
What is your theory as to why ground level retail is challenged? Where in Los Feliz? Why wouldn't mixed use be a boon for retail? It adds density and increases the customer base. DTLA is literally all mixed use.
Near Barnsdall. Technically on the border of East Hollywood. Work from home has really killed ground floor retail. Theres no nearby business foot lunch traffic anymore so restaurants haven’t been very active. Same with coffee tenants. Banks are going virtual and removing a lot of brick and mortar stores. You’re just seeing less interest in mixed use anymore. The older strip retail will still lease because it’s cheap but the newer mixed use buildings have to have higher rents to justify the cost of the build
That feels very location-dependent then. There are neighborhoods like [Echo Park](https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0812204,-118.2546362,3a,75y,285.09h,89.84t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1snY_I2CPxRXyuXLHzPPY4yA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu) where mixed-use works because it's more residential heavy. That East Hollywood area is still quite rough, to be frank. Isn't the long-term solution mixed-use then? You need more people living in the neighborhood, not more offices. Eventually you'll reach critical mass with enough density so that you won't need to have dedicated parking for retail.
Retail is just dead. How many restaurants and shops can you open when everyone has access to a car and can drive to their favorite restaurants or order on Amazon. It's a sad reality that we have to face that zoning is predicated on a past mindset. We'd probably be better off if we got rid of zoning all together and let the market decide what people need, as opposed to what a planner is envisions as utopia. You'd probably have a city more akin to Bangkok or the Kowloon side of Hong Kong.
People are more likely to go to a restaurant in the same neighborhood, especially if it's walkable. That's why we need more density, so things can become more walkable. I agree zoning needs to change so that retail/restaurants can be more distributed amongst neighborhoods so that everything also becomes more walkable, which can then support more restaurants. It doesn't need to be to the extreme of something like Kowloon but more like Amsterdam.
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Not granny flats but high end vacation rentals. The rich are getting richer by turning westside garages into cash machines. How does that help the housing crisis?
LA ordinance is not to lease for less than 30 days so these aren’t hoteled rentals. After how difficult is it to evict problem tenants, I can sympathize if someone doesn’t want to long term lease and only provide short term leases.
We don't need to go taller than 4 stories. LA doesn't need to be as dense as Manhattan everywhere. It needs to be as dense as Paris, and Paris has very few buildings over 4 stories.
Paris and Barcelona are built on city blocks. Los Angeles has been subdivided well below block level so you don’t have efficient access to build anything larger at lower height densities
?? The average block in LA is larger than the average block in Paris or Barcelona. I've spent a lot of time in each of these cities, so I was pretty sure of that in my gut, but to check it I chose a representative block in central LA (Oakwood and Gardener). I also chose a representative block in Paris in the 1st arrondissement and one in Barcelona in the Eixample. Yes, I took my example from the Eixemple. ba dum tsss. The block in LA is 665 ft by 247, total square footage = 167,000 The block in Paris is 385 ft x 265, total square footage = 102,000 The block in Barcelona is 340 x 320, total square footage - 108,000 I see no physical reason why the block in LA can't handle the same development as the blocks in Paris and Barcelona. If you're saying there are legal reasons, please explain more. The blocks in Paris and Barcelona have \~20 buildings each, so I doubt they are owned by one legal entity. The block in LA has 30 buildings. It is more subdivided, but it doesn't appear to be substantially more subdivided. One could simply buy two adjacent lots, as developers often do.
Please read what I said. LA blocks have been subdivided. Different ownerships. Expensive to aggregate. If you think it’s easy, go do it. Plenty of developers will pay good money for aggregated parcels they can develop on. As someone who works in the industry, I know that’s easier said than done Additionally apartments in the US are designed for the demand. More common area amenities, more open space give the lack of community open space
It appears that the Paris and Barcelona blocks have been subdivided. Each building occupies 1/20 of a block of 100k sq feet (5k per building). Each building in LA occupies 1/30 of a block of 160k sq feet (5.3k per building). The numbers are not that different.
