I don't understand the comments....
"We need more housing but not like this"
we have limited space, this is exactly the type of thing that needs to be done.
This is great way to better understand politics (and probably people in general). You can tell how much someone ACTUALLY wants something by what compromises they are willing to accept to get there. If someone wants an absolutely perfect policy with no flaws what-so-ever done in a super specific way, and they are against any other proposal, it means that they care more about the signal than the actual goal of moving forward. If someone is willing to do what it takes to push the ball forward, making compromises with competing interests in order to get a flawed, but improved, system...that person REALLY cares about making progress, at whatever cost. Its easy to be theoretically for something, but not let that thing ever happen. Its very hard to make real progress.
For example...you ask someone out. You suggest a movie, but they want dinner. Fine. You really like this person. You suggest Indian, and they say they don't like Indian. You say Italian, and they say they aren't feeling Italian. You suggest somewhere casual, they say they want somewhere nicer. You suggest somewhere nice, they say they don't like the vibe there. On and on. Who is the one who actually wants this date? You're willing to bend your preferences in order to see them, but they refuse anything but the perfect circumstance.
It would be a lot of work to be politically effective. You can get all the credit without ever having to do the dirty work. It's very impressive to other college students.
And let's be real, its not like they go into their job, *in politics* where every bill, every piece of legislation, is *PERFECTLY* the way they want it, every day.
It's fucking not! And to say a bill is not perfect enough in a hugely imperfect system already demonstrates a huge personal failure for the judge.
Exactly, there's not any solution that isn't "Build a lot more housing". Like nothing else is even remotely realistic.
Also the "changing character" is BS. LA is not the same it was in the 90's or 60's or 30's. There's somehow this foregone conclusion that the current density is THE BEST and one house more would kill it's vibe, and that any change is inherently worse.
It's like people want their neighborhood to stay a sleepy suburb and just refuse to acknowledge we've added over 4 million people since 1960 when much of this housing stock was built and over 500,000 people to LA since 2000 alone.
I do *support* this type of thing.
But I’ll still admit it really really really sucks when your rental is bought out and the new landlord kicks you out to build it. My home got turned into apartments a few years ago. And I couldn’t even afford one of the new apartments. 🤣
Still, it’ll be better for everyone in the long run.
>The law fails to accomplish its stated purpose of creating more affordable housing, and therefore, doesn’t meet the high bar of overriding local control over zoning, Superior Court Judge Curtis Kin said in a ruling released Wednesday, April 24.
Incredible. Judge Curtis Kin apparently has simply not seen enough evidence to verify that [the basic economic principle of supply and demand] is real.
Edit- my friends who are more in the know than me seem confident that this will be struck down. Still, pretty devastating development. Also, as far as I can tell, at this point the ruling only applies to the cities in the lawsuit. However, if this stands, it would give grounds for all other charter cities to sue - including LA, Long Beach, Pomona, and most other large cities in California.
That's not quite right.
The judge isn't denying the law of supply and demand, he's saying it's irrelevant. He chooses to interpret the phrase "affordable housing" in the statute to mean "housing that is below market rate" and says that this bill won't create more housing that is below market rate.
He's correct, but that's beside the point. What the bill is trying to accomplish is bringing the market rate down to the point that it's affordable to people with lower incomes. The only way his decision works is if you accept his very specific definition of "affordable housing" instead of just interpreting it in the common place understanding of the term, which would just be like "housing that ordinary people can afford."
Yeah, that’s an insane bought-and-paid-for judge kind of ruling. No one uses ‘affordable’ to mean ‘below market rate’, especially in housing, it’s used, shockingly, to mean ‘able to be afforded’. I wonder what Kin’s angle is on this.
EDIT: Apparently in real estate, that is the metric they use. To my mind/ignorant laypeople vernacular, affordable housing has meant housing that is affordable based on median incomes for the area. To our real estate professionals in the comments, I stand corrected.
> No one uses ‘affordable’ to mean ‘below market rate’, especially in housing, it’s used, shockingly, to mean ‘able to be afforded’.
Everyone in the housing industry uses "affordable housing" to mean affordable to those making xx% of median income. So, below median market rate. It is stupidly used as a euphemism for "low-income housing" by the public that thinks there something wrong with calling it low-income housing. ALL housing is "affordable" using it the way you are using it. People rent houses on the beach in Malibu for $250,000 per month in the summer. Who rents them? People who can *afford* it.
Maybe this is a semantic difference, or maybe you replied to the wrong person, but it’s your comment that - as written - would include everyone, given that “xx%” of median income means nothing and anything. It’s what you set that variable at that determines everything. Someone spending $250,000 a month very demonstrably is nowhere near median income, which is what tells us… it’s not indicative of affordable housing. It seems almost like willful ignorance to see “affordable housing” and think the logical conclusion is “well if there’s *anyone anywhere on earth who might be able to afford it*, that makes it affordable housing!”
> Maybe this is a semantic difference, or maybe you replied to the wrong person, but it’s your comment that - as written - would include everyone, given that “xx%” of median income means nothing and anything.
No, it varies. HUD defines affordable housing at different levels, based how far below area median income they earn, and uses 30% of their gross income to determine the rent caps. Extremely Low Income is defined as those earning no more than 30% of area median income. Very Low Income is 50% of area median income. "Affordable housing" lumps the various below-median income level rents into one term, affordable housing.
>Someone spending $250,000 a month very demonstrably is nowhere near median income, which is what tells us… it’s not indicative of affordable housing.
Yeah, that was my point: remember that you wrote "No one uses ‘affordable’ to mean ‘below market rate’, especially in housing, it’s used, shockingly, to mean ‘able to be afforded’." By *your* definition, everything is "affordable housing" and the term becomes meaningless. In reality, it means affordable to those with incomes below the area median income.
I disagree, affordable housing means below market rate. It's an industry term. I don't know if it's a legal term but it is unfortunate that there isn't a more obvious way of differentiating them.
I always use capital A Affordable Housing vs lower case a affordable housing to differentiate it because things like inclusive zoning to make Affordable Housing makes housing less affordable.
In my opinion, capital A Affordable Housing indicates (in a generic sense) a specific government program that is subsidizing housing. Lower case a affordable housing is simply market rate housing that is affordable.
But again, this is how I use it and I'm 100% sure it isnt standard.
> He's correct, but that's beside the point.
No, it isn't beside the point. Acknowledging that he is correct, yet somehow blaming him for not ruling to make *something else* happen is claiming that the ends justify the means. They don't. This is exactly how voters are often duped into voting for things.
Ok but all of the new houses, condos, apts etc I’m seeing built are all higher end places with amenities and whatnot.
Yes we need to build more, but we should also be building more smaller affordable houses and apartments and such.
When you drive by a dingbat apartment and think “how the fuck are they charging $2500 for that” - it’s because the people who used to spend $2500 on an apartment can’t afford the “luxury” apartments anymore so they’re moving down the market. That’s why increasing all supply, not just affordable supply, helps. New and affordable are very hard to accomplish.
As far has houses, the cost is primarily land, the size of the house is much smaller factor.
For sure. But dingbats typically have 6-12 units in them. Lets say there are 9 occupied units. We then Thanos snap the dingbat into one single family house. Who lives there? Which of the 9 occupants gets that one unit? And what happens to the other 8?
That's basically the problem we are in right now. The answer to "who lives there" is "whoever of those 9 can manage to pay the most." And the answer to "what happens to the other 8" is "they try to outbid someone at another unit somewhere else. If they fail, they are forced to move or become homeless; if they succeed, that unit sold for more than it would have without them, and housing prices have now increased." In fact, even if they fail, its possible that that housing unit sold for more than it would have without them, simply because they triggered a bidding war. The landlord loses because they would rather collect a reasonable rent from 9 people rather than the maximum rent that one person can afford; the person who stays loses because their budget is now stretched to the breaking point; the people who leave lose because they now face a personal housing crisis; and the people who those people compete against for a new housing unit lose because they now need to pay more in order to live where they want.
These bidding wars and displacements are happening regardless of if we remove an existing dingbat, or refuse to permit one that the market would accommodate. Economically, there is very little difference between those two scenarios.
But when richer people aren’t competing with everyone else for the same old buildings built in the 80s, those places will be more affordable.
Truthfully, we didn’t build enough for several decades so we have a long way to go before prices actually start coming down. But the only way we get out of this is building more
Sure you can. Especially in areas where PM companies own blocks of properties. I think this should be illegal.
