
The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It - jseliger
http://blog.zactownsend.com/broken-promises-the-housing-market-in-san-francisco-and-ten-ideas-to-fix-it
======
mdb333
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_%281...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_%281978%29)

Good thoughts. You failed to mention Prop 13 which was put into place a long
time ago and simply doesn't make sense anymore. It's at least part of the
reason it is so affordable (in relative terms) for rich people to keep second
homes here when they bought them years ago.

We live in a building of 60 units where probably at least a third of those are
absentee owners. They're rich enough and the cost to maintain is so low that
they don't even need or want to rent those units out. We've seen our neighbors
only 2-3 times in past 2 years... but if you look at the property tax bills of
folks who bought 10-20+ years ago they are minuscule and are only adjusted
upon sale of the property. In our case, we're paying easily 4x what the
previous owners were.

We moved from DC couple years back which is also very expensive but their tax
valuations are re-assessed on a regular basis so you don't have this huge
disparity in what the rich old people are paying in prop tax vs the young not
quite rich people are.

If values and property taxes were reassessed every 3 years or so this would
put more pressure on these absentee owners to either sell or rent their units
thus increasing existing inventory as well as adding to the city's coffers.

~~~
Agustus
In your example, the building you describe is a condominium? If so, then what
does it matter what your tax bill is and if they are absentee owners; if the
owner maintains the property, pays their bills and taxes, then you should be
happy to have them.

Tax reassessments during the boom of 2001 to 2007 were on track to price a lot
of people out of their houses based on their current economic status.
Proposition 13 and other bills passed across the country allowed individuals
to avoid being "taxed out" of their house.

If you have a job that pays $100,000 and the taxes on your $250,000 house is
$7,500 (3% property tax) and the tax quadruples to $30,000 in five years; why
would you want the market fluctuations to be able to force an individual to
leave their house?

The main item with this problem, as is with all affordability issues is that
supply is not meeting demand. Look in Detroit and Flint where there is not
enough demand and the supply is worth next to nothing.

Author's points of increased units would lead to a drop in prices until it
becomes affordable to all. San Francisco will never allow it because the
people who live there want to keep it San Francisco and NIMBY rules.

~~~
Renevith
> If you have a job that pays $100,000 and the taxes on your $250,000 house is
> $7,500 (3% property tax) and the tax quadruples to $30,000 in five years;
> why would you want the market fluctuations to be able to force an individual
> to leave their house?

I shed exactly zero tears for someone whose $250k property quadruples in value
to $1m in five years. Sell the house and dance with joy at your (untaxed!)
$750k capital gain.

The only argument for freezing tax assessments is to soak the new residents in
favor of the current residents. It's a result of the absolute worst kind of
democracy: voting to make other people pay more taxes.

~~~
Grishnakh
>I shed exactly zero tears for someone whose $250k property quadruples in
value to $1m in five years. Sell the house and dance with joy at your
(untaxed!) $750k capital gain.

Ok, now where are they supposed to live? All the other properties cost just as
much, so now they're forced to not only move out of the city, but now they
have to quit their job too! How is this productive? You're penalizing someone
for living in a housing bubble and not taking advantage of it. Even worse,
you're penalizing current residents for having their house values driven up by
a bunch of out-of-state (or out-of-country) investors and speculators.

~~~
floatrock
Being priced out of their home is one option.

The other option is to ease pressure on home prices by laying down the
NIMBYism and letting more housing be built in your community in a sustainable
way!

This is the whole the point of self-corrective market forces: sure, you can
choose to keep your low-density housing in a region that is attracting demand
with great weather and strong industry, but prices are going to appreciate if
you keep your doors closed to newcomers. Keep the door closed long enough and
your self-defeating actions will force yourself out as well (see palo alto,
where they now need to subsidize housing for anyone making under $250k/yr so
they can have people like teachers and firefighters still live in the
community).

The fact that taxes DON'T increase with demand distorts the self-corrective
market forces that would otherwise stop people from closing the door to
affordability.

~~~
gozur88
>The other option is to ease pressure on home prices by laying down the
NIMBYism and letting more housing be built in your community in a sustainable
way!

That doesn't actually work in the real world. If you live in a desirable area,
and you increase the housing supply in such a way that the area is still
desirable, as soon as the price drops a tiny bit people move in from the
outside and drive it back up again.

~~~
skewart
That can happen at the small scale - neighborhoods or suburban villages. It
doesn't really happen at the city or metro area scale.