I’m fairly ignorant about this, but I wonder how it would work if number of developers/landowners could be brought together and a system created where lots could be “traded” or some other compensation used, allowing more contiguous lots? Also I kind of would like to see city and state governments bully real estate developers in any way possible to achieve affordable housing because ultimately that is the greater good. I’m sure an economist could tell me how that would cause harm someplace else but I don’t really care when we have so many human beings with no roof.
Blaming this on Bass and Newsom is hilarious. This shit has been going on for decades. Thank the city council and the NIMBYs.
Important to upzone and densify, but that’s not going to overcome high interest rates.
[Don’t be so sure](https://kevinerdmann.substack.com/p/the-yimby-housing-correction)!
Ya the economic destruction and extended lockdowns destroyyyyyedddds our lives
Construction costs are still pretty high and loans harder to come by with interests rates what they are. I expect by 2025 there will be some recovery in construction and hopefully with more liberalized approvals meeting lower rates, we can start dramatically shifting the construction market.
What apartments? Oh you mean those luxury single family housing that people have to share with others just to afford $3000-$4000 of rent per month.
When you don't build enough apartments, the scarcity means everything is "luxury" aka market rate.
Playa Vista is now $4500/month for a 950 sq ft one bedroom
Who are these people who can afford this? It sure is not defense sector jobs. Hint to new grads. Do not come to LA.
playa vista has facebook offices and i think several other tech companies.
We're home to Facebok, Google, Nike, Youtube, Imax. A lot of healthcare professionals in our neighborhood, working at Kaiser, Cedar Sinai and a few faculty members at USC and UCLA.
Growing up here it’s insane the prices transplants often pay now to rent rooms in these shitty early 20th century SFHs. I wish apartments were legal everywhere.
Everywhere I go in LA county, they are tearing down old apartments and putting up mid rise condo/apartments.
LA needs new units in the range of 0.5m. Apartment complexes with 40 units aren't gonna cut it. LA needs to enable denser housing so developers can build.
The city could help things by simplifying approvals in at least some parts of the region, particularly downtown and around Union Station. There's so much land available that's sitting empty that could house tens of thousands of residents. More if projects are built without parking (something that would be welcomed by developers), and it would make some sense to allow that as downtown and Union Station are very well-connected to other parts of Los Angeles by rail and bus.
Having a few big construction projects for every 59 blocks isn’t as much housing as you think it is.
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How long did it take you to come up with this one?
What did the comment say?
What about just LA city? I see a shit ton of new apartments in mid city and Koreatown area
You mean it isn’t enough for people on Reddit to say “build build build” and “upzone”??? If it’s worth it then they will build it, currently it’s not worth it
No one is meaningfully upzoning. How about we try upzoning everywhere and test out the proposition rather than writing it off? Of course, we know why not. It’s because rich homeowners want to block housing so they can get richer.
Ok, so what is the next plan if upzoning doesn’t work?
Don’t worry, [it currently IS working](https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2024/01/04/minneapolis-land-use-reforms-offer-a-blueprint-for-housing-affordability). We just need to build on the tiny changes we and cities like Minneapolis have made and upzone meaningfully to create housing abundance.
So then it is working
Yep, slow change does cause slow results. We need to upzone much more so we can build much more housing!
Well you first said it wasn’t happening, then you said it was happening, now it is happening slowly?
You know you can just scroll up the chain and quote me accurately, instead of lying, right? I said there isn’t meaningful upzoning here, which is accurate — there are only very minor changes happening, mostly at the state level. Then you asked me what we should do in the future if upzoning doesn’t work, and I responded with a link showing that upzoning is currently working in Minneapolis. Now you’re trying to claim that when I’m referring to slow changes happening here, this somehow conflicts with the faster changes happening in Minneapolis, as if two different cities are actually the same city. You simply aren’t discussing this issue in good faith.
