I don't have a great sense as to how this works across the world, but where I'm at (Seattle) your property tax is a factor of both the improved and unimproved aspects of your parcel. The improved ones being the value of the buildings and the unimproved being the value of the land itself.
If you had a massive plot in an urban area, undeveloped, presumably the unimproved portion of your property tax would be quite high! But, the issue is that restrictive zoning means that typically the unimproved value of your tax assessment are pretty low.
For example, if you live on 2 acres, but zoning says that you can only put 1 dwelling unit per 5 acres, then you can't really do much with the remaining acres. As a result, the remaining land has little value, and the tax on it is low. This is especially true in areas of little industry, where the same zoning regulations might also prohibit industrial or agriculture uses on that same plot of land!
This is all to say that the structure you're looking for may already exist, but the issue is still in zoning.
I don't think you disagree here... Zoning changes and land value tax are both beneficial. In some cases like the example you gave where you can only build one dwelling per 5 acres, zoning would be a more significant problem. That's an extreme hypothetical though. In other cases, taxation incentives are more significant.
We absolutely need to push for BOTH zoning reform and taxation reform. They will work really well together :)
People value family differently. For some, their dream life is to have sick cars and a sweet loft, for others, it's to raise other humans to be good. You should probably understand that there are some that read your perspective on life as equally puzzling.
I agree that childcare and college is mad expensive. It's why people complain about these things as much as they do!
What I've always thought, as a parent: those without kids don't know what they're missing, and those with them know what they have.
I'm not saying this to try to brag about how I have some special thing in my life that you'll never understand. I'm saying it because it feels like a perfect system in a way - you simply don't miss what you don't have.
And lastly, those some sort of information bias at play. Non-parents hear all the time about how parents don't have time for this or that, or they hear them talk about how annoying their child is being. But most people have the self-awareness to not just sit and gush over how great their kid is to their non-parents friends, and even when they do, it's just obnoxious.
Oh I love parents and I don't have any problems with kids. Still consider them sometimes.
I was just bothered by the "I'm baffled by.." part of this specific post.
And you're 100% on the "don't know what we're missing," part. I haven't been married either, so no wedding, no births, no kids, it's an entire other lifestyle I basically won't have any interaction with if it doesn't happen, and it's a weird/scary thing because who knows which is better? Or what we're happier with in the end if we couldn't try both?
I'm straight but I kind of tell myself nowadays that all my gay friends are living that lifestyle and they're very happy from what I can tell so .. maybe it's not bad. But there are gay couples with kids, I don't know any. I haven't had the nerve to ask my good friend if he wanted/wants kids. Never know if thats a tough subject or not.
My only major parent pet peeve... is the word kiddos. And doggos. You can bring your screaming kids over to my pool to destroy my backyard and let all the bugs in cause they dont close doors while you get high and drunk but don't call them kiddos to me. I cannot deal with the mom forum abbreviations like DH (dear husband) and all that.. stuff. When it bleeds over to reddit etc, thankfully rarely, it hurts me to read.
I don't even care that parent coworkers leave to deal with parent stuff, at all. It actually makes ME feel less bad about leaving to do my personal stuff. I'm REALLY bad about being too anxious to leave. A lot better later in my career but early on I would never leave.
These are some interesting points around its value, but it can absolutely be inflated, no? Given that most of our standards of value are tied to fiats, and that Bitcoin's exchange with said fiats is highly variable, the value of your crypto wealth can totally be out of your control.
Fortunately for most bitcoiners who got in early, it's been variable in a positive direction... But not for everyone.
Value fluctuation is not the same as asset inflation. The first relates to how much confidence people have on using BTC to represent their wealth in a given moment. The second is a decreasing of the asset's value keeping overall confidence constant.
It's a very interesting time indeed for the housing market! These next 6-12 months are going to tell us something very big about the economy, crash or no crash. If anything, however, the Fed has built up an ability to drop rates if things go awry, so there's padding in the cushion if a fall does happen.
An interesting stat: We're almost back to our 2022 quantity of _new_ listings in October [1]. That's substantial because we've hovered around 20% below last year's number for just about every other month this year. One of the big stories of real estate is that sellers don't want to sell because they all locked in killer rates on their current homes, and buyers can't afford to buy with home prices AND mortgage rates what they are.
So, seeing even a slight increase in new listings (or the lack of a seasonal dropoff) is maybe an early indication of an easing of that stalemate. At the same time, time on market is still really low, which means that sellers are tapping into the high levels of demand that still exist. As a result, overall inventory isn't increasing.