(If you have evidence of urban areas that have allowed lots of construction
during periods of high population and job growth - cities like Dallas,
Houston, or Atlanta - and have also seen high housing prices, please share it;
I'm genuinely curious).

Part of the problem in the bay area is that there is minimal cooperation
between the dozens of municipal governments to allow more housing. None of
them want to be the first or only one to do it out of fear that they'll just
end up with more density and high prices. It's a bit of a prisoner's dillema.

~~~
gozur88
It happened in Southern California. In the area where I grew up the cities
allowed developers to build hundreds of homes at a time - it's probably four
times as dense as it was when I lived there.

Orange groves and strawberry fields and outdoor movie theaters and old
military bases were all leveled and turned into housing tracts. But housing
didn't get any cheaper - the state added 20 million people from 1970 to 2010,
because there were jobs and it had the reputation of being a nice place to
live.

------
ModernMech
The folly with arguments blaming San Francisco for the problem is the fact
that the entire Bay area is priced at an insane level.

Take another look at this [1] BART map with corresponding home prices for each
stop. Yeah, it's cheaper to live outside of the city, but it's still crazy
expensive. The median sale price for a house in Pittsburg is $430,000, with a
62 min commute into SF. If you live 62 minutes outside of say, Pittsburgh PA,
you can certainly expect your median home will cost ~$120,000 or less [2].

It's been my experience that while square footage cost may go down outside the
city, you really end up paying around the same rent for a larger space. So if
you can't afford a $3000/mo rent in the city, you probably still can't afford
the $2800/mo rent you'll pay in Daly City.

I expect what would really happen if SF just went all in building new housing,
is that prices would drop in the city slightly, allowing people to move back
into the city, thus increasing demand and increasing prices back to where they
were. The places where rent would drop are the suburbs, where people were
pushed out to initially.

A way to look at it would be that SF's sphere of rent influence would end up
shrinking, but the magnitude of the epicenter remains unaffected.

[1] - [http://www.estately.com/bay-area-home-affordability-
transit-...](http://www.estately.com/bay-area-home-affordability-transit-stop)
[2] -
[http://files.zillowstatic.com/research/public/realestate/ZHV...](http://files.zillowstatic.com/research/public/realestate/ZHVI.Pittsburgh.394982.pdf)

~~~
zt
(I'm the author).

You make excellent points, and I don't mean to minimize the regional issues.

Sure, if I had a magic wand then I'd increase housing being built across the
Bay Area. In fact, I'd like consolidate the jurisdictions in the Bay Area, but
that's a whole other argument.

I don't quite know how to play out the claim that demand is infinite. One, I
don't believe that. And, two, it seems like an argument that has us throw up
our hands and do nothing. It's large problem that needs a large solution --
I've heard estimates in the 100-200 thousand unit range -- but I'd rather
shoot for that goal than do nothing at all.

~~~
jacobolus
Kinda off topic in context of this thread, but if you’re organizing panel
discussions about this, you should try to get someone from
[http://www.spur.org](http://www.spur.org) in your panel. See
[http://www.spur.org/policy-area/housing](http://www.spur.org/policy-
area/housing) and [http://www.spur.org/policy-area/regional-
planning](http://www.spur.org/policy-area/regional-planning)

~~~
zt
Thanks! I know SPUR well, I'm actually on their housing policy board.

------
lubujackson
I keep saying these same arguments put forth (add more affordable housing!)
but the reality is that there are very specific laws that cause the crazy
prices here and it ISN'T because of a lack of housing. It's lack of liquidity.

First there is Prop 13, which is the Ponzi scheme that let's older owners pay
basically the same tax rate forever. This means that landlords have little
reason to repair or sell properties. Which goes hand-in-hand with all the
tenant protections that make it virtually impossible to vacate a tenant. And
because landlords can't raise rents beyond a tiny margin each year (1% or so),
they might have tenants paying 1/4 or less the going rate for an apartment,
making it even less likely that they will reinvest in improving their
building.

So what happens? Anyone who has been living in the same rental for the past 5
years is pretty much locked in to their apartment now, no matter what. Every
single tenant in SF who hasn't moved within the last 5 years is NOT MOVING
UNLESS THEY NEED TO. Because they are paying about 50% less than the going
rate. So those people will not move, which means their apartment won't be
available for others, which means the supply of housing is significantly lower
than it should be.

Just as new homeowners in SF are paying some of the taxes that existing
homeowners should pay, new renters are paying some of the rent that should be
paid by existing renters.

~~~
x0x0
Fact: units built after 1979 are not rent controlled.

Fact: neither are single family homes, including most condos if you moved in
after 1 jan 1986 (30 years ago).