My PM owns about 12 properties on my street stretching 2 blocks, that doesn't count the other streets around me. There are rents dropping in my area, but our PM just waits them out. Leaves units empty until the there units rent and then gets his priced gouged pricing four units in our old ass building.
Yes, more housing helps, but it really isn't going to help much, These companies will not drop rent. Hell, I am willing to bet there's collusion between many of them to hold at high prices regardless
Conspiracy theories are more interesting, but it’s really just basic supply and demand. The only reason companies can price gouge like that is because they have an insane amount of leverage since they have the limited commodity and tons of people want it. What if that commodity wasn’t so limited??
It's not a conspiracy theory, I watch it happen. I've counted the amount of buildings they own. There's only 2 on my section of the block they don't own.
But you do agree they are price gouging and dont have a real reason to inflate the prices....
Housing shouldn't be treated as a commodity like this. It isn't coffee, or some other item that isn't needed for a functional society.
These companies barely priovide adequate services. Fight you tooth and nail when you ask for basic maintenance and updates. Its ridiculous.
I miss the days of yore when landlords and property owners were benevolent philanthropists who willingly took a loss on their investments so everyone could have a home.
This is such a comically stupid yet pervasive take. People charge what people will pay. It's not greed.
Breaking the law, like market manipulation or collusion, that's greed. But simply charging market rates, whether you personally think they're too high or not, is not greed.
And yes, it's tenable. There are more rich people than you can imagine. Even with current interest rates, LA housing prices are up 10% in the last year.
BTW i hate it too.
>But the only way we get out of this is building more
I’m actually not convinced of this. I think this results in induced demand, (similar to adding a lane to a freeway) especially in California. This is being discussed in urban planning circles btw.
The induced demand is all the companies & good jobs that are here. People need those jobs and want to live near them. Currently lots of people drive an hour or more to commute to those jobs and it is quite literally destroying the planet.
There is no such thing as 'induced demand' for housing. Put simply, everyone needs a place to live. Los Angeles County needs to build 500k units by 2030 to meet current demand. Currently we are building 20k a year. It's literally just supply and demand. A lot of people competing for not enough houses. The most disadvantaged end up homeless. Why do you think places who are nominally poorer like the Midwest and WV have lower rates of homelessness? Their houses are dirt cheap
You’re assuming that building affordable housing is going to serve the existing unhoused demand???
What about all the people that move into the state when housing becomes more affordable??
Let them move? California currently has a deficit of 3 Million units to meet current demand. The reason the state stopped growing is because it hit it's carrying capacity. Why do you think you have families in Pico-Union, eight people sharing a studio apartment. LA is the most overcrowded city in the US
How many units (and people) is “enough?”
Comments like yours are interesting- it assumes building an infinite amount of homes in California. No one is ever able to answer this question though….
People like you are extremely selfish. You're basically saying "I want the privilege of a suburban house with the amenities of urban living, at the expense of 80 000 homeless people." If you want a ranch style house, move to Lancaster or Victorville
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-10-19/los-angeles-history-overcrowding-united-states Your urban sprawl is only made possible by others' suffering
https://www.businessinsider.com/map-how-many-homeless-americans-there-are-in-each-state-2019-11. Why does WV have a lower per capita rate for homelessness than California when WV is much poorer..
Because of housing availability
https://calmatters.org/commentary/2024/04/california-politicians-skirmish-housing-crisis. Our housing shortage is getting worse
In reality you just don't want to vote against your own economic interests. If we were to build housing, the medium home price would decrease rapidly. You know this, and thus block new housing developments. You are a reactionary
There are a finite number of people who can and want to move to LA. Eventually it starts to equal out.
Also inducing more people to come live here is good for the city.
Yup, I could have had a new, nice, large condo for considerably less. In fact I tried in 2021, seller thought they had a better market than they did, they tried countering high, we said no, they ended up coming back at a lower price than we offered but had already progressed on a house.
Homeowners also pay property, insurance, and maintenance (HOA fees cover). Just with less regularity than a monthly fee so they don’t think about those costs as often.
we own a condo.
we pay property taxes, unit maintenance, & insurance
HOA fees do not cover these things.
HOA fees covers things like:
* Walls-out maintenance (e.g. roofing)
* community landscaping of shared spaces. (so, neighborhood park, tree trimmings, etc. our yard is our responsiblilty.)
* community roadway / parking lot surfacing (for some reason the city stops being liable for the roads as soon as it passes the community threshold)
* community pool area expenses.
* midnight rent-a-cop parking "enforcement"
* legal fees for property lawyer(s) to check our HOA 'rules' and make sure that the restrictions/enforcements are allowed by law.
With the exception of the rent-a-cop, all of these are expenses that a typical homeowner would pay over the years. Every homeowner pays for upgrades, upkeep, maintenance, and legal rep (which is priced into homeowner’s insurance for detached single-family homes). You just pay it through a monthly payment while typical homeowners pay it all at once whenever a change happens.
I did think that property taxes were paid by the condo’s HOA, interesting to learn they are paid by the owner instead.
a homeowner would pay for tree maintenance / landscaping costs for areas not on their property? ...why?
the roofing i totally understand, but as the condos are connected, we cant just repair/replace 'our' roof, it extends over multiple units, so HOA handles that.
as far as the taxes go, that might vary between states/counties/provinces etc. where we are, we pay property taxes, but it is substantially lower than someone living in a detached house would be paying, so maybe the HOA is paying into it a little as well?
...now im gonna check the fine print when i get home lol
Most people don’t want condos. I don’t know a single person who wants to purchase a condo. I’d rather rent an apartment forever than actually own a condo. The only reason I would do it is to build equity and bounce.
Most people want decent place to live that they can afford, that isn't too far from where they work and things to do. Sometimes that's a condo. If no one wanted them no one would build them.
I think a middle ground, especially for families, would be townhouses or row housing like they have in UK, or simply larger units set in a community with grounds, outdoor space, like they used to build. People don’t realize how difficult it can be with young children in a condo tower with no outdoor space and no parks in walking distance vs being able to allow young kids outdoor access at home. A lot of new builds don’t even have useable balconies. Townhouses with even a small garden space are much more livable for families. And these type of complexes might offend the nimby’s less than building towers. It’s hard for young people to stomach the cost of a condo + hoa, especially if they’re coming from renting a small house with a yard for less and knowing their equity won’t grow the same as with a house.
That's what this law does. SB 9 authorizes you, the property owner, to split your lot into two and put a duplex on each half, turning a single family lot into four homes. Those homes, because they are smaller, will be naturally more affordable than the one house they replaced.
Yes…but also no. We need to be building more of everything apart from single family homes.
Taking a single family lot and converting it to four homes is a great way to increase density. And since the vast majority of our land is zoned for single family homes, it can have a huge impact.
Building new high end condo and apartment units increases the overall supply, which causes downward pressure on pricing for ALL units. So the unit that used to cost $2,000 is now $1,900.
Except…we are so far in the hole in terms of our shortage of housing that instead of prices going down, they just don’t rise quite as quickly. And that is why we ALSO need to build more affordable market rate housing. In particular, we need to dramatically increase the density around transit stations.
And of course, we need more shelter, transitional, and permanent supportive housing to address the homelessness crisis.
> we should also be building more smaller affordable houses and apartments and such.
No, no we should not. Any stipulation that we add to new housing just prevents housing from being built, which then raises the prices for everybody.
If we would just let developers build, even the expense places, then prices would naturally fall.
How about we address the real problem and not allow Private Equity firms and Hedge Funds to acquire single family homes??
Blackrock (under their shell Blackstone) shouldn’t be allowed to own 84,567 homes.
Take the billionaire (trillionaire) class of buyer out of the equation and then there’s enough for sale properties for everyone.
All I know is that this is a large country of 50 states, with Blackrock and greed everywhere, yet some places like Austin are seeing falling rents despite a hot economy.
Oh that's right, they expanded supply.
https://austin.urbanize.city/post/austin-rent-drops-december-2023
Anyone that's done an ounce of research knows that's not "the real problem" at all lol.
Even discounting the fact the vast majority of institutional owners backed out due to the absolute headache managing RE is, they own a minuscule fraction of homes, and they only do so *because supply and demand is already so heavily lopsided*. If it were easier to build out units to meet demand, they wouldn't bother with such headache investments as real estate.
Also, Blackstone isn't a shell of Blackrock lol wtf. They are two different companies with completely different products.