All told though, even with those slight indicators, it's still a really tough time to be a buyer, and for the real estate market overall. The best hope that most have is that the dam leaks more, or even breaks on listings, and of course, if prices start to fall meaningfully, folks will want to cash out high, and you might get a proper "crash".
I personally don't really see it, but anything can happen, and we'll know soon enough!
I doubt low interest rates help buyers all that much. If there are 3 properties on the market and 4 buyers, it doesn't matter what interest rates are, the 3 highest-earning buyers are going to get the houses and one will miss out. The amount of money borrowed might go up and down, but there is a physical balance equation that must be satisfied which doesn't care about the financial situation.
In theory, low interest rates will reallocate resources from other sectors of the economy to housing, causing more to be built. In practice I don't know how big a factor this is though - I'm used to there being regulatory restrictions that prevent new housing being built in high-demand areas. But that might be an Australia thing. Regardless it'd lag interest rate changes by a few years because it takes time to organise new construction.
Yeah people are constrained by how much they can pay off each month. Either that’s higher prices with lower interest or lower prices with higher interest.
The drove up prices, making the down payment side harder. Higher interest rates should bring down the sales price, making down payments go further, but we're only halfway seeing that. My thinking is because the shortage masks that, but people married to their underwater 3% fixed-rate mortgages also does (for now). Ironically, this seems to be driving homebuilders to build more.
> sellers don't want to sell because they all locked in killer rates on their current homes
What happens is that house prices drop way below what they paid, and ends up equalizing their monthly payments with what someone who buys at the higher-rate-but-lower-price is paying. Except these people are locked into their current arrangement, since they cannot sell at a price that would cover the debt.
Some can ride this out over a number of years, some will end up taking a big hit because, for one reason or another (divorce, child birth, etc.) they have to sell and move. If you're old enough you will have seen this play out before.
I believe that many people are starting to fear that their lower rate mortgage exceeds the value of their house. While, in the long run, they’ll likely be fine but the near term may be 10-15 years of stagnant or declining home values. It’s also looking like the Fed is very intent on keeping rates higher for longer, and/or possibly hiking them again, further increasing the burden on buyers. It’s not looking good for sellers or buyers for at least the next 18 months. I suspect a crash in the housing market will occur but we haven’t had enough time to see foreclosures pick up to start the cascade downward.
Looking at how homes are insanely overpriced (worse here than in the US) that is not a bad thing. The only sane market at this point is +1M houses which is simply rediculous.
You're being overly optimistic because you work in real estate and people are blowing rainbows up your ass. If there's a crash, JPow lowering the rate would prevent the housing value correction from taking effect and nothing good would come of it.
There MUST be a crash. Look at all the people who are sitting in homes worth many times more than they bought it. Significantly higher value than a few years ago. Do you think these people are doing well as a result? No! They can barely afford their insurance!
People want the house values high and their insurance dirt cheap, but it's not possible. The housing values have to drop a good 80% for people to be able to afford their homes long term again and for the insurance companies to stop pulling out.
I want the market to crash and correct as much as the next guy but thinking house prices are going to drop 80% is pure fantasy land. What's more likely to happen:
- Big corporations and billionaires hoover up the properties forcing more and more people to rent in the long term (you will own nothing and be happy)
- Companies are finally forced to raise worker wages which, through a variety of means, they have managed to suppress for decades.
The latter is what should happen but the former is what is more likely to happen, with all the evil that entails.
I lost my house to foreclosure in 2008. I track the price according to Zillow and if memory serves, it dropped from roughly 600K to 520K. If we do have a correction will probably be on that order of magnitude. If the correction is much greater, a lot of people will thrown into poverty and onto the street. I suspect however there would be enough political will to make the banks take a haircut instead of everyone else.
> If the correction is much greater, a lot of people will thrown into poverty and onto the street. I suspect however there would be enough political will to make the banks take a haircut instead of everyone else.
Both are gonna happen. Yes, a lot of people will be thrown onto the street. A lot of banks will go under.
Institutional investors have largely gotten out of residential properties in the last year. Homes aren't good investments unless expanding supply is illegal, which it has been, but they could change.
This hotel in SF just dropped 50% since 2016. Billionaires are over their heads on real estate; how are they gonna hoover it up when they can't afford their existing loan payments? It can and will happen.
A 50% reduction for one luxury apartment tower in the city most affected by remote work in the entire world and one that also has a notorious crime problem. What is your reasoning that this can be extrapolated to an 80% housing market crash on the national or global level?