~~~
muzz
True but even with these, the percentage of rental units in SF that are rent-
controlled is something like 75%

------
Fede_V
Housing in SF is an incredibly powerful illustration of the danger of letting
things get so bad that the usual remedies no longer apply.

Basically:

\- Traditionally, the proper fix for a shortage of housing is to build more
houses. Just lift the existing regulations, and let the free market do what it
does best: take care of the demand at an efficient price.

\- However, after years and years of very slow building, the amount of pent up
demand is such that even if builders were allowed to construct houses, the
houses would almost all be built for the very well off. The amount of houses
you'd have to build before you started constructing truly affordable housing
is immense.

\- People that are in rent regulated apartments have absolutely nothing to
gain from more construction. However, even poor people that have no stable
housing also have almost nothing to gain from new construction because their
only realistic chance of having affordable rent is through subsidies or semi-
public housing in the medium term.

\- The people that have the most to gain are the moderately well off who can
afford SF rents, but cannot find housing at the existing market rate.

Basically - politicians and residents let the situation with housing in SF get
so absolutely bad that free-market based solutions would take a crazy amount
of time to create affordable housing for poor people. At this point, I'm not
sure there even are good solutions, especially if you limit yourself to what
is politically feasable.

The lesson to draw from this is that you should never let the situation get so
bad that people at the bottom stop caring completely about improving policy.
In this case, the right policy (build A LOT more houses) would barely help
poor people because the supply/demand curve is so out of wack. The very people
that should benefit the most from improving the housing situation are instead
opposing it - for fairly rational reasons.

~~~
BurningFrog
_...the houses would almost all be built for the very well off. The amount of
houses you 'd have to build before you started constructing truly affordable
housing is immense._

This is a common mistake. In reality, all added supply brings down price
levels across the board.

~~~
wernercd
But you completely ignore the "time and amount of houses it would take"
aspect.

If you can only build 10 houses, and make 10% commission... are you going to
build a shack? or are you going to build mansion?

The houses that get built, if the gates were to open wide, would all start off
on the high end... while that would start a downward pressure, it would still
be a very long time before those who can afford $200k for a house see anything
in their range built.

~~~
slyall
You are missing the point. Houses for poor people are almost never built,
instead poor people live in 50 year old places that were built for the rich or
middle class.

What happens is that 10 people move into those new places and 10 people move
into their old one and the vacancy works it's way down the line. Eventually
some guy down the bottom gets slightly cheaper rent or a better place.

Imagine that instead 100,000 high-end apartments were built in the Bay Area.
None of them will have poor people move into them but instead places like (to
quote elsewhere in the thread) "downtown PA (university Ave) its right around
$2800-3000 for a 1 bedroom, for places with 20 year old appliances and no
upgrades." might now be $1000/month cheaper and affordable by somebody on a
lot lower income.

~~~
Fede_V
I think you are exactly right, and in a healthy market that's what would
happen. In practice, I believe we are so far from equilibrium that it would
take such a long time for the trickle down effects to push housing costs in a
range which is affordable for people that aren't well off.

Telling people that within 10-15 years if you keep building several hundreds
of thousands of houses eventually rents will be affordable is not a winning
slogan :)

------
jakelarkin
Another political solution is for the state government to step in. Growing
regional housing and transit is a prisoner's dilemma in the sense that no
individual municipality wants put up it's fair share of the cost and necessary
changes in zoning. Metro areas with highly fragmented governance like the Bay
Area deal with these issues very poorly.
[http://www.vox.com/2016/4/6/11370258/honan-zoning-reform-
bil...](http://www.vox.com/2016/4/6/11370258/honan-zoning-reform-bill)

~~~
bdhe
I think a tragedy of the commons is a better description of the problem
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons))
than the Prisoner's dilemma
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma)).
Individual home owners in the cities and towns dotting the Bay Area are still
better off not coöperating with each other to increase housing supply.

------
pascalxus
I agree with the author for the most part: the ideal solution is to build lots
more housing - it's the morally and ethically correct thing to do. But, SF
lacks the political will to do this and we need to accept that. the 2nd best
solution would be to get tech companies out of SF. I hate this solution as
much as the author, but I think it's worth considering. There's no reason why
tech companies must be in SF, when there's so much Software engineering talent
in the rest of the US where housing is much more accessible. I can understand
large companies with big budgets paying top dollar moving to SF - they can out
compete other companies for talent. But, I have no sympathies for software
companies that can't find labor in SF because they went to the worst possible
housing location offering modest compensation.