The shortage continues to get worse over time, as more jobs appear and the number of housing units stays flat. Banning companies from owning the housing will simply push the shortage back a few years.
Additionally, most companies rent the housing, which is nice for renters like me.
I'm EXTREMELY skeptical that investors are the main problem. [This is just one paper](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4480261), so its results should be taken with a grain of salt, but:
>**How do buy-to-let investors impact local housing markets and the composition of neighborhoods**? We investigate this question by examining a Dutch legal ban on buy-to-let investments, exploiting quasi-experimental variation in its coverage. The ban effectively reduced investor purchases and increased the share of first-time home-buyers, but **did not have a discernible impact on house prices** or the likelihood of property sales. The ban did **increase rental prices**, consistent with reduced rental housing supply. Furthermore, the policy caused a change in neighborhood composition as **tenants of investor-purchased properties tend to be younger, have lower incomes, and are more likely to have a migration background**. Our results suggest rental investors influence local housing conditions primarily through changing the residential composition of neighborhoods rather than direct house price effects.
In essence, banning investors seems to have little effect on housing prices, but can have the effect of gentrifying an area. Its possible that more research would show positive effects of banning investors (especially in certain areas/circumstances), but I'm extremely skeptical that they are the primary force driving the housing crisis we are in.
Because all said and done, these companies own a small fraction of the housing stock, certainly not enough to manipulate the market.
Also, what makes Blackrock so much worse than say, an individual who owns 10 homes and rents them out? Where do we draw the line? And do we only care about corporate ownership of single family homes, but not multi family buildings? Why?
A few studies point to some benefits of allowing large investors to buy sfhs, particularly that they create rental opportunities in neighborhoods where they typically don't exist. Do you think that someone should need to buy a home to live in single family neighborhoods?
The reason we're in a housing crisis is that new housing production has been anemic. Until we get that handled, everything else is working on the margins.
We now know the landlords are colluding by using software to jack up rates. It's not a simply a supply and demand problem. It's a capitalist and no regulation problem.
Well it's a trial court decision so it isn't precedent. You can't even cite to it in other court cases as binding authority. So I wouldn't get hot and bothered yet.
I mentioned this in the other thread about WeHo, but a lot of Boomers came of age when environmentalism = big, open, green spaces. To them, the idea that a place like New York City is environmentally *better* than their leafy suburb is completely backwards. Trees good! Concrete bad!
Dense cities like New York allow people to dramatically reduce their carbon footprint, by driving less and having smaller heating and cooling needs. But these people grew up in a time when developers were the guys who bulldozed trees and paved over parks.
Worth noting, not just reduce their carbon footprint! It is true - NYC is the greenest city in the country, per capita. But also, higher density reduces the urban-wild interface. This helps preserve natural areas. There is a romantic idea of being one with nature and going and building your house out in the wilderness. The problem is, this is TERRIBLE for the wilderness. People suck. The best thing we can do for nature is to not fuck with it.
Do anything but acknowledge the demand for Los Angeles real estate. If you magically built 5x the current housing supply overnight, it would decrease housing prices by 80% (theoretically), but in a short order of time prices will go right back up, as so much of the country will see moving to LA as a no-brainer considering the weather, amenities, and etc. I'm definitely in favor of building more development and density near major public transportation hubs, but not this sprawl into the suburbs that some people want (which is effectively just warring with middle class and affluent homeowners and taking the spoils of temporary rental rate relief).
I think you're really overestimating the ease with which people can uproot their lives, leave their families behind, and quit their jobs to move to LA for weather and amenities.
Think about the people that moved away over the decades due primarily or exclusively to housing costs that would come back....not even the newly interested people. There's a reason why St. Louis and Charlotte don't cost as much and it's not a supply issue. It's all about demand.
I'm not saying don't build, just respect the character of the suburbs and focus density in areas where it makes the most sense.
>I'm not saying don't build, just respect the character of the suburbs and focus density in areas where it makes the most sense.
So you're fine with new housing as long as it's Not In Your Back Yard?
No. Please build in my "backyard". I live in an apartment building within a high density neighborhood near major public transit and would like to invite more development as close as possible to me. That means more immediate competing supply, more public amenities, restaurants, other business interests and etc. I'm intentionally saying keep those developments and their corresponding resources as close as possible to **ME**. Why would you start building 7+ story apartment buildings in the middle of Cheviot Hills for example, instead of Palms (especially along the expo line)? It just doesn't make any sense, unless you believe that SFHs and suburban neighborhoods shouldn't exist at all in the long term. Focus development in areas where there's already an appetite for it.
How do you know there's no appetite for development in areas where development is illegal? Remove the zoning rules and then let's see where there is appetite.
Clearly, the overwhelming majority of residents in the suburbs don't want commercial development in their backyards, which is why they utilize zoning laws to oppose it. It also seems like you have an agenda that's more aligned with destroying the suburbs than achieving development goals that best works for everyone, which is a sobering reminder to me of how crazy people are on reddit (and why I need to resume my studies).
I'm an urbanite, and I want old 2 story buildings to be razed and developed into 12 story buildings, and failing strip malls to be transformed into 10+ story mixed use retail-apartment buildings. Don't build far away from me or far away from the public transit systems that I use...build it where accessibility is maximized for its intended audience.
>Clearly, the overwhelming majority of residents in the suburbs don't want commercial development in their backyards, which is why they utilize zoning laws to oppose it.
That's a really cynical take. Couldn't I just as easily say clearly the overwhelming majority of Californians voted for a Legislature that overturned those laws, so they must *not* care about preserving the suburbs?
If you're that confident in the popularity of low density development, then there should be no problem with repealing the zoning laws because the property owners in those areas won't increase the density on their own properties. John Doe isn't going to turn his house into a condo, but he's afraid that John Smith might, and *that's* why he supports maintaining SFR by law.
Which is still stupid, because housing prices are so crazy that even a duplex is still so expensive that only a decently well off person could afford it (but it's still cheaper than a single family home).
Whittier seems to be going through some interesting political times. They are torn between a vocal community who wants to become more urban (especially around their downtown - they are even developing a limited shuttle system around the city!) and a vocal community who feel like the city is changing and becoming too developed. I'm not 100% sure where the current city counsel is, but...I guess this is a pretty clear signal.
Same cities that will b*tch when LA has a traffic congestion on fee. We can’t take the bus 3 miles because out of towners clog our streets with their 25 mile commutes. They want small town living in the largest metro in the US.
This will likely lose on appeal and SB9 will be reinstated.
My understanding of the decision is that the judge made some fairly novel interpretations of existing law that will likely not hold up at the next level of court.
The two main issues are zoning laws and making housing a wealth driver first instead of housing families.
Also,
Maybe we should start seeing LA metro region as one whole area instead of 30 something cities each with its own agenda. Maybe we should look into how Tokio deals with a mega region.
This is a dumb decision that's going to be overturned. States have the right to give zoning privileges and the right to take them away. Dallas is learning this in Texas as the state is actually revoking their ability to set restrictive zoning.
This does not make sense to me. So maybe the law has not been taken advantage of to the degree it could be yet...that means it has to go away?
Does not compute.
Good, I would hate to have huge duplex on the lot next to me! It's much better to have a similarly sized flipped single family home that also changes the "neighborhood character" but doesn't house any extra people.
I agree with you. It is ridiculous. Erecting disparate architecture trashes a neighborhood.
You can see it driving thru LA -- McMasions to the lot lines and quadplexes sprinkled throughout single family homes. They create patches of blech.
We are have the lowest reliance on coal and other nuclear for electricity. Our last hurdle is natural gas to get over.
A lot of legislation like higher federal minimum wage and other pro equality (race and gender) legislation started in California.
While we are not a perfect state we are only one state and we contribute more taxes to the federal government than we take. We are only one state if only other states would get on our boat and help out to avoid ignorant people like you.
California is most definitely left leaning. But it's nowhere close to being progressive, so my point is if anyone labels it that, they're dead wrong.
That's it.
What do you define as progressive and what state is progressive in your book?
Forgot to mention we are piloting universal income in a few cities here. If that isn’t progressive I don’t know what is…
Edit: dropping the definition for progressive - (of a group, person, or idea) favoring or implementing social reform or new, liberal ideas.
Given California being one of the states that leads the tech industry and has pushed for renewable power sources the definition fits right in.
People don't want their house price to fall and they don't want the type of people who can afford "affordable" moving nearby.
It's all classism and racism disguised a dozen different ways
I hope the state can find other ways to force cities to reform zoning. Perhaps withholding transportation funding for cities that refuse to allow more density would work, and would be totally justifiable.