Exactly. They've been getting away with it for close to 50 years at this point so the pain of getting them to where they should be if the profits had been shared fairly and not routed to investors and the C-Suite is absolutely massive. It would take a good few years (probably a decade) to get there, and a lot of companies that only exist because of that worker exploitation would go under, but overall it would end up being a good thing. If wage growth had kept pace like it should all these years, I'd wager the current property prices would actually make sense.
I can tell you honestly that I am personally hoping for a crash, and that's in part because I work on real estate. Home prices are unsustainably high by such a margin that it's absolutely killed transaction volume. Sure, earnings per transaction will go down, but we desperately need an increase in volume.
Plus, I want housing to be affordable despite my economic incentives.
When I say that I don't see it happening, I just don't quite see all of the indicators just yet. If we start seeing a sharper increase in new listings coming on market, or new construction prices significantly dropping, then I'd certainly change my outlook.
The problem is the Fed is using the only tool they have, the federal funds rate, to control the housing market. Yes, it has the effect of cooling the market but it doesn't solve the actual problem, actually it exacerbates it: there aren't enough housing units where they're needed. That's a supply problem. It's the insufficient supply that's the root cause of housing prices rising. The irony is raising the federal funds rate makes it more expensive to build housing so it tends to cool down construction and thus further constraining supply.
What have we actually accomplished? Locking people out of home ownership. But the Fed only has one tool and they're using it to the best of their ability.
> The problem is the Fed is using the only tool they have, the federal funds rate, to control the housing market.
No, they aren't, they are using it to control aggregate consumer prices and employment, their actual mission.
There are institutions with finer grained powers whose job is to manage the economy on a more fine-grained level (Congress at the federal level, plus states generally more locally), and the problem, insofar as there is one, with the management of the housing market is their (in)action, not the Fed.
This is why we the millennials and more importantly gen z must vote and actively and loudly participate in the political process.
Right now, the government is preventing wages from going up in a (futile) attempt to keep prices low for retirees and soon to be retirees who are on fixed income.
This is NOT what we want.
We want wages to go up as corporate profits go up.
I want prices to come down, I want affordability to go up . Who cares if wages go up and prices go up even faster.
The question is not what is the price of a house, but how many hours does a median wage worker need to work to afford their house, their car, their utilities, education, healthcare e.t.c
US is slowly becoming a zero sum game as the growth shrinks to ~1%. We need to increase the pie.
I'm guessing we'll see a weird mix of the following with the fed adjusting policy to keep everything together.
-80s inflation (higher interest rates hurting real property value, especially in higher value coastal metros)
-90s stagflation (a significant decline in national real property values masked by some inflation)
-50s postwar economic expansion (economics/warfare in EMEA keeping demand for US energy, agriculture, and products high even with higher inflation hurting asset valuations)
I don't it will crash. Democratic party tends to go socialism...in this case they are bailout-ish them Rep. In this case they will quietly bail large properties and banks to ensure it wont crash...just drag and stagnant like Evergrande and others in China. It seems to work over there. As long as people willing to go thru a wasted decade like Japanese did, it won't crash.
Oxford English dictionary follows the trends of language rather than setting them definitionally. They offer the "extremely" definition because the word gets misused so often, not because of any original meaning. One can argue the merits of whether a dictionary should include such misuses that have become commonplace but that's the direction they have opted to go.
In the same vein as this debate, OED considers irregardless to be a proper synonym for regardless.
Very tangentially related -- I keep hearing "disorientated" in the audio edition of The Economist (which is British).
It drives me bonkers. I'm cool with neologisms if they add value -- but a 400-year old[1] neologism that's merely a longer way to say something we already have a word for is still too young for me to consider valid.
That is the requirement. The law applies standards to ensure that domestic workers aren't adversely impacted by the hiring of foreign workers. This includes putting essentially bogus ads in newspaper classifieds, and requires that they're paying the same to H1-B workers in the same role as a domestic worker, among other comical things.
The program has defacto evolved to one in which the US can tap into a skilled global labor market to increase competition for roles, without paying too much attention to the actual legal requirements.
Sources:
(Like many here, I've written a few H1-B role requisition documents - which are often designed to be so ludicrously specific that it would be almost impossible to find anyone to fill that role, save for the one person applying for the visa)
> This includes putting essentially bogus ads in newspaper classifieds
> Like many here, I've written a few H1-B role requisition documents - which are often designed to be so ludicrously specific that it would be almost impossible to find anyone to fill that role, save for the one person applying for the visa
Both of these things have absolutely nothing to do with H1B visa requirements. You're just proving my point in the comment you're replying to. Please read it again.