~~~
zt
(I'm the author)

Even putting aside the ethical and moral arguments, which carry a lot of
weight for me: (1) There are network effects in urban environments. (2)
Globally, specific industries often concentrate in specific cities. A lot of
tech has concentrated in the Valley up to the San Francisco. The effects are
getting stronger as that migration occurs. That's a great thing: it allows for
people to move between companies easily, allows ideas to be shared, etc,
etc.[1] That effects is and will continue to be hard to replicate elsewhere.
(3) Destroying that seems like a gigantic waste. (4) We are destroying it
through our current public policies -- housing and other. (5) I believe there
are political solutions, just not ones that have been well-organized.

[1] Urbanism has a lot of other benefits too, if done right: like less
traffic, and a lower per capita carbon footprint.

~~~
ZanyProgrammer
And yet there's nothing inherent with software development that makes SF and
the Bay Area any different from lots of other cities, other than inertia. It's
amazing that an industry that prides itself on being non traditional is so
tied to a specific geographical location, as if there's some valuable mineral
that can only be mined in SOMA and downtown Palo Alto.

~~~
zt
There is nothing inherent about finance that makes New York and London any
different than a lot of other cities, other than inertia.

It could be otherwise than it is, that's sort of the truth of network effects,
but it's difficult.

~~~
ZanyProgrammer
Favorably comparing Bay Area software to Wall Street is an odd thing to hear
from you.

~~~
zt
I don't like big banks, but that doesn't mean finance has been bad for NYC.

------
Maarten88
I visited San Francisco last week (for the Microsoft Build conference).

Having read here on HN about the housing problems and high rents I was
surprised to see quite a lot of poorly maintained buildings, if you go a bit
outside the centre. From my perspective, there seems lots of room for building
and improvement. They could take down blocks and build more densely while
improving quality. As in all US cities, a lot of room is used by cars.

Looking at my hometown Amsterdam, there are places like Java Eiland,
([https://www.amsterdam.nl/javaeiland/](https://www.amsterdam.nl/javaeiland/))
an old harbor dock where they built 8500 high quality appartments housing
18.000 people, on an area of only 1.3km x 130m. I think solutions like that
could work in San Francisco too.

~~~
henrikschroder
I'm also from northern Europe, and the average housing standard here is
absolutely crap compared to where I'm from. For fun, try browsing apartments
here on craigslist and you'll get to see the interiors as well. And when you
then look at the prices of these things, it all seems like a cruel joke.

If you just visited the conference you probably didn't see Mission Bay, but
they are doing the same here as in most other coastal cities, i.e. repurposing
old harbour industrial zones and building large apartment buildings, it's just
way, way too little, too late.

But I agree with you that there are so many city blocks that currently house a
bunch of poorly maintained two-story buildings that should just be demolished
and replaced with a single modern, tall residential building. There is
_nothing_ of value to preserve there.

~~~
650REDHAIR
The Mission Bay properties are also ridiculously expensive and the first few
buildings were basically student/PhD housing.

------
beavisthegenius
The problem is NIMBYs. No one wants their view ruined so The City has height
restrictions. Developers want to max out profit and only build luxury high
rises downtown. New developments in Daly City, South San Francisco, San
Carlos, San Mateo, Pacifica et al. don't go anywhere because Peninsula, East
Bay & South Bay suburbanites don't want to expand a borough like New York
City. Comparisons to NYC are difficult because NYC is one city. To truly
accomodate the demand for Bay Area housing, we can't just focus on San
Francisco. Per Wikipedia, Manhattan has ~1.6MM people in ~22 sq mi of land. We
need many, many more taller buildings. Try getting current landowners to
change the 3 story restriction.

1\. My goal for San Francisco is a diverse city The City was diverse before
the tech boom. The tech boom is pushing people out. Contrast the population of
San Francisco with San Jose. Why is SJ more diverse? The white, suburbanites
move to SF not SJ because they want NYC on the West Coast. A city of 860k vs
8mm have much more opportunity to have diversity. Again, there needs to be
coordination across multiple municipalities that simply don't want to work
together.

"I want to live in a beautiful, multiethnic, socioeconomically mixed
community. A city where people of low, moderate, and high incomes live
together, and people of different ethnicities interact." You should have moved
here 20 years ago and then you would understand why long time residents hate
the newcomers.

2\. A little self awareness about my my role and position in San Francisco You
grew up poor but aren't now. Super.