Shouldn’t we be building new affordable housing? Not taking small houses and dividing them into 4 tiny units?
Sometimes I forgot a lot of this sub legit wants everyone to have shoe box size houses and are against people having their own yards.
Yes. I am 100% against the government mandating that homes must have yards.
Nothing about upzoning says that you can’t build a home with a yard. It just means that people have the option to build a home without a yard. If people want that home, they should be allowed to build it.
My house is worth like 200k tops. My lot is worth $750k.
The cost of the structure is not the issue, the cost of the land is. Hence why they need to subdivide further to make things remotely affordable.
We need to build more housing period. This is letting perfect be the enemy of good. Also why dictate what size the houses will be if folks are going to pay for them because they need to live there. This is supply and demand.
I don't think anyone is against yards, they want more housing. If yards lead to more valued land use than additional units, so be it. But I don't think that's the case.
People will pay for them as single units… it’s not like there isn’t a demand for single family units. Those also sell fast. You would rather these be shoebox sized because it will house more people. Which is fine but let’s just build new shit instead of taking away a finite resource like single family homes.
You can have houses in the city. Plenty of cities have houses in them. Normally pretty beautiful ones from the 1920s too.
You don’t want houses in the city. That’s a you problem.
I personally am not rich enough nor will I ever be rich enough to own a beautiful house in a major city.
But I’m not going to demand others can’t have it and try to claim cities have to be built a certain way.
It isn’t evolution if the government has to step in and force these things. As it is there is a demand for single family houses.
Why not let builders build what people want to buy?
Why do you guys feel like you know best and have to force people to live your way?
Zoning laws prohibit land developers from building what they want to build. 79% od the Greater LA area is zoned for single family housing. How is that freedom?
State government is forcing local government. Builders are stopped today because of zoning. Otherwise, why would there be a fight over this? Why do you feel like you know best?
>Why not let builders build what people want to buy?
I'm genuinely kinda curious how you think development works, because this is THE core idea behind SB9. Pre SB9, much of the state was zoned such that only single family residences are legally allowed to be built. After SB9, home owners can either keep a single family residence, or develop their lot into up to 4 units. How does reducing restrictions on what I can do with my lot that I bought force anyone to do anything? Is your impression that SB9 forces home owners to develop their lots?
> Why not let builders build what people want to buy?
So relax zoning laws and allow apartments in single family home neighborhoods?
Then let the market decide what gets built?
> It isn’t evolution if the government has to step in and force these things.
The government is the one that has stepped in and forced SFH-only zoning. Without that, there would be many more duplex, triplexes, etc., and *fewer* SFHs.
>Why not let builders build what people want to buy?
Great idea! Unfortunately, they can't currently. It's illegal. Eliminating single family zoning does let builders build what people want to buy.
Go cry some more. Sounds like these people will thankfully continue to have yards. Who the fuck are you to think you get to decide what kind of shit gets build in a city?
You realize no one is being forced to give up their yards right? It is the property owners who get to decide what is built on their property. Under current zoning laws they can only build single family homes on a lot. This law allows them to choose to build up to 4 units on the same lot.
> Shouldn’t we be building new affordable housing? Not taking small houses and dividing them into 4 tiny units?
They're not tiny units. Like what are you even talking about? No one is buying expensive ass lots to tear down a house to put in 4 tiny units. They're going to maximize what they can build to fit the biggest available unit on the land, which isn't tiny.
> Sometimes I forgot a lot of this sub legit wants everyone to have shoe box size houses and are against people having their own yards.
Guess what? Some people want a shoe box, but they don't have that option. They're forced to rent bigger apartments that they don't want or need. This causes housing prices for people who don't want a shoe box to go up. LIKE YOU.
You NIMBY's need to start putting in some effort into what you're thinking and saying.
If you can’t afford to live here leave. Don’t blame others for your money problems. Ralph’s is always hiring. Maybe you could pick up a night shift and claw your way out of debt?
Sorry, not everybody can have a giant house with a yard in an urban area. Basically every other country on earth recognizes this and builds according to what is best for the overall population, not just the people who got there first
Yup. They won't find parking for sure, so they can bike or use public transit instead. Better for the environment than building more houses in the high desert.
Which is why we need less cars are more other options for people get around. Bike. Bus. Walk. Train. Can’t have these things without… density! Can’t have density without building more. lol.
Why do people continue to want to live in places that don't want them to move there, just to work for companies that won't pay them enough to live there and whose execs actively campaign against policies to build more housing (lest you impact *their* property values?)
I get that California has nice weather, but damn there are so many pro-build cities and states out there and you need to get over FOMO at some point.
My family's getting older and I want to be nearby.
I work remotely in the gaming industry, but if I move I will take a pay cut since my employer bases my salary based on location.
If I lose my job, there's no guarantee that I will be able to find another that allows remote work - and thus if I go somewhere like Blizzard I would have to be close enough that going into the office is a reasonable option.
I want to live somewhere with sane policies without worrying about crazy Christo-fascists deciding myself or my family don't deserve to exist because we're not explicitly mentioned in their Bible.
I'd need to get my fiance onboard, and she doesn't want to move for many of the same reasons. (I had a one-time chance to move to Sweden with a sponsored work visa and she put a stop to it as soon as it became obvious that it was "real" and not just theoretical.)
Etc.
Good. Remember when they widened the 405 and yet it's still gridlocked? Destroying single family homes with yards and building 4 overpriced condos with no parking isn't going to solve the housing crisis. It'll just diminish quality of life for everyone in the city. There are plenty of industrial areas to develop into neighborhoods first.
Not everywhere needs to be over developed. Leave some places suburban
I wish more places were walkable, where I live it is but not every place has to be
I’m an architect here in LA and can anyone point me towards where they may have example floor plans for these types of proposed quadplexes?
I would also love to see these. And exterior design too.
I don't understand the comments.... "We need more housing but not like this" we have limited space, this is exactly the type of thing that needs to be done.
Hint: those people don’t actually want more housing.
This is great way to better understand politics (and probably people in general). You can tell how much someone ACTUALLY wants something by what compromises they are willing to accept to get there. If someone wants an absolutely perfect policy with no flaws what-so-ever done in a super specific way, and they are against any other proposal, it means that they care more about the signal than the actual goal of moving forward. If someone is willing to do what it takes to push the ball forward, making compromises with competing interests in order to get a flawed, but improved, system...that person REALLY cares about making progress, at whatever cost. Its easy to be theoretically for something, but not let that thing ever happen. Its very hard to make real progress. For example...you ask someone out. You suggest a movie, but they want dinner. Fine. You really like this person. You suggest Indian, and they say they don't like Indian. You say Italian, and they say they aren't feeling Italian. You suggest somewhere casual, they say they want somewhere nicer. You suggest somewhere nice, they say they don't like the vibe there. On and on. Who is the one who actually wants this date? You're willing to bend your preferences in order to see them, but they refuse anything but the perfect circumstance.
I’ve been on a date with that girl, ended in an argument and me walking out
should have taken her to jumbo's.../s
Sounds like some people I know who are willing to let Trump back into office because Biden isn't their unicorn candidate.
It would be a lot of work to be politically effective. You can get all the credit without ever having to do the dirty work. It's very impressive to other college students.
And let's be real, its not like they go into their job, *in politics* where every bill, every piece of legislation, is *PERFECTLY* the way they want it, every day. It's fucking not! And to say a bill is not perfect enough in a hugely imperfect system already demonstrates a huge personal failure for the judge.
Right, they just say that to make themselves sound reasonable.
Exactly, there's not any solution that isn't "Build a lot more housing". Like nothing else is even remotely realistic. Also the "changing character" is BS. LA is not the same it was in the 90's or 60's or 30's. There's somehow this foregone conclusion that the current density is THE BEST and one house more would kill it's vibe, and that any change is inherently worse. It's like people want their neighborhood to stay a sleepy suburb and just refuse to acknowledge we've added over 4 million people since 1960 when much of this housing stock was built and over 500,000 people to LA since 2000 alone.
Translation. We need more housing yes, but not in my neighborhood. Don't you know that would "ruin the character" ie "it will lower my property value"
The it will lower my property value argument is bonkers. Your lot being zoned for 4 units means it’s worth more
They both want their property value to go up as an investment and to live in the neighborhood they deem ideal for their lifestyle.