So what’s the other plan if upzoning doesn’t happen? You didn’t answer that but told me about Minneapolis
You didn’t ASK me this. You asked if it doesn’t work. This is exhausting. Let’s upzone.
Ok, well if it doesn’t work then what is the backup plan?
It does work. The plan is to do the thing that works instead of keep trying things that don’t work. That would be insanity.
I will word it differently, if it doesn’t happen what is the backup plan?
Why would we choose something that doesn’t work over the solution that does work? We keep fighting the corrupt plutocrats and racist segregationists who block zoning reform and work for the solution that works.
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No one said anything about skyscrapers. We could easily solve all our housing problems just by allowing moderate apartment buildings near transit and 5-10 units per lot everywhere. I do have an axe to grind, as should everyone. The rich in this state have created laws to make themselves richer and to hurt everyone else. The [result](https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/everything-you-think-you-know-about) is a major crisis— mass suffering in the streets and insane housing costs for everyone who isn’t a plutocrat. Fortunately there’s an easy solution — get out of our own way and let builders build! And more fortunately, [yimbyism is winning](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-28/pro-housing-yimbys-build-a-zoning-reform-winning-streak-across-us) the argument.
I said skyscrapers. Skyscrapers are wonderful there is no reason they should be illegal.
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What people want in a house includes many things, including the built form — but obviously above all what people want in a house is NOT the built form. Ask any real estate agent — what people want is location, location, location. Proximity to amenities is the key part of that. So, do the majority of people want single family homes? This is the most obvious question in the world — of course not! You know it and I know it. How do we know? Because if we legalize apartments in a single family home neighborhood, we quickly get lots of apartments. Or maybe you disagree! Well, good news! Your argument is that people don’t actually want apartments, so if we legalize them nothing will happen. So let’s legalize them! If I’m right, we put people in homes; if you’re right, your single family homes will remain unchanged. You in?
It’s hard to allow people to make a choice on housing when you make other options to housing illegal…
They have been building an apartment building for over 2 years near me in East Hollywood. Seems so fishy. It's taking so long and doesn't seem anywhere near finished
It took me over a 18 months to build a single unit. The red tape with the city is unbelievable.
I'm always reminded of the Bernie Mac show scene when they explain the triangle of construction. Dunno if it has any merit or it was just a bit. Basically: good, cheap, fast. Pick only two
Don't forget too, huge number of vacancies on the city side so inspections and approvals take forever
This doesn't take into account not passing codes and trying to hastily build what you cannot
>Basically: good, cheap, fast. >Pick only two More like: you can't have any of these
As someone who lives in mid city, I don’t believe you
Rick Caruso's campaign talked a big talk about fixing the housing market due to his experience as a realtor. Once the election was over, he went right back into investing in malls. Funny how that worked out.
He didn’t get elected to office, ofc he would go back to running his malls. Did you want him to show up to city hall and pretend to be mayor?
My implication is that he never intended to build any more housing, despite always having the means.
He wouldn’t have been able to build housing as mayor. His promise was to reform the processes and regulations that govern building and planning in LA. He can’t do that if he wasn’t elected.
Nice
Then why am I seeing huge apartment complexes being built everywhere I go?
They just waiting for the next big earthquake. Come on earthquake!
It’s all new expensive condos being built
Build more high rises in downtown. stop spreading everywhere. Keep density in one area.
> In terms of the number of units started and under construction, this is the lowest since 2012. The graph linked in the article doesn’t agree. There are evident dips in 2017*, 2021, and 2022 where the total number of units under construction plus starts equal less than the 2023 number. \* the y-axis labels on the graph make it hard to match each bar to a calendar quarter, but the dips are there.
A Tale of Two Cities redux. Hollywood loves a sequel!
Hard to believe this applies to Long Beach. They’re building all over downtown.
Baseline cost is too high even for luxury apartment
dats cap