3\. The cause of our housing problem is huge demand in the face of limited
supply There were population exoduses for many years. The demand is relatively
new problem. If you had been here in 2002, landlords were begging you to rent
in SF. Granted, you graduated college in 2009 so you wouldn't know that but
believe me, this is a recent problem caused by recent graduates.

I want to keep responding to your posts but I'm too tired. This isn't NYC and
there aren't 5 boroughs that are able to be coordinated for building codes and
transportation. This isn't an easy fix and, forgive me, I find your youthful
perspective insulting as you have no idea how long these issues have been
brewing. Chris Daly was a big proponent of affordable housing. Read up on him.

------
Animats
_" We are on a self-imposed path leading to only one place: a city that is
entirely rich and, more or less, entirely white."_

Sounds like a plan.

The problem is this. SF is built out; to build something, you have to demolish
something first. So the alternative is high-rise housing. High-rise low-income
housing, especially high-rise low-income housing, has been a disaster in the
US. Chicago had to demolish the Robert Taylor Homes, a mile long strip of
high-rises. Here's a list of failed high-rise housing projects.[1] "You can't
stack poor people who drink.", as one author wrote.

The boom may be cyclical. SF after the first dot-com collapse in 2001, had low
traffic and lots of vacancies. After the 2008 crash, there were tens of
thousands of houses in foreclosure and for-sale signs everywhere. That could
happen again. Twitter and Uber aren't profitable and are going to get hit by
economic reality at some point soon.

[1] [http://newsone.com/1555245/most-infamous-public-housing-
proj...](http://newsone.com/1555245/most-infamous-public-housing-projects/)

~~~
BurningFrog
_to build something, you have to demolish something first_

Yes, of course. That is how all healthy big cities work.

 _So the alternative is high-rise housing_

Well, replacing 1-2 stories with 4-8 stories is probably optimal for current
SF. Not sure I'd call those high rises.

~~~
Animats
SF has gone the other way, replacing 4-8 story public housing with 2 story
public housing. You can see examples just south of Japantown. Crime rate went
down.

------
ryguytilidie
Biggest issue for me is public transit. If BART was more reliable/faster, it
would be easy for people to live in Berkeley, Oakland, San Leandro or anywhere
along the line. I actually bought a house in Richmond because it was cheap and
I could BART into the city. What was once a 30 minute ride usually takes a
little over 40 now. We really need to fix transit in the bay area. More
ferries would be great imo.

~~~
mahyarm
Ferries are even slower and less reliable in my experience.

If you didn't live where the track died, then you would still say BART is more
reliable. I've noticed BART is less reliable in the edges vs the core of SF,
berkeley and downtown oakland

~~~
joshrotenberg
I ride (and complain about) BART regularly to/from SF from the Berkeley/El
Cerrito area. The truth is that it's still pretty reliable, though having
lived where I am now since 2004 the decline in reliability and increase in
crowding clearly isn't going to stop.

One alternative is AC Transit's transbay service, which I swore by for many
years. Unfortunately the increase in road traffic has that option declining as
well.

There has been talk in the past about a Berkeley Marina/Albany Bulb ferry, but
to my knowledge there are no current plans. I haven't ridden the ferry many
times from other places, but I'd like to think that having that as an option
would get a decent amount of ridership as well as possibly reduce the load on
the roads and tracks.

The lack of any ferry service connecting the East Bay between Jack London
Square in Oakland and Vallejo is pretty surprising. Judging from the fact that
a morning commute-time BART train starting in Richmond is typically standing
room only by El Cerrito Plaza (third stop on the line), I'd say the demand for
alternatives is definitely there, so there must be
financial/political/engineering reasons that there are no ferries from other
parts of the East Bay.

~~~
mahyarm
Boats are fundamentally slow and cannot dock at the center of a city where
most jobs are, but it's edges. Docking and boarding/unboarding is a minimum
5-10 minute process too. A really fast ferry goes at 30 knots, which is around
35 miles per hour. Often ferries are there because building the equivalent
bridge or train doesn't meet the cost/benefit ratio, otherwise they are an
inferior transportation option.

The reason why there probably isn't any service from jack london square is
because it's faster to get to a bart station by bike or similar and then take
the BART.

As for vallejo, there looks like there is a ferry service for some reason
according to google maps:
[https://www.google.com/maps/place/38%C2%B005'59.8%22N+122%C2...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/38%C2%B005'59.8%22N+122%C2%B015'46.6%22W/@38.0999405,-122.2637485,18z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x0?hl=en)

~~~
joshrotenberg
Sorry, to clarify I was saying that the only ferry service that does exist is
from Jack London Square and then north of that all the way up in Vallejo. The
entire, pretty well populated chunk of the East Bay between those two points
basically has BART from Richmond, AC Transit Transbay, or their cars as an
option into SF and below. That was sufficient for a while, but is less so more
and more.