Also read your own references to see where they require ads in newspapers or needing to tailor H1B "requisition documents". Spoiler, there's none.
It would be better to spend less of your comments expressing frustration with people who don't understand, and more explaining what the difference actually is. I read both of your comments and while I have no reason to disagree with you, I can't tell what you're actually saying.
If you respond to incorrect information with correct information and show us how it is correct, your comments will be more persuasive as well as more in the intended spirit of the site (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).
It can be easy to take this for granted when you already have the correct information mapped out in your head many times over—but the rest of us don't have access to that!
Fair, I will do that. I had just become jaded over the years(almost 15 years now) spending time explaining the same point in tech forums and then later it's just even more and more comments from others confidently stating the same wrong things again on every tech immigration related story(a bunch on this story including the couple of parent comments in this thread I was replying to). This creates a feedback loop with others assuming the same.
For a while I did not engage with such stories because it feels like a losing battle swimming against the current even though tech forums are generally filled with smart folks.
As another sibling comment said, the requirements for placing ads etc. are for the first step of the green card process, aka PERM, and are not required for a H1B visa.
Maybe I should write a blog post or something explaining it and link it every time :)
Having posted over 60k comments largely repeating the same explanations over and over, I definitely sympathize with the frustrations of internet statelessness!
Writing one definitive explanation and then linking to it sounds like a good solution in this case. Even if just you wrote it up as an HN comment and then linked to that in the future.
Are you sure you are not conflating this with PERM? H-1B only requires a prevailing wage determination. There is no “ludicrously specific” job description, nor a requirement to post ads (just a notice at the workplace).
What makes you say that? There's so much research that flies in the face of this sentiment. Solar on rooftops alone has the potential to supply a fourth of the current US energy consumption [1]. Other studies estimate that solar could grow to supply between 30-50% of our energy consumption in the future [2]. Solar represents a near limitless supply of energy, and can be harvested in a decentralized fashion (allowing homes to directly power themselves).
Furthermore, EVs have shown that advancements in tech can mitigate concerns around material availability and sustainability (while also increasing efficiency).
I know this is anecdotal, but whenever I hear these stories, I'm curious about the details. A quick search leads me to believe that head chef pay in Seattle typically ranges from about 90k-110k per year. Finding apartments off Broadway in Cap Hill, I can see that studios, though relatively expensive, range around $1.5-2k a month.
An income tax calculator estimates about a 22% total tax bracket and a monthly adjusted income of just over 6k. To me, that means that this person is falling right around 33% of their income devoted towards housing, which seems typical. What am I missing?
In a well-functioning city, a head chef should be able to comfortably afford to rent a 2-3 bedroom apartment within walking distance of their restaurant. They should not be spending 1/3rd of their income and only getting a studio out of it.
You can, just move out of Capitol Hill in Seattle which is one of the most desirable areas in one of the most desirable cities located in one of the most desirable geographies in the wealthiest country on earth.
There are many cities in the world where a head chef can live in the desirable neighborhood within a desirable city while working at their desirable restaurant. For example, the owners of a local wine bar where I live in Bogota are able to operate a wine bar below their apartment with relaxed zoning laws. Just not possible in the U.S.
Not just high-end restaurant jobs. The local owner of the ferreteria (home repair goods) lives above his store as does a window/glass store owner. And this is in a relatively pricey, high end neighborhood. In other neighborhoods is even more common. My family recently sold a restaurant in Bogota and the new owners are converting the top floor into a home for themselves.
I'm not sure if you meant to, since you seemed to be talking framing it around individual choice, but you've just made the case that something is fundamentally damning the economy in cities like Seattle. That's exactly why issues like housing affordability need to be identified and treated at the systemic level.
If people can't satisfyingly live near their work, then they can't work there, and then the work can't be done. If workers has to move to another state to practice their craft, a city needs to proactively recognize and address the problem if they want to avoid a coming blight.
Well because individual choice and governance choices both exist simultaneously and dynamically.
In this particular case, though, I think the thing that is daming Seattle (and similar locations: Santa Barbara, San Francisco, Denver, Aspen, anywhere remotely desirable) is geography and climate and there isn't much you can do to fix that because you can't create new geography out of thin air. "Ohio is so boring", "I need to be near mountains and fresh air", "I like to surf", "I love to hike" are all things that can't be effectively replicated and so wherever those things exist prices will skyrocket relative to other locations.
