I need to follow-up with my city council agenda notes, but they recently met to talk about a rezoning proposal in an area very close to my house to pack in more people via reducing minimum square footage per person, and increasing allowable floors.
Interesting comments from one of my former students on housing
- Thread starter GON
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I need to follow-up with my city council agenda notes, but they recently met to talk about a rezoning proposal in an area very close to my house to pack in more people via reducing minimum square footage per person, and increasing allowable floors.
This is the thing. They are changing zoning laws everywhere. It’s not a specific locality but a mandate from higher up. This is happening in all kinds of neighborhoods and areas.
True story. A elderly woman lives about a block away from my brother in a single family neighborhood in Tacoma that is well established. The house next to her went up for sale and it sold quickly. Instead of a new neighbor the house was demolished and the property graded. A four story apartment building went in. Now this lot was not big. It’s a smaller size city lot. The new building covers the entire lot so the residents have to park on the street. This new building also cut off all the sunlight to the elderly woman’s house. Her small garden and fruit tree are useless now. In addition the residents are noisy and toss trash into her yard. They don’t care.
These are sprouting up everywhere.
Ya. This has been discussed ad nauseum within the industry for at least the past 6 years. Builders were badly burned in 2008 and consequently thousands of residential construction workers* exited the profession. Builders having learned their lessons combined with a lack of demand** for "starter homes" in the Post-2008 world created a perpetual undersupply of affordable housing as they chose to concentrate on more expensive "in fill", luxury custom and high rise. Historically low rates didn't help either.
* Wage increases for those who remained.
**General backlash against homeownership in general from the 25-30 yrs old demographic. Shunning home ownership in exchange for flexible living arrangements in an uncertain job environment.
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It's a catch-22. People are maxed out on commute times especially in those areas where commuting is exclusively via car. Businesses need workers so there needs to be affordable housing in areas where these businesses are located. Zoning creates artificial shortages in the supply labor for these businesses.
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Im surprised the property taxes are so low @ $6,300, sometimes that plays into the value of the home.
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/529-Joyce-Dr-Watsonville-CA-95076/16117295_zpid/
On the other side of the country here is a 1 BR condo with property taxes of $7,200 a year plus $2952 a year in HOA fees.
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/111-Laurel-Ln-UNIT-111-Wantagh-NY-11793/2056682254_zpid/
Well, if I didn't like it I could move, right? Same as Steph.
That tax figure was likely frozen for the current owner under proposition 13, which limited property tax increases for owners, particularly over age 60.
A new owner won’t be so lucky. It’ll be several times that.
There are a lotta other taxes... Trust me. I pay 10% CA state, sometimes more.
A good rule of thumb for California home buyers is to multiply their home's purchase price by 1.25%.
You are also protected from property tax increases by this - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13#Amendments
You pay well below market rates in both property tax and electricity.
Similar protections for all property owners in Nassau County Long Island. However when a property is listed, full taxes must be represented.
Agree, elections have consequences, both states have a well documented outflow of affluence.
So the big question is - if this is a golden goose - why aren't entities pursuing it? Does he have an answer?
Similar problems elsewhere - we lack electricity, but were not building power plants. We lack new automobiles, but the OEM's don't seem to be working on that too hard. They are investing in EV production but a lot of that is years out.
- Can't be capital. M2 is huge. There is always money for good investments.
- Could be labor, but honestly were not talking about something that takes 12 years to learn. You can overpay enough workers and then have them train new workers. This is what Boeing and Volvo cars did when they built plants here. They paid workers elsewhere enough to jump ship, then started apprentice programs, etc.
- Materials? Was at HD the other day and lumber seemed back to normal.
Strange?
You might be surprised on tax policy. I got burned pretty bad on the last changes because I ain't rich enough.
Not sure what you mean. What are my choices? I can't tell the next guy what to do with his/her assets any more than he/she can tell me what to do with mine.
No one was forcing the Atherton property owner to sell to a multi housing unit development.
Well, just as I suspected, we got out bid and the place is sold. Inventory is so low around here, especially for lower priced homes.
I am surprised they didn't counter our bid, as the winner was likely just a little higher. We are on backup, in case the winner falls through. But that's not likely because realtors generally don't accept bids that are not pre-qualified and can show proof of down. We were going in strong...
Maybe next time...
I am surprised they didn't counter our bid, as the winner was likely just a little higher. We are on backup, in case the winner falls through. But that's not likely because realtors generally don't accept bids that are not pre-qualified and can show proof of down. We were going in strong...
Maybe next time...
I’ve frequently thought about this since I found out my county is being courted by a couple entities. They not only want the county to “gift” them a little over a square mile of land, but also want the county to foot the bill for getting utilities out there as well (about 3 miles outside of current city limits). They want to build a 250 unit “economically diverse” apartment complex along with four, increasing-price subdivisions, with the lowest priced houses being about .15 acres and $150k minimum.
Now, my county is heavily farmed, so take that into account… but the average county income is like $32k/family. Would current residents benefit from this new development? Certainly not! But they will certainly reap the new taxes from the bonds the county will issue!
I pitched my idea to a few of the council people & commissioners; why don’t they bring in new BUSINESSES that pay employees more, and let the naturally rising tax base and capitalism drive the decisions. You don’t build 400 new homes with prices far above local market if you’re trying to help an area deal with a housing shortage. And no offense, but apartments are not the solution either.
People who have no business meddling in the housing market have made it hard for people to find reasonable housing, along with increasing incentives for businesses to hoard supply and then drive up the housing cost… then they reap the rewards again when the house is foreclosed on! I sure hope there’s a nice special extra-warm corner in hell for those people.
OP I fear your student is correct; we’ve nearly reached the end-game in Monopoly, and we’re not the folks with 4 hotels on our property.
This has less to do with increasing affordable housing, and more to do with political tricks that can’t be discussed on this board. There’s nothing honorable about their intentions here.
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