------
paulsutter
One issue he doesn't mention is traffic congestion.

A potential remedy could be a significant tax on parking. Perhaps very
significant. Parking is ugly and a blight on the city, as well as a tremendous
waste of space that could be more effectively used for housing.

~~~
zt
(I'm the author).

Traffic is a big problem -- as is parking. Public transit investments do have
to correspond with building housing, but too often the lack of one is used as
an excuse not to expand the other. We have to start somewhere.

As I said in the post, public transit deserves it own analysis -- I was
already in the thousands of words just on housing! -- maybe that will be next.

~~~
xenadu02
Indeed. In the current Prop-13, anti-tax environment you simply cannot propose
building infrastructure to support future needs. The need must already exist
and be bad enough to get people to vote for taxes to pay for improvements.

Muni will not be extending T to Fisherman's Wharf, nor BART building a 2nd
trans-bay tube and line through the Richmond/19th Ave unless the bay area can
manage this housing problem and bring in more residents to pay for it.

------
thedevil
While I agree with the post, I think the need for more housing is obvious and
the root problem is political.

If you find a way to solve the political problem, I'd be impressed.

~~~
zt
I'm the author: I agree with you. I believe there are political solutions.
Putting ideas out there to see if anyone agrees with me is the first step,
hopefully not the last.

~~~
thedevil
Props to you for organizing a discussion as a first step. And best of luck
solving the problem. If I still lived in the Bay Area, I'd show up for
support.

------
tlogan
Excellent article.

The solution is that we need more housing.

The problem is that politicians do not allow that - and that is not going to
change. Why? Because existing rich people do not want that.

Not sure what we can do here...

------
marknutter
The only way to fix the housing market in San Francisco without destroying
what people love about living there is to reduce the number of people living
in San Francisco. And the most direct and effective way of doing that is to
destroy the ridiculous bias against remote working. For all the innovative,
intelligent, talented people in the Valley that we haven't yet figured out how
to work together to build software without physically being in the same room
is pathetic. We'll look back on this in the same way we look back on child
labor and seven day work weeks.

~~~
tribaal
I'm surprised and a little saddened that this is not higher up.

The root cause of the problem is that there are too many people wanting to
move to San Fransisco because that's where the (tech) jobs are.

Spread out the jobs to spread out the people?

~~~
marknutter
I'm saddened, but not surprised. Like I said, there's a really weird bias that
a lot of otherwise progressive and intelligent people have against remote
work, and I've never heard any convincing arguments _from people who 've tried
both_ that one way is categorically better than the other. Perhaps it will
take something as extreme as a major environmental or economic catastrophe to
warm people up to the idea because people seem to be clinging to the old ways
for silly reasons.

------
simulate
If you live in San Francisco, you can vote on May 10 to make some of Zac
Townsend's suggested fixes a reality. Here's the slate card to see how:
[http://www.sfyimby.org/slate/](http://www.sfyimby.org/slate/)

~~~
SonjaKT
Yeah and if you don't live in San Francisco, you can tell one friend who does
live there to vote.

Seriously, we don't need that many people to make a big difference this time.
It's worth it for you to get _one_ more person to vote.

------
paulpauper
_We are on a self-imposed path leading to only one place: a city that is
entirely rich and, more or less, entirely white._

 _I want to live in a beautiful, multiethnic, socioeconomically mixed
community. A city where people of low, moderate, and high incomes live
together, and people of different ethnicities interact._

I guess he's never heard of Chinatown. SF is one of the most most ethnically
diverse cities in the country. [http://theculturetrip.com/north-
america/usa/california/artic...](http://theculturetrip.com/north-
america/usa/california/articles/the-10-most-multicultural-cities-in-the-
world/)

Also 'white' does not imply 'rich', as there are many regions in America that
are predominantly white and very poor, Appalachian region being one.

~~~
tlogan
Did you know that Valencia St was full of latinos? Or are you saying that as
long as there is something called "Chinatown" it is ok to kick all Mexicans
out?

