
Who caused the Bay Area’s housing shortage? - tim_sw
http://extras.mercurynews.com/blame/
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fricat1ve
Not one mention of Prop 13? Poor reporting.

It's basically the rent control story writ large. Everyone who bought in the
20th century has such an "amazing deal" that they won't give it up unless you
a) entice them with a better deal or b) gore their oxen and repeal 13.

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closure
How does prop 13 cause a housing crisis?

It certainly entices people to hold and rent properties they own rather than
sell, but those units are still part of the housing stock.

I think repealing prop 13 for commercial properties makes sense as a way to
raise tax revenue, but don’t see doing so for residential property having an
impact on housing costs.

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tedivm
There's a guy on my street that owns 27 houses, all bought in the 90s. While
that guy is getting subsidized income by paying less taxes on high value
property he is less likely to sell that property to developers who will build
higher density housing. The same can be applied to the people who own vacation
or retirement homes out here (there's a surprising amount of vacant property
out here). The taxes that aren't being paid by all those people has to be made
up for somewhere, so the taxes on new property owners are higher (as are the
number if different fees and things like sales tax).

~~~
dragonwriter
> The taxes that aren't being paid by all those people has to be made up for
> somewhere, so the taxes on new property owners are higher

No, they aren't. Prop 13 limits maximum property tax rates to very low amounts
as well as limiting assessment increases, so no jurisdiction is able to make
up for artificially low assessments by jacking up the nominal rate.

> (as are the number if different fees and things like sales tax).

Mostly, it's state income tax, though state and local sales tax are also
affected (there are general and program-specific revenue sharing mechanisms by
which state revenue goes into local coffers to pay for local programs.)

~~~
acchow
Property value is reassessed on change-of-ownership.

Lower housing stock leads to inflated home prices, causing higher taxes paid
by more-recently-purchased homes.

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dragonwriter
> Property value is reassessed on change-of-ownership.

Actually, it's reassessed annually, there is just a limit to annual assessment
increases except with qualifying events.

Which doesn't change the fact that Prop 13 limited nominal rates to lower
values than many jurisdictions (including core Bay Area ones) were before Prop
13; jurisdictions aren't making up with artificially low assessments on long-
held properties with higher taxes on other properties. Yes, those other
properties are assessed closer to full value, but it's not offsetting
anything. If you cut the food you eat on weekdays by 50% and that on weekends
by 66%, you aren't making up for the reduced weekend calories by eating more
during the week.

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chiggins
This is an outlandish argument to make. Prop 13 contributes to shortage of
housing stock. Shortage of housing stock causes prices to rise. In the event
of any sale (existing property or new), the price will be higher than it would
have been without Prop 13 in place. The same marginal tax rate on the new (or
transferred) home now amounts to a larger amount than it would have otherwise.

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bartart
A self-centered desire to preserve an environmentally unfriendly suburbia at
the expense of others who wanted to share in the region's prosperity
contributed the shortage.

In the article the polls cited say that people think it was profit seeking
developers and "technology companies who add jobs". Clearly instead of
accommodating these desirable jobs we should give ample incentive for them to
go elsewhere.

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littlestymaar
The XXth century's “American way of life” myth, with individual homes in
suburbs and a car to go to work. That just doesn't scale well, espacially with
the geography of the Bay Area.

And if you're really looking for a “who”: the car manufacturers who fuelled
this myth through advertising.

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auxym
Car _and oil_ corporations, and not just advertising: lots of lots of
lobbying, too.

~~~
littlestymaar
You're indeed right, but advertising is even more pernicious than lobbying: it
makes people _love_ the problem.

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elvirs
I dont understand whats the outrage is about. Bay Area / San Francisco housing
market is tough because that area is special. Its special because its home to
world's most innovative companies that pays its staff world's highest
salaries. So it basically became an exclusive neighborhood for the wealthiest
and most talented (demanded) people. And it stay special because those who are
not in demand cant afford to live there. You think it will be better if
housing became cheaper and all those who could not afford to live there now
would be able to move there and turn the place into a shit show like Queens
and Brooklyn have become? Overcrowded houses with too many cars on the street,
all the double parking and chaos not to mention filth on the streets and the
noise? You cant afford it for a reason, if you were needed there Google would
offer you a salary high enough for you to be able to afford it. Everybody is
basically in outrage that they cant get into and live in this exclusive, high
class neighborhood but if everybody could afford to live there it would not be
exclusive and high class anymore and those things that attracted you there
back then would not be in place any more and the area would become into a
place that you run away from in the first place.

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OpenDrapery
Interesting that you think SF is special because Google is there. What made it
special before Google existed? What made it special before computers existed?

It's geography, climate, and culture make it special. Tech companies don't get
to show up and stake an ownership claim on this stuff. If the hippies told the
hipsters "we were here first!", they wouldn't be entirely wrong.

~~~
elvirs
tech companies are not the only thing making SF special but they are the main
reason behind raise in housing cost of recent decades and turning the area
into even more exclusive than they were before.

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roflchoppa
Ah, I don’t mind the new housing developments, what does become frustrating is
having to deal with all the traffic generated by the kids going to school in
the morning. Are there alternatives to mandatory school buses, any research
into this?

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jessaustin
Buses are better than each precious child being separately driven by an idle
parent.

