Speaking of overpriced real estate.

[PimTac]

There are literally hundreds or thousands of RVs all over the Seattle metro. They can park on city streets as long as they move every 72 hours. So you can always expect sudden neighbors.

It's actually a racket up here. There is one guy who is buying RVs at auction and then renting them out at low prices per month to those who cannot afford $1500-2000 a month for a studio or a bedspace. Slumlord millionaire 2018.

 

[Mr Nice]

Raise taxes to allow police officers and teachers to live in that area.

 

[bdcardinal]

Originally Posted by 2strokeNorthstar
The better question is why would a bank loan $$ for that pile of garbage? I don't understand California prices. People pay $450,000 for a house and let it look abandoned.


After the mortgage payment they can't afford to take care of the house. In Santa Barbara $450K will barely get you an apartment or run down condo.

 

[PandaBear]

Well, when "affordable housing" minimum requirement is 200k a year for a family of 4 in Palo Alto, you know the whole stuff is overheated.

Because the VC money is flowing in, because interest rate is low (better to gamble in the startup scene instead of buying Treasury Notes or MBS, them Chinese, Russian, Saudi, Singaporean got burnt last time).

Startup and FAANG competing for talents to grow means big money (stock + base + bonus is new grad $120k to senior $400k), so the winning side buy real estates and the losing side rent.

This is why we have a bunch of 1.8-2.4M house and $3k/mo apartment rent.

This is why everyone else cannot afford to live here, unless they grand fathered a rent controlled apartment.

This is also why apartments are splitting up and selling as condos, or nobody rent their house out, for the fear of rent control locking them into low rent.

Tax has little to do with it (maybe SALT, but not the state income tax, which is relatively small compare to the housing cost).