------
kriro
Interesting article but I think the demand side also needs some more
reexamination. It is very strange that SV mantra is "teams need to move
there". Doubly silly since we're mostly talking about software companies. If
you break that mentality some of the demand issues will go away.

It feels like a very dogmatic mantra "it just works better". VCs should try to
reexamine and disrupt startup financing by not being clustered in one place
(which is one of the top arguments for moving to SV other than talent pol
being there which is kind of self fulfilling).

"Move to where your initial customers live" would be a decent counter-mantra.
Make it a differentiator as a VC that you come to the startup and don't make
them come to you.

------
capkutay
If you care about SF housing, please just show up to Planning Commission and
Board of Supervisors meetings. Better yet, start or join a grassroots group of
at least 10-15 people and thoughtfully present all your ideas without coming
off as insensitive towards the homeless or low-income individuals. There's
TONS of room for public input in SF, it's what makes our planning process
unique. In many cases, this leads to a deficit in housing because planning is
so sensitive to the request of those who actually show up to meetings and make
their case.

------
kajecounterhack

      I am perceived to be part of the problem.
    

Not attacking, just commenting: maybe rephrase? I'm similar to you but despite
background / origin we're still part of the problem. We are rich enough to
live in the mission and shop at bi-rite and we displace poorer folks (who, as
you observed, are often from ethnic minorities, with backgrounds different
from ours). Having come from modest beginnings doesn't make us less the
problem.

That said, I think it does help to make us more aware of how unfair the system
is.

------
rsmsky1
Is San Francisco really on a path to becoming almost entirely white? I thought
a large portion of the Sunset and Richmond were Asian and it had a much larger
Asian percentage than other cities?

~~~
m0llusk
San Francisco is around 40% Chinese. If you look at indicators like
unemployment, single parent births, education level the Chinese population is
as different from the Caucasian population as Caucasians are from Black
Americans. Chinese make a very strong and strangely unrecognized contribution
to San Francisco economically and socially.

------
youngButEager
We hardly ever see consideration of the other party in these debates. Tenants
cry about high rents. What about supply and demand? There are two main causes
of supply problems: (1) tough building permitting, anti-building policy
seemingly; (2) shortage of willing landlords.

If I have $5 million dollars to invest, will I invest in San Francisco where
(unless I buy post-1979, and 75% of units are rent controlled in SF) -- or
will I invest where I can make a return on the investment?

Shortage of willing landlords. Shortage of new construction.

Almost _no one_ talks about the shortage of willing landlords. It's as if
people think "owners have their apartment buildings, they HAVE to be
landlords."

NO. See here: [http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2011/05/because-of-rent-
control-...](http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2011/05/because-of-rent-control-sf-
has-31000.html)

\- If you make it very difficult/nearly impossible for restaurants to make
money, SHORTAGE OF WILLING RESTAUARANT OWNERS.

\- If you make it very difficult/nearly impossible for dentists to make money,
SHORTAGE OF WILLING DENTISTS

And so on.

The reason no one considers how to entice more landlords (ie. to increase the
supply of units) is -- everyone probably thinks "landlords have no choice.
They MUST rent their units." It's NOT TRUE.

When public policy acknowledges this point -- maybe we can all stop believing
"we don't need to entice landlords -- they have units, they MUST rent them out
(so we can control and limit their business).

------
PaulHoule
(11) If you love it, be ready to leave it.

If investors in the area are not willing to look outside, politicans and
others in the San Francisco area know they have enough leverage on you that
they can keep following the same failed policies.

Only when you stop the policy of redlining 99% of America and show San
Francisco there is a real threat the jobs will move away will any reform be
possible.

------
richmarr
I'd be interested to see projections of earthquake casualties before and after
this increase in housing density.

~~~
nickhalfasleep
Morbidly, I think a big earthquake will be the turning point for housing in
the Bay Area. After a 6.5+, just about all the brick buildings will be
degraded to the point of no return. We might see plenty of new steel / wood
construction with the rebuilt (or 3d-printed) facades of old buildings, with
new heights and efficiencies inside (better lighting, accessability,
modularity).

~~~
shostack
I've often thought it might take a natural disaster to fix things a bit.

But realistically, at this point I'd expect investors to circle the aftermath
like vultures waiting to throw money at whatever they could. There might be a
small downturn, but then things will get right back up there.

My hypothesis is that it would only slightly dent demand for the area. And
that says nothing about all the single story wood-framed ranches in the
Peninsula which would largely be fine.

------
davidw
There's a lot of coverage of this kind of thing on
[http://marketurbanism.com/](http://marketurbanism.com/) for those interested
in following it more.

I think it's one of _the_ issues facing a lot of cities in the US right now.

------
socrates2016
Rich people with money vs rich people with property. The poor people have
mostly been driven out already. There is plenty of housing for tech workers.
The problem is it's not hip enough: bay view, outer mission, outer sunset,
outer richmond, portola valley, etc...

------
epoxyhockey
Housing affordability is a nation-wide problem. Since the housing bust of
2007, little new housing stock has been added, save for oil & gas boomtowns of
Texas and North Dakota.

We are all now competing for limited housing in most every major metropolitan
area.

The solution is for every city to build more housing, not just SF.
Unfortunately, new housing starts have only recovered to 1993 levels.
[http://www.macrotrends.net/1314/housing-starts-historical-
ch...](http://www.macrotrends.net/1314/housing-starts-historical-chart)