Can Seattle literally build more? Yes. Will that solve Seattle's housing affordability problems? No it won't. In the short term interest rates and cost to build mean that most units will be higher end. Certainly won't mean a 2-3br house anyway. In the long-term unless something drastically changes Seattle is just desirable and there will be many more people who want to live there than there will be homes unless we could just snap our fingers and create new housing, nevermind governance issues, it just isn't happening folks.
I do empathize though. Please don't mistake my comments for callousness. But sometimes the truth (as I see it) just needs to be state. If you want to work as a chef and afford a 2br house it just is not happening in Seattle and you should make peace with that.
The people who build, own, and operate the very luxury services (such as culinary destinations) that contribute to an area's reputation as "one of the most desirable areas in one of the most desirable cities located in one of the most desirable geographies in the wealthiest country on earth" should be able to afford living there.
Yes, to an extent. Commuting adds friction to working there, and if it becomes too much of a burden then people are likely to relocate.
And in this specific case (head chef at a popular bar) living in the neighborhood allows him to keep abreast of other bars, local trends, etc which benefits his work.
You're essentially saying Seattle is too expensive for chefs to live in, which means it's too expensive for nice restaurants, which means it's too expensive to function.
Now extend your own logic to teachers, service workers, etc.
Well it functions up until people such as this head chef say "screw these housing prices" and relocate somewhere else and open their restaurant and have a better life and then whoever is living in Seattle gets crappy or extremely expensive restaurants to account for the high housing prices.
Indeed. So, speaking as someone who lives in the Greater Seattle area, enjoys the local restaurants, and would like their head chefs to remain here - it is a problem, and I would like to solve it. Even if it means that my home equity might not be as valuable on paper as it would otherwise be in 10 years.
Sure… but Seattle is valuable and desirable because it is Seattle. The only thing you could do to make it like you wish is to make Seattle undesirable.
Think about it like this. What do you think of when you think about Indianapolis, or Kansas City, or Charlotte, etc.? Do those cities seem very desirable to you? Places you want to go and uproot your life to move to?
Probably not. Flat. Boring. Dog shit weather. Car-only infrastructure. (I know I live in a similar city for family/friends reasons)
You can’t solve this problem with less home equity - that’s a contradiction. The great things you enjoy are tied 1-1 inseparably from your home equity. The only way for your home equity to not be as valuable in ten years as it otherwise would be is to get rid of the very things that you enjoy!
The only reason why none of these sound particularly desirable is the overall politics of their respective states. Otherwise, I wouldn't have a problem living in any of them now that remote work is reasonably well established. It wasn't back when I bought a house here - then it was all about the jobs.
I also have to note that "dog shit weather" is literally one of the things that define the Seattle experience. I don't actually mind personally, but a lot of people do.
> The only reason why none of these sound particularly desirable is the overall politics of their respective states.
That’s not the only reason and you know it. And even if it were the only reason for you it’s not the only reason broadly speaking. But the desirable political climate adds to the desirability of Seattle.
> I also have to note that "dog shit weather" is literally one of the things that define the Seattle experience. I don't actually mind personally, but a lot of people do.
Seattle has fewer homes with air conditioning than even San Francisco [1] at 33% (as of 2018). Kansas City is at 99%. It’s very moderate throughout the year. You don’t get crazy temperature variance. Seattle isn’t San Diego but it’s not Buffalo, Kansas City, or Mobile either.
If it was a true free market, housing wouldn't be an issue because developers wouldn't be forbidden from building density.
Capitol hill is a disaster for city living as most of it are single family homes, whereas they should be 5 story condo buildings.
Capitalism and free markets are not synonymous, and you can have the latter without the former (indeed, that was the case for most our history as economic species).
Capitalism is detrimental to free markets because it has inherent positive feedback loops that concentrate capital. Concentration of capital inhibits competition, and a market without competition is by definition not free, regardless of the amount of government regulation in it.
It could be, in principle. The problem with monopolization of capital is fundamentally caused by our overall conceptual take on private property as an abstract concept. Within that framework, you need regulation to keep the market free. But it's not the only framework that is possible; e.g. consider the situation where all capital is commonly owned and held in usufruct by its actual users ("everything is a co-op").