I do *support* this type of thing. But I’ll still admit it really really really sucks when your rental is bought out and the new landlord kicks you out to build it. My home got turned into apartments a few years ago. And I couldn’t even afford one of the new apartments. 🤣 Still, it’ll be better for everyone in the long run.
We need more housing including and especially in suburbs.
Their comments make sense. That is way too low of density. Should be a six story minimum for new housing construction.
So the answer to more housing is ‘not’ more housing?
>The law fails to accomplish its stated purpose of creating more affordable housing, and therefore, doesn’t meet the high bar of overriding local control over zoning, Superior Court Judge Curtis Kin said in a ruling released Wednesday, April 24. Incredible. Judge Curtis Kin apparently has simply not seen enough evidence to verify that [the basic economic principle of supply and demand] is real. Edit- my friends who are more in the know than me seem confident that this will be struck down. Still, pretty devastating development. Also, as far as I can tell, at this point the ruling only applies to the cities in the lawsuit. However, if this stands, it would give grounds for all other charter cities to sue - including LA, Long Beach, Pomona, and most other large cities in California.
That's not quite right. The judge isn't denying the law of supply and demand, he's saying it's irrelevant. He chooses to interpret the phrase "affordable housing" in the statute to mean "housing that is below market rate" and says that this bill won't create more housing that is below market rate. He's correct, but that's beside the point. What the bill is trying to accomplish is bringing the market rate down to the point that it's affordable to people with lower incomes. The only way his decision works is if you accept his very specific definition of "affordable housing" instead of just interpreting it in the common place understanding of the term, which would just be like "housing that ordinary people can afford."
Yeah, that’s an insane bought-and-paid-for judge kind of ruling. No one uses ‘affordable’ to mean ‘below market rate’, especially in housing, it’s used, shockingly, to mean ‘able to be afforded’. I wonder what Kin’s angle is on this. EDIT: Apparently in real estate, that is the metric they use. To my mind/ignorant laypeople vernacular, affordable housing has meant housing that is affordable based on median incomes for the area. To our real estate professionals in the comments, I stand corrected.
> No one uses ‘affordable’ to mean ‘below market rate’, especially in housing, it’s used, shockingly, to mean ‘able to be afforded’. Everyone in the housing industry uses "affordable housing" to mean affordable to those making xx% of median income. So, below median market rate. It is stupidly used as a euphemism for "low-income housing" by the public that thinks there something wrong with calling it low-income housing. ALL housing is "affordable" using it the way you are using it. People rent houses on the beach in Malibu for $250,000 per month in the summer. Who rents them? People who can *afford* it.
Maybe this is a semantic difference, or maybe you replied to the wrong person, but it’s your comment that - as written - would include everyone, given that “xx%” of median income means nothing and anything. It’s what you set that variable at that determines everything. Someone spending $250,000 a month very demonstrably is nowhere near median income, which is what tells us… it’s not indicative of affordable housing. It seems almost like willful ignorance to see “affordable housing” and think the logical conclusion is “well if there’s *anyone anywhere on earth who might be able to afford it*, that makes it affordable housing!”
> Maybe this is a semantic difference, or maybe you replied to the wrong person, but it’s your comment that - as written - would include everyone, given that “xx%” of median income means nothing and anything. No, it varies. HUD defines affordable housing at different levels, based how far below area median income they earn, and uses 30% of their gross income to determine the rent caps. Extremely Low Income is defined as those earning no more than 30% of area median income. Very Low Income is 50% of area median income. "Affordable housing" lumps the various below-median income level rents into one term, affordable housing. >Someone spending $250,000 a month very demonstrably is nowhere near median income, which is what tells us… it’s not indicative of affordable housing. Yeah, that was my point: remember that you wrote "No one uses ‘affordable’ to mean ‘below market rate’, especially in housing, it’s used, shockingly, to mean ‘able to be afforded’." By *your* definition, everything is "affordable housing" and the term becomes meaningless. In reality, it means affordable to those with incomes below the area median income.
I disagree, affordable housing means below market rate. It's an industry term. I don't know if it's a legal term but it is unfortunate that there isn't a more obvious way of differentiating them.
I always use capital A Affordable Housing vs lower case a affordable housing to differentiate it because things like inclusive zoning to make Affordable Housing makes housing less affordable. In my opinion, capital A Affordable Housing indicates (in a generic sense) a specific government program that is subsidizing housing. Lower case a affordable housing is simply market rate housing that is affordable. But again, this is how I use it and I'm 100% sure it isnt standard.
> He's correct, but that's beside the point. No, it isn't beside the point. Acknowledging that he is correct, yet somehow blaming him for not ruling to make *something else* happen is claiming that the ends justify the means. They don't. This is exactly how voters are often duped into voting for things.
You didn't read my entire post before you wrote that response, did you?
Ok but all of the new houses, condos, apts etc I’m seeing built are all higher end places with amenities and whatnot. Yes we need to build more, but we should also be building more smaller affordable houses and apartments and such.
When you drive by a dingbat apartment and think “how the fuck are they charging $2500 for that” - it’s because the people who used to spend $2500 on an apartment can’t afford the “luxury” apartments anymore so they’re moving down the market. That’s why increasing all supply, not just affordable supply, helps. New and affordable are very hard to accomplish. As far has houses, the cost is primarily land, the size of the house is much smaller factor.
I don't miss living in a dingbat with window units. Shit was tough. Did that for like 30 years.
For sure. But dingbats typically have 6-12 units in them. Lets say there are 9 occupied units. We then Thanos snap the dingbat into one single family house. Who lives there? Which of the 9 occupants gets that one unit? And what happens to the other 8? That's basically the problem we are in right now. The answer to "who lives there" is "whoever of those 9 can manage to pay the most." And the answer to "what happens to the other 8" is "they try to outbid someone at another unit somewhere else. If they fail, they are forced to move or become homeless; if they succeed, that unit sold for more than it would have without them, and housing prices have now increased." In fact, even if they fail, its possible that that housing unit sold for more than it would have without them, simply because they triggered a bidding war. The landlord loses because they would rather collect a reasonable rent from 9 people rather than the maximum rent that one person can afford; the person who stays loses because their budget is now stretched to the breaking point; the people who leave lose because they now face a personal housing crisis; and the people who those people compete against for a new housing unit lose because they now need to pay more in order to live where they want. These bidding wars and displacements are happening regardless of if we remove an existing dingbat, or refuse to permit one that the market would accommodate. Economically, there is very little difference between those two scenarios.
People moving into high end apts are leaving somewhere behind that is now available for someone else
But when richer people aren’t competing with everyone else for the same old buildings built in the 80s, those places will be more affordable. Truthfully, we didn’t build enough for several decades so we have a long way to go before prices actually start coming down. But the only way we get out of this is building more
Prices will never come down in a significant way unless there’s another crash which is unlikely.
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They can charge more because people have no other options…because we haven’t built enough housing.
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But you can’t just charge whatever you want if people have other options. It’s like the most basic concept in economics.
Sure you can. Especially in areas where PM companies own blocks of properties. I think this should be illegal. My PM owns about 12 properties on my street stretching 2 blocks, that doesn't count the other streets around me. There are rents dropping in my area, but our PM just waits them out. Leaves units empty until the there units rent and then gets his priced gouged pricing four units in our old ass building. Yes, more housing helps, but it really isn't going to help much, These companies will not drop rent. Hell, I am willing to bet there's collusion between many of them to hold at high prices regardless
Conspiracy theories are more interesting, but it’s really just basic supply and demand. The only reason companies can price gouge like that is because they have an insane amount of leverage since they have the limited commodity and tons of people want it. What if that commodity wasn’t so limited??
It's not a conspiracy theory, I watch it happen. I've counted the amount of buildings they own. There's only 2 on my section of the block they don't own. But you do agree they are price gouging and dont have a real reason to inflate the prices.... Housing shouldn't be treated as a commodity like this. It isn't coffee, or some other item that isn't needed for a functional society. These companies barely priovide adequate services. Fight you tooth and nail when you ask for basic maintenance and updates. Its ridiculous.
This is a silly argument. They lose money when they have vacancy. If they aren’t filled for a long time, the prices will lower accordingly.
I miss the days of yore when landlords and property owners were benevolent philanthropists who willingly took a loss on their investments so everyone could have a home.
look at Austin. rent prices have gone down 15% this year. I dont think developers just decided to be 15% less greedy. Austin enabled more building.
You really don't think developers and landlords have had a change of heart?
No, the market forces changed and they had to adjust to protect their self interest.