~~~
mikeyouse
It's even more striking if you adjust for population:

[https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/fredgraph.png?g=...](https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/fredgraph.png?g=45EC)

That's just a quick look of housing starts / population but we've steadily
been building fewer houses and the whole thing fell of a cliff during the
financial crisis. Even in the recovery, we're off the chart.

------
rkayg
Great article. How can we turn your ideas into reality?

~~~
Decade
Start by voting. Read those tedious propositions and those small offices, and
vote on every one of them. Supervisor Julie Christensen was pushed out by
anti-housing Aaron Peskin with the approval of 12% of District 3’s residents.
And don’t take the shortcut of just voting whichever way your Democrat or
Republican voters guide tells you to vote.

Join, or at least follow, a political action group like SFBARF[0]. And when
they mention some special committee, then don’t just go to a couple meetings
and otherwise leave it alone. You’re supposed to be part of the community.
Actually learn from and provide your own input to that community.

If you have some free time, then find what else the SF Planning Department has
been doing[1], and attend their public hearings.

[0][http://www.sfbarf.org](http://www.sfbarf.org)

[1][http://sf-planning.org](http://sf-planning.org)

------
exabrial
I think a $25 minimum wage hike would definitely fix it..........

------
rasengan0
Another answer to the housing crisis: [https://youtu.be/JDoPmj-
BIEA](https://youtu.be/JDoPmj-BIEA)

SF ain't Brooklyn

Folks can't buy groceries at Uber

People matter, profits don't

When you've been around long enough, it will begin to make sense

------
avatar299
Blaming Prop 13 is silly. Look at the rest of the state, housing prices are
relatively sane in places like san diego, and downright cheap in the inland
empire, orange copunty, anaheim, etc etc.

Oh, all those places have to deal with Prop 13 as well.

San Francisco(and the bay area overall) has consistently chosen to restrict
their supply for housing for years. Obviously this would culminate into higher
prices in the future, but to many people live in denial. They would rather
pretend that AirBnB is the real problem, or that Prop 13 is distorting the
market(but of course, rent control is not _rolleyes_ )

~~~
ChiCommTroll
Of course Prop 13 is distorting prices. It affects all kinds of things. It
limits the revenue stream of local governments, causing them to do things like
encourage big box store development to get more sales tax. Prop 13 has tons of
unintended consequences. Or maybe its framers knew exactly what they were
doing.

I ALSO think rent control and airbnb distorts prices too. The Airbnb threat
maybe overblown, who knows, but airbnb has maintained in the past they have no
way of telling cities how many customers they. Databases are hard I guess.

------
crdoconnor
Oh boy, yet _another_ article claiming that if only private investors were
regulated less then "all of our problems would be solved". These will never
get old.

>The only way to fix it is through a radical change in our housing policy: a
change that encourages (a lot of) building.

No, the only way to fix it is to _actually_ build a lot of housing. If you
have trouble imagining what that would look at, take one look at Singapore.

To make this happen requires pitchforks, eminent domain, and political will
not economic tweaks to building policy.

>Incorrect claim 2: Investment capital will never build affordable housing

Not incorrect at all. Affordable housing meets the demand for a place to live
by the middle class but it doesn't meet the demand of the ultra wealthy for a
yield bearing asset.

The "lack of demand" for affordable housing is a facet of massive wealth
inequality and the treatment of living places as yield bearing assets.

>The forces behind those aren't singular movements or collectively one
movement alone.

ZIRP is pretty much behind most of it. If you want somebody to point a
pitchfork at, Ben Bernanke or Janet Yellen are as good a target as any. They
are largely responsible for homes being transformed into mostly investment
vehicles that provide living space from vice versa.