That's because it is. Free-market socialism is a thing, with a spectrum from centralized demsoc to left libertarians to anarchists. "Freed markets" is the term usually used specifically in the latter context:
Usually this dialog line goes the ancap route, I'm pleasantly surprised
I do think you need some mechanism of enforcement though, history has shown that violent people will easily come along to dominate in the way that they see fit
Ironically, I'm former ancap, although that was 20 years ago now. But I don't think that any ancap would be willing to assert that "capitalism is detrimental to free markets", not even the ones who argue that monopolies are actually good by definition because they're market-efficient. That unregulated capitalism and free markets are synonymous is practically dogma in those circles, or at least it was in my time there.
History did indeed show that violent people will try to take over - it is how we have the system of governance that we do today, after all. But individual violent people are not really dangerous to the community as a whole; it's only when they organize in sufficient numbers and possess sufficient resources that it is a threat. I believe that the best way to secure society against such threats is a broadly decentralized organization, such that any attempt to organize to concentrate power is clearly visible in its early stages and can be nipped in the bud by those immediately adjacent to it, without escalating it to higher levels of governance. The latter should be mostly about coordination of efforts and plans, not coercion.
The actual amount of policing power and the exact level of governance on which it should be the strongest is something that, I think, would need to be figured out by experiment. Maybe Murray Bookchin is right and it is, indeed, municipalities. I would hope that it can be more fine-grained than that. But I'd be immensely happy with any working proof of concept, so long as it does not preclude further tweaks and experimentation. If Rojava lasts, it might provide some more useful data.
Market will move instead to where it is reasonably cheap and labor is available, leaving a ghost town behind. Ultimately this results in high concentration.
There's literally no force compelling it to invest in a failing area, or one perceived to be failing.
It’s too expensive for chefs to live in Seattle it really is. People here don’t spend enough money eating out to justify the number on chefs so they can’t afford to live in decent housing
Specific to Seattle, once you see what the teachers are teaching kids there you'll see that they soon won't actually need teachers. Nobody that has both a functioning brain and children would put their kids in Seattle schools.
I can afford to live in Seattle because I make more than a head chef. I would like my city to be affordable to head chefs, since I have friends who are. Seattle is a very nice place and I would like it to be easier for my friends to live here and not be forced to move away, since it makes the city worse and I'd rather the city become an even more desirable place in years to come.
> I'd rather the city become an even more desirable place in years to come.
This is the problem and partially (mostly maybe) why Seattle and other “cool” cities are in the position they are in now. If Seattle was undesirable like, idk, Gary, Indiana then you’d be able to get your friends there and a head chef can buy a house and such. But then it’s Gary. That’s the dichotomy that Seattle and other cities face. Can’t escape it. What you are asking for and wanting just isn’t realistic.
Imagine if I came up to you tomorrow and said I’d like to live with an ocean view in Santa Barbara in a walkable neighborhood with street cars and all my friends and family could afford to live there with a 3br house and the chef makes a lot of money and has this killer restaurant… you know that’s not going to happen. Seattle isn’t any different.
I don't agree. We basically ban people from living in the city with zoning, and even to the extent that the problem isn't zoning we could treat housing more like we treat other public services (electricity) and just make sure that it's available. There's no natural law that things have to be this way, it's a choice that we make and I think it is reasonable to ask it to change.
Nobody bats an eye when we build substations to support the lights in the restaurant, but building homes for the workers is "not realistic."
I know you don’t agree, but the results speak for themselves. I do agree that things don’t “have to be this way” but where I’d differ is that to solve the problem the vast majority of Americans or Seattle residents would disagree with how to solve that problem. You’d have to do something like tax people at 50-60% or their income to pay for the new housing and it just won’t work. Zoning slows down development sure but so do environmental review processes and such. Also even if new development was instantly approved it takes time to build and developers have to spend so much money on the land that they just build very expensive apartments or condos. But this doesn’t alleviate price pressure because the demand to live in Seattle is too high. The evidence is that like in the OP a chef at a top restaurant is living miserably in a 400sqft apartment just to be in Seattle instead of leaving to alleviate their own dissatisfaction.
I’d also personally avoid framing things as such “build homes for the workers” because it implies a very top-down industrial capitalist or communist viewpoint that I think many are resistant to.
Like water flows through the path of least resistance the easy solution here is people are just going to put up with it or move. If it’s a burden I recommend moving.
If you think there is hope with price pressure relief you only have to look to Manhattan, because that’s the future you are facing in my opinion.
-edit-
For the example I can’t think of any tier-1 city that has gotten less expensive over time (please do not cite Tokyo or Japan) except maybe Chicago and even then I doubt that it has really gotten cheaper versus just not as expensive as fast as peer cities.