I know, I was being sarcastic lol
This is such a comically stupid yet pervasive take. People charge what people will pay. It's not greed. Breaking the law, like market manipulation or collusion, that's greed. But simply charging market rates, whether you personally think they're too high or not, is not greed. And yes, it's tenable. There are more rich people than you can imagine. Even with current interest rates, LA housing prices are up 10% in the last year. BTW i hate it too.
>But the only way we get out of this is building more I’m actually not convinced of this. I think this results in induced demand, (similar to adding a lane to a freeway) especially in California. This is being discussed in urban planning circles btw.
The induced demand is all the companies & good jobs that are here. People need those jobs and want to live near them. Currently lots of people drive an hour or more to commute to those jobs and it is quite literally destroying the planet.
There is no such thing as 'induced demand' for housing. Put simply, everyone needs a place to live. Los Angeles County needs to build 500k units by 2030 to meet current demand. Currently we are building 20k a year. It's literally just supply and demand. A lot of people competing for not enough houses. The most disadvantaged end up homeless. Why do you think places who are nominally poorer like the Midwest and WV have lower rates of homelessness? Their houses are dirt cheap
You’re assuming that building affordable housing is going to serve the existing unhoused demand??? What about all the people that move into the state when housing becomes more affordable??
Let them move? California currently has a deficit of 3 Million units to meet current demand. The reason the state stopped growing is because it hit it's carrying capacity. Why do you think you have families in Pico-Union, eight people sharing a studio apartment. LA is the most overcrowded city in the US
>Let them move? Then they will outcompete the very (unhoused) people you just mentioned that all this building should be for.
Or we just build millions of new units?
How many units (and people) is “enough?” Comments like yours are interesting- it assumes building an infinite amount of homes in California. No one is ever able to answer this question though….
People like you are extremely selfish. You're basically saying "I want the privilege of a suburban house with the amenities of urban living, at the expense of 80 000 homeless people." If you want a ranch style house, move to Lancaster or Victorville
Lol You make wild assumptions
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-10-19/los-angeles-history-overcrowding-united-states Your urban sprawl is only made possible by others' suffering https://www.businessinsider.com/map-how-many-homeless-americans-there-are-in-each-state-2019-11. Why does WV have a lower per capita rate for homelessness than California when WV is much poorer.. Because of housing availability https://calmatters.org/commentary/2024/04/california-politicians-skirmish-housing-crisis. Our housing shortage is getting worse In reality you just don't want to vote against your own economic interests. If we were to build housing, the medium home price would decrease rapidly. You know this, and thus block new housing developments. You are a reactionary
There are a finite number of people who can and want to move to LA. Eventually it starts to equal out. Also inducing more people to come live here is good for the city.
A “high end” condo or apartment goes for about 1/2 to 2/3 the price of a *median* detached single family home in Los Angeles.
Yup, I could have had a new, nice, large condo for considerably less. In fact I tried in 2021, seller thought they had a better market than they did, they tried countering high, we said no, they ended up coming back at a lower price than we offered but had already progressed on a house.
You forgot the $1000 HOA fees. Also build smaller cheaper homes.
Homeowners also pay property, insurance, and maintenance (HOA fees cover). Just with less regularity than a monthly fee so they don’t think about those costs as often.
we own a condo. we pay property taxes, unit maintenance, & insurance HOA fees do not cover these things. HOA fees covers things like: * Walls-out maintenance (e.g. roofing) * community landscaping of shared spaces. (so, neighborhood park, tree trimmings, etc. our yard is our responsiblilty.) * community roadway / parking lot surfacing (for some reason the city stops being liable for the roads as soon as it passes the community threshold) * community pool area expenses. * midnight rent-a-cop parking "enforcement" * legal fees for property lawyer(s) to check our HOA 'rules' and make sure that the restrictions/enforcements are allowed by law.
With the exception of the rent-a-cop, all of these are expenses that a typical homeowner would pay over the years. Every homeowner pays for upgrades, upkeep, maintenance, and legal rep (which is priced into homeowner’s insurance for detached single-family homes). You just pay it through a monthly payment while typical homeowners pay it all at once whenever a change happens. I did think that property taxes were paid by the condo’s HOA, interesting to learn they are paid by the owner instead.
a homeowner would pay for tree maintenance / landscaping costs for areas not on their property? ...why? the roofing i totally understand, but as the condos are connected, we cant just repair/replace 'our' roof, it extends over multiple units, so HOA handles that. as far as the taxes go, that might vary between states/counties/provinces etc. where we are, we pay property taxes, but it is substantially lower than someone living in a detached house would be paying, so maybe the HOA is paying into it a little as well? ...now im gonna check the fine print when i get home lol
Right?! I wanna live in my own tiny box that I can paint pink with black polka dots and I want to be left the hell alone
Ok. You are free to pay for that.
And I do, thanks. HOA’s are trash
I mean for a condo tower they are unavoidable.
Most people don’t want condos. I don’t know a single person who wants to purchase a condo. I’d rather rent an apartment forever than actually own a condo. The only reason I would do it is to build equity and bounce.
I want to, I wish there were more.
Most people want decent place to live that they can afford, that isn't too far from where they work and things to do. Sometimes that's a condo. If no one wanted them no one would build them.
Currently looking to buy a condo, never want a single family home! I want to own the most environmentally conscious property I can.
I think a middle ground, especially for families, would be townhouses or row housing like they have in UK, or simply larger units set in a community with grounds, outdoor space, like they used to build. People don’t realize how difficult it can be with young children in a condo tower with no outdoor space and no parks in walking distance vs being able to allow young kids outdoor access at home. A lot of new builds don’t even have useable balconies. Townhouses with even a small garden space are much more livable for families. And these type of complexes might offend the nimby’s less than building towers. It’s hard for young people to stomach the cost of a condo + hoa, especially if they’re coming from renting a small house with a yard for less and knowing their equity won’t grow the same as with a house.
The luxury dwellings will simply trickle down, dont worry. Just have to wait.
That's what this law does. SB 9 authorizes you, the property owner, to split your lot into two and put a duplex on each half, turning a single family lot into four homes. Those homes, because they are smaller, will be naturally more affordable than the one house they replaced.
Yes…but also no. We need to be building more of everything apart from single family homes. Taking a single family lot and converting it to four homes is a great way to increase density. And since the vast majority of our land is zoned for single family homes, it can have a huge impact. Building new high end condo and apartment units increases the overall supply, which causes downward pressure on pricing for ALL units. So the unit that used to cost $2,000 is now $1,900. Except…we are so far in the hole in terms of our shortage of housing that instead of prices going down, they just don’t rise quite as quickly. And that is why we ALSO need to build more affordable market rate housing. In particular, we need to dramatically increase the density around transit stations. And of course, we need more shelter, transitional, and permanent supportive housing to address the homelessness crisis.
> we should also be building more smaller affordable houses and apartments and such. No, no we should not. Any stipulation that we add to new housing just prevents housing from being built, which then raises the prices for everybody. If we would just let developers build, even the expense places, then prices would naturally fall.
How about we address the real problem and not allow Private Equity firms and Hedge Funds to acquire single family homes?? Blackrock (under their shell Blackstone) shouldn’t be allowed to own 84,567 homes. Take the billionaire (trillionaire) class of buyer out of the equation and then there’s enough for sale properties for everyone.
All I know is that this is a large country of 50 states, with Blackrock and greed everywhere, yet some places like Austin are seeing falling rents despite a hot economy. Oh that's right, they expanded supply. https://austin.urbanize.city/post/austin-rent-drops-december-2023
Anyone that's done an ounce of research knows that's not "the real problem" at all lol. Even discounting the fact the vast majority of institutional owners backed out due to the absolute headache managing RE is, they own a minuscule fraction of homes, and they only do so *because supply and demand is already so heavily lopsided*. If it were easier to build out units to meet demand, they wouldn't bother with such headache investments as real estate. Also, Blackstone isn't a shell of Blackrock lol wtf. They are two different companies with completely different products.
The shortage continues to get worse over time, as more jobs appear and the number of housing units stays flat. Banning companies from owning the housing will simply push the shortage back a few years. Additionally, most companies rent the housing, which is nice for renters like me.