Chicago is a good example. I don't know if Seattle can actually get better, but it doesn't have to get worse as fast as it has been. And we should at least seriously look at options to try and make it better. (Not just throw up our hands and say that it's unrealistic to expect the city to ever get more affordable for lower income folks.)
But even Chicago is only bad because they let crime seemingly get out of control and the weather sucks and it is still expensive in the areas you’d want to live in.
I definitely think people should try I just think that the expectations need to be set better. Making $100,000/year and living on Capitol Hill in a 2+ bedroom home is just not going to be realistic without giving up something.
One thing Seattle and similar cities can do to help alleviate this though is to continue to or start to dramatically end the usage of personal auto travel and transit. For example I-90, I-5, and I-405 should all be shut down as they traverse through the area. Probably also tearing down and revitalizing areas where there are more than a couple of lanes in each direction. That’ll give more space throughout the greater Seattle area for people to live and fewer cars means more local shops and more money to spend on them too.
The studio is worth it if you're walking to your restaurant 6 or 7 days a week and checking out other neighborhood hot spots. If you're commuting to an office tower a few days and on Zoom or hiking the rest, it's not. And of course if you make it easier or harder to drive to the office (and consequently worse or better to get around on foot) the prices would shift to reflect that, a good example of how the crisis Andre Cooper is writing about hamstrings unrelated things like transportation policy.
Most people are not willing to move away from all of their family, friends, and career. Software engineers are uniquely privileged in that we can work remotely, many, many other careers cannot do that
Remote isn't available for all tech employees (software or otherwise) and historically we have advocated that people move to places like the Bay Area to obtain corresponding higher wages (I have to move to California and uproot all of my friends, family, and career ??). YCombinator itself famously required(s) entrepreneurs to uproot their friends, family, and career to move to the Bay Area.
At the end of the day people can make the right mix of economic and sociological choices that they want. But what's not going to happen is everyone in Seattle gets a 2-3 bedroom house and you can make peace with that fact of life or continue to be frustrated.
When, and in what city, has that ever been the case?
I haven't been to Seattle, but in major cities space is at a major premium and many dwellings are tiny. This is offset by the amenities living in a prominent city have to offer.
Why does it matter if it’s ever been the case? Is that adequate justification why things shouldn’t be some way?
You're basically saying "it's fine because that's the way it has always been," which I don't think I need to explain is not a particularly compelling argument.
I just pulled up plenty of 2bd rentals on zillow for under $2,500 with a short commute. Am I missing something here? Or does being a head chef mean you should be able to afford rent on top of the restaurant you serve?
That sounds more of a problem of low wages than housing affordability. Also, in these times of title inflation, "head chef" could apply to many positions depending on the size of the restaurant.
* They're a head-chef, that seems like a high-ranking position.
* That used to feed and house a whole family, easily.
* They can now **only afford a studio**
I have absolutely no knowledge of how well chefs in Seattle are paid, but I've heard from elsewhere that operating a high-end restaurant is far from a money machine.
Head chef, unlike senior software developer or something, is a job that doesn't scale much. A rock star chef in a posh neighbourhood is only so much more productive than a mediocre chef in cheaper neighbourhood so, economically speaking, the salaries are not expected to scale all that much.
I used to know a chef who worked at michelin star restaurant and he had to move to a flat share because he found himself not being able to afford much after paying rent in London.
That sent him to a severe depression and later on an unsuccessful suicide attempt that rendered him unable to work and he became homeless.
Sure but obviously that number needs some common sense, right. To make a clearly ridiculous example - if you were making 100k a month and paying 25k for rent you wouldn't be poor in any possible meaning of that word.
If you bring home 6k a month after taxes, and after rent you're left with 4.5k, I'd also argue that's not "barely making ends meet". That leaves a very comfortable breathing room that is unimaginable luxury for most of the world.
$90k salary and $2k rent was my situation when I moved to Seattle many years ago. It definitely was comfortable.
My wife was able to also get comparable work and that money wasn't at all needed to help make ends meet, so it went right into student loans and those got paid right quick.
I moved from the Midwest and people warned me about the CoL etc. But you just gross more even if the apartment etc is a bigger percent. And cash is king especially if you have debt or just like buying nice things or both.