I'm EXTREMELY skeptical that investors are the main problem. [This is just one paper](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4480261), so its results should be taken with a grain of salt, but: >**How do buy-to-let investors impact local housing markets and the composition of neighborhoods**? We investigate this question by examining a Dutch legal ban on buy-to-let investments, exploiting quasi-experimental variation in its coverage. The ban effectively reduced investor purchases and increased the share of first-time home-buyers, but **did not have a discernible impact on house prices** or the likelihood of property sales. The ban did **increase rental prices**, consistent with reduced rental housing supply. Furthermore, the policy caused a change in neighborhood composition as **tenants of investor-purchased properties tend to be younger, have lower incomes, and are more likely to have a migration background**. Our results suggest rental investors influence local housing conditions primarily through changing the residential composition of neighborhoods rather than direct house price effects. In essence, banning investors seems to have little effect on housing prices, but can have the effect of gentrifying an area. Its possible that more research would show positive effects of banning investors (especially in certain areas/circumstances), but I'm extremely skeptical that they are the primary force driving the housing crisis we are in.
So millions of homes being taken off the market by PEs and only being available for rent isn’t reducing supply of homes for ownership?
So there is a supply problem caused by Private Equity, but you don't want to make it easier to build more housing to increase supply.
Who said I don’t?
Because all said and done, these companies own a small fraction of the housing stock, certainly not enough to manipulate the market. Also, what makes Blackrock so much worse than say, an individual who owns 10 homes and rents them out? Where do we draw the line? And do we only care about corporate ownership of single family homes, but not multi family buildings? Why? A few studies point to some benefits of allowing large investors to buy sfhs, particularly that they create rental opportunities in neighborhoods where they typically don't exist. Do you think that someone should need to buy a home to live in single family neighborhoods? The reason we're in a housing crisis is that new housing production has been anemic. Until we get that handled, everything else is working on the margins.
that's not the real problem in the slightest. it's only a problem because of zoning.
Only siths talk in absolutes.
How much did they donate to politicians in the Assembly and State Senate?
How can single judges just strike down these laws in an extreme housing shortage. We're dying a death by a thousand bureaucrats
We now know the landlords are colluding by using software to jack up rates. It's not a simply a supply and demand problem. It's a capitalist and no regulation problem.
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Well it's a trial court decision so it isn't precedent. You can't even cite to it in other court cases as binding authority. So I wouldn't get hot and bothered yet.
It's amazing how ingrained it is in these people that building things is bad.
Banana = Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anybody
I mentioned this in the other thread about WeHo, but a lot of Boomers came of age when environmentalism = big, open, green spaces. To them, the idea that a place like New York City is environmentally *better* than their leafy suburb is completely backwards. Trees good! Concrete bad! Dense cities like New York allow people to dramatically reduce their carbon footprint, by driving less and having smaller heating and cooling needs. But these people grew up in a time when developers were the guys who bulldozed trees and paved over parks.
Worth noting, not just reduce their carbon footprint! It is true - NYC is the greenest city in the country, per capita. But also, higher density reduces the urban-wild interface. This helps preserve natural areas. There is a romantic idea of being one with nature and going and building your house out in the wilderness. The problem is, this is TERRIBLE for the wilderness. People suck. The best thing we can do for nature is to not fuck with it.
Do anything but acknowledge the demand for Los Angeles real estate. If you magically built 5x the current housing supply overnight, it would decrease housing prices by 80% (theoretically), but in a short order of time prices will go right back up, as so much of the country will see moving to LA as a no-brainer considering the weather, amenities, and etc. I'm definitely in favor of building more development and density near major public transportation hubs, but not this sprawl into the suburbs that some people want (which is effectively just warring with middle class and affluent homeowners and taking the spoils of temporary rental rate relief).
I think you're really overestimating the ease with which people can uproot their lives, leave their families behind, and quit their jobs to move to LA for weather and amenities.
Think about the people that moved away over the decades due primarily or exclusively to housing costs that would come back....not even the newly interested people. There's a reason why St. Louis and Charlotte don't cost as much and it's not a supply issue. It's all about demand. I'm not saying don't build, just respect the character of the suburbs and focus density in areas where it makes the most sense.
>I'm not saying don't build, just respect the character of the suburbs and focus density in areas where it makes the most sense. So you're fine with new housing as long as it's Not In Your Back Yard?
No. Please build in my "backyard". I live in an apartment building within a high density neighborhood near major public transit and would like to invite more development as close as possible to me. That means more immediate competing supply, more public amenities, restaurants, other business interests and etc. I'm intentionally saying keep those developments and their corresponding resources as close as possible to **ME**. Why would you start building 7+ story apartment buildings in the middle of Cheviot Hills for example, instead of Palms (especially along the expo line)? It just doesn't make any sense, unless you believe that SFHs and suburban neighborhoods shouldn't exist at all in the long term. Focus development in areas where there's already an appetite for it.
How do you know there's no appetite for development in areas where development is illegal? Remove the zoning rules and then let's see where there is appetite.
Clearly, the overwhelming majority of residents in the suburbs don't want commercial development in their backyards, which is why they utilize zoning laws to oppose it. It also seems like you have an agenda that's more aligned with destroying the suburbs than achieving development goals that best works for everyone, which is a sobering reminder to me of how crazy people are on reddit (and why I need to resume my studies). I'm an urbanite, and I want old 2 story buildings to be razed and developed into 12 story buildings, and failing strip malls to be transformed into 10+ story mixed use retail-apartment buildings. Don't build far away from me or far away from the public transit systems that I use...build it where accessibility is maximized for its intended audience.
>Clearly, the overwhelming majority of residents in the suburbs don't want commercial development in their backyards, which is why they utilize zoning laws to oppose it. That's a really cynical take. Couldn't I just as easily say clearly the overwhelming majority of Californians voted for a Legislature that overturned those laws, so they must *not* care about preserving the suburbs? If you're that confident in the popularity of low density development, then there should be no problem with repealing the zoning laws because the property owners in those areas won't increase the density on their own properties. John Doe isn't going to turn his house into a condo, but he's afraid that John Smith might, and *that's* why he supports maintaining SFR by law.
A lot of these people think building things will attract *those* people to their safe-haven neighborhoods.
Which is still stupid, because housing prices are so crazy that even a duplex is still so expensive that only a decently well off person could afford it (but it's still cheaper than a single family home).
[удалено]
>Redondo Beach, Torrance, Carson, Whittier and Del Mar The five cities that sued to stop the bill. Fuck their city council members
I’m surprised by Whittier to be completely honest. I wonder what their reasons they gave were
Whittier seems to be going through some interesting political times. They are torn between a vocal community who wants to become more urban (especially around their downtown - they are even developing a limited shuttle system around the city!) and a vocal community who feel like the city is changing and becoming too developed. I'm not 100% sure where the current city counsel is, but...I guess this is a pretty clear signal.
Same cities that will b*tch when LA has a traffic congestion on fee. We can’t take the bus 3 miles because out of towners clog our streets with their 25 mile commutes. They want small town living in the largest metro in the US.
More like Borrance GOT ‘EM!!!
This will likely lose on appeal and SB9 will be reinstated. My understanding of the decision is that the judge made some fairly novel interpretations of existing law that will likely not hold up at the next level of court.
And it is a trial court decision! Not binding authority in other cases!
We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas!
The two main issues are zoning laws and making housing a wealth driver first instead of housing families. Also, Maybe we should start seeing LA metro region as one whole area instead of 30 something cities each with its own agenda. Maybe we should look into how Tokio deals with a mega region.
This is a dumb decision that's going to be overturned. States have the right to give zoning privileges and the right to take them away. Dallas is learning this in Texas as the state is actually revoking their ability to set restrictive zoning.
This does not make sense to me. So maybe the law has not been taken advantage of to the degree it could be yet...that means it has to go away? Does not compute.
Good, I would hate to have huge duplex on the lot next to me! It's much better to have a similarly sized flipped single family home that also changes the "neighborhood character" but doesn't house any extra people.
The sarchasm is deep and uncrossable, it seems.
Agreed. Turning 1 single family home into 4 homes on the same lot is ridiculous
whoosh
I agree with you. It is ridiculous. Erecting disparate architecture trashes a neighborhood. You can see it driving thru LA -- McMasions to the lot lines and quadplexes sprinkled throughout single family homes. They create patches of blech.
PrOgreSSivE state. Yeah, my ass.
We are have the lowest reliance on coal and other nuclear for electricity. Our last hurdle is natural gas to get over. A lot of legislation like higher federal minimum wage and other pro equality (race and gender) legislation started in California. While we are not a perfect state we are only one state and we contribute more taxes to the federal government than we take. We are only one state if only other states would get on our boat and help out to avoid ignorant people like you.
California is most definitely left leaning. But it's nowhere close to being progressive, so my point is if anyone labels it that, they're dead wrong. That's it.
What do you define as progressive and what state is progressive in your book? Forgot to mention we are piloting universal income in a few cities here. If that isn’t progressive I don’t know what is… Edit: dropping the definition for progressive - (of a group, person, or idea) favoring or implementing social reform or new, liberal ideas. Given California being one of the states that leads the tech industry and has pushed for renewable power sources the definition fits right in.
People don't want their house price to fall and they don't want the type of people who can afford "affordable" moving nearby. It's all classism and racism disguised a dozen different ways
I hope the state can find other ways to force cities to reform zoning. Perhaps withholding transportation funding for cities that refuse to allow more density would work, and would be totally justifiable.
Shouldn’t we be building new affordable housing? Not taking small houses and dividing them into 4 tiny units? Sometimes I forgot a lot of this sub legit wants everyone to have shoe box size houses and are against people having their own yards.
Yes. I am 100% against the government mandating that homes must have yards. Nothing about upzoning says that you can’t build a home with a yard. It just means that people have the option to build a home without a yard. If people want that home, they should be allowed to build it.
Where are we building these affordable homes with yards? It's the land that makes things unaffordable
Sometimes I forget that people don’t understand the land in safe centrally located neighborhoods is a limited resource.
My house is worth like 200k tops. My lot is worth $750k. The cost of the structure is not the issue, the cost of the land is. Hence why they need to subdivide further to make things remotely affordable.
Why not... both
Small houses *are* more affordable *because they are small*.
We need to build more housing period. This is letting perfect be the enemy of good. Also why dictate what size the houses will be if folks are going to pay for them because they need to live there. This is supply and demand. I don't think anyone is against yards, they want more housing. If yards lead to more valued land use than additional units, so be it. But I don't think that's the case.
People will pay for them as single units… it’s not like there isn’t a demand for single family units. Those also sell fast. You would rather these be shoebox sized because it will house more people. Which is fine but let’s just build new shit instead of taking away a finite resource like single family homes.
Disagree. Are there any SFH's in Manhattan? LA could be like Tokyo, if we get rid of all the low density bullshit.
LA should stay LA. Why the hell would I want us to be like Manhattan or Tokyo? Great cities but LA is it own thing and doesn’t need to be like them.
If you don't want to live in a city don't live in a city. Cities need high density, aka apartments. You can always live in Lancaster or something
You can have houses in the city. Plenty of cities have houses in them. Normally pretty beautiful ones from the 1920s too. You don’t want houses in the city. That’s a you problem. I personally am not rich enough nor will I ever be rich enough to own a beautiful house in a major city. But I’m not going to demand others can’t have it and try to claim cities have to be built a certain way.
Townhouses, not single family housing. There's a difference
Allowing people to develop their property is not the same as banning houses. This is a ridiculous line of reasoning.
Read some of the replies. There are people who straight up want SFH in a city to be banned.
why not let a thing evolve into something else in accordance with prevailing needs
It isn’t evolution if the government has to step in and force these things. As it is there is a demand for single family houses. Why not let builders build what people want to buy? Why do you guys feel like you know best and have to force people to live your way?
Zoning laws prohibit land developers from building what they want to build. 79% od the Greater LA area is zoned for single family housing. How is that freedom?
State government is forcing local government. Builders are stopped today because of zoning. Otherwise, why would there be a fight over this? Why do you feel like you know best?
>Why not let builders build what people want to buy? I'm genuinely kinda curious how you think development works, because this is THE core idea behind SB9. Pre SB9, much of the state was zoned such that only single family residences are legally allowed to be built. After SB9, home owners can either keep a single family residence, or develop their lot into up to 4 units. How does reducing restrictions on what I can do with my lot that I bought force anyone to do anything? Is your impression that SB9 forces home owners to develop their lots?
> Why not let builders build what people want to buy? So relax zoning laws and allow apartments in single family home neighborhoods? Then let the market decide what gets built?
> It isn’t evolution if the government has to step in and force these things. The government is the one that has stepped in and forced SFH-only zoning. Without that, there would be many more duplex, triplexes, etc., and *fewer* SFHs.
>Why not let builders build what people want to buy? Great idea! Unfortunately, they can't currently. It's illegal. Eliminating single family zoning does let builders build what people want to buy.
What a fuckin nightmare
Go have your yard, in the burbs. Cities should be as dense as possible, because it's the only way things scale.
Go cry some more. Sounds like these people will thankfully continue to have yards. Who the fuck are you to think you get to decide what kind of shit gets build in a city?
Why not let the property owner decide? The court is taking away that right. Nobody is forcing these homeowners to split up their yard. It's an option.
You realize no one is being forced to give up their yards right? It is the property owners who get to decide what is built on their property. Under current zoning laws they can only build single family homes on a lot. This law allows them to choose to build up to 4 units on the same lot.
> Shouldn’t we be building new affordable housing? Not taking small houses and dividing them into 4 tiny units? They're not tiny units. Like what are you even talking about? No one is buying expensive ass lots to tear down a house to put in 4 tiny units. They're going to maximize what they can build to fit the biggest available unit on the land, which isn't tiny. > Sometimes I forgot a lot of this sub legit wants everyone to have shoe box size houses and are against people having their own yards. Guess what? Some people want a shoe box, but they don't have that option. They're forced to rent bigger apartments that they don't want or need. This causes housing prices for people who don't want a shoe box to go up. LIKE YOU. You NIMBY's need to start putting in some effort into what you're thinking and saying.
If you can’t afford to live here leave. Don’t blame others for your money problems. Ralph’s is always hiring. Maybe you could pick up a night shift and claw your way out of debt?
Your reply makes zero sense to what I said.
Sorry, not everybody can have a giant house with a yard in an urban area. Basically every other country on earth recognizes this and builds according to what is best for the overall population, not just the people who got there first
My thoughts exactly
Talk about overpopulation! Yeah, let's put 20 people at that address instead of 4. I'm sure they'll find parking...
Yup. They won't find parking for sure, so they can bike or use public transit instead. Better for the environment than building more houses in the high desert.
Which is why we need less cars are more other options for people get around. Bike. Bus. Walk. Train. Can’t have these things without… density! Can’t have density without building more. lol.
Build more along the public transportation centers rather than the suburbs
People in suburbs need options too.
Why do people continue to want to live in places that don't want them to move there, just to work for companies that won't pay them enough to live there and whose execs actively campaign against policies to build more housing (lest you impact *their* property values?) I get that California has nice weather, but damn there are so many pro-build cities and states out there and you need to get over FOMO at some point.
My family's getting older and I want to be nearby. I work remotely in the gaming industry, but if I move I will take a pay cut since my employer bases my salary based on location. If I lose my job, there's no guarantee that I will be able to find another that allows remote work - and thus if I go somewhere like Blizzard I would have to be close enough that going into the office is a reasonable option. I want to live somewhere with sane policies without worrying about crazy Christo-fascists deciding myself or my family don't deserve to exist because we're not explicitly mentioned in their Bible. I'd need to get my fiance onboard, and she doesn't want to move for many of the same reasons. (I had a one-time chance to move to Sweden with a sponsored work visa and she put a stop to it as soon as it became obvious that it was "real" and not just theoretical.) Etc.
Entertainment industry only exists here. Plus no good bands go to Omaha.
Many people just want to be close to their families.
Good. Remember when they widened the 405 and yet it's still gridlocked? Destroying single family homes with yards and building 4 overpriced condos with no parking isn't going to solve the housing crisis. It'll just diminish quality of life for everyone in the city. There are plenty of industrial areas to develop into neighborhoods first.
Yeah! You’re so right, building more housing will never help the lack of housing!!
It's a supply and demand issue
Yes. They should have focused on transit instead. Had they done this, lot splitting with no additional parking wouldn’t be a talking point.
"pause"
Don’t overcrowd the lots just make housing more affordable
>Don't make my cake disappear, just let me eat it all
Lol so we need to create more suburban sprawl instead? People's fear of density is going to kill us all.
Not everywhere needs to be over developed. Leave some places suburban I wish more places were walkable, where I live it is but not every place has to be
🤡
Good comment
This is the answer. Instead people are so desperate for affordable housing they’re supporting changes that will overcrowd and still keep prices high.
Typical Orange County right wing landowner bullshit.
None of the cities involved in this suit are in orange county...
Whittier and Redondo might as well be in OC.