- All forms of insurance
- saving for retirement
- Rising food costs
- Any Healthcare expenses
- Car costs
- Child care
- Subscriptions (phone, internet)
- Utilities
If you can't fit all of that in four and a half thousand dollars then I don't know what to tell you. I'll repeat myself - someone who has 4.5k left after paying rent is not struggling to make ends meet by any definition of the word, in Seattle or elsewhere.
$4500/mo for everything after the roof over your head is not enough.
Living alone? Probably, assuming you have no major debt and are in great health/have no emergencies.
2 of you? Maybe. Definitely not putting anything away for later that’s for sure. Better not have any emergencies.
Kids? No way.
$4500/mo after paying for your home basically leaves little room for error or, frankly, joy in your life. Can't take trips, can't have pets, can't donate to causes, can't go out to eat much or anywhere nice, etc. We aren't supposed to just work/eat/sleep, we need something to look forward to, we need to be able to weather financial emergencies, and we need to be able to save for later.
>>$4500/mo after paying for your home basically leaves little room for error or, frankly, joy in your life. Can't take trips, can't have pets, can't donate to causes, can't go out to eat much or anywhere nice, etc
None of this is "struggling to make ends meet". I've seen this before though - people make good money, have a place to live, make payments for a nice car, have enough to put food on the table, to pay for their energy bills, to send their kids to school/childcare, and yet they will say they are barely hanging on because they can't save a lot every year or go on holidays.
Like, I really sympathise, but that's not barely making ends meet. 4.5k after rent is enough to live on almost anywhere in the world.
We are talking about the United States. Not “anywhere in the world.” I find those arguments very frustrating because I don’t really feel like I should have to say that. We are not talking about somewhere where $10 can last you a week.
I was trying to average it out across the low COL areas :).
But here in the Bay Area, for 2Y+ you can find daycares for that amount. Also home day cares are also an option and they tend to be between 1.5-2k a month.
When you're looking for <2Y care though? That fucking sucks, because of the (understandable) ratio laws, prices are high 2ks to 3k here.
That's assuming you do not want to save anything, or a medical emergency does not wipe you out.
Or a car crash. Or any other utterly forseeable common event.
Again, nothing to do with struggling to make ends meet. By going further with your argument you aren't fully comfortable until you can cover any possible event that might happen, since a dire enough event will exhaust any possible amount of savings you could have unless you're a billionaire. Medical emergencies and car crashes are covered by insurance for nearly everyone, if you make that much money I would think you have appropriate policies in place.
Ah I just realized you're in the UK. I'm also from the UK but live in California.
Now it all makes sense! I agree that 4.5k after tax is fine to live on in the UK. Here in the US where a carton of basic eggs cost $6+, a box of standard brand milk costs $4/5, that $2.5k is going to disappear pretty fucking quickly.
I was astounded at how expensive it was here. Even in London, you could buy Warburtons for £1.30 or so back when I moved a few years ago. 1L of Cravendale (I liked the good stuff) was still £1 IIRC. Now it's like £1.30? Still, way cheaper.
I don't think you have kids (especially infants/young ones) because in a high cost of living area, 2.5k a month is HARD. You can do that in Europe, not in the US.
Those situations also happen, they're not black swan events. My current medical plan for my family has a deductible of $3k. Every year we end up hitting that number. That's excluding the actual premiums which are deducted from your pay. Do you have ANY idea what you're talking about?
Most of these costs (saving for retirement, insurance, subscriptions, car) would be consistent across the US and is not unique to Seattle. $100k in a very expensive city is not much by any means, however what's more concerning is the costs you outlined are consistent and rising for even those living in LCOL or making even less than $100k.
>If you bring home 6k a month after taxes, and after rent you're left with 4.5k, I'd also argue that's not "barely making ends meet". That leaves a very comfortable breathing room that is unimaginable luxury for most of the world.
Another aspect of this issue is that, when you take out a typical mortgage, you take a 4-5x leveraged long position on real estate. Rent for a nice 1br in Seattle area is $2K, but the hidden aspect is the landlord is holding the RE risk on your behalf.
Even if mortgage was $1K/mo, I would rather rent (which I do) to avoid this risk in volatile, tech-dependent area like Seattle.
In nominal dollars yes... but the downside risk was the true cost.
Get in at a low rate and comfortably afford it, then you're doing great despite maybe being underwater for now. But default while underwater and lose whatever you put down plus the difference in price.
TINFA but, exposure to real estate is generally/historically a good hedge to keep pace with wage inflation. I disagree with OP; getting in before rate hikes wasn't necessarily a mistake. But mortgages work the same way that ESPPs and RSU grants work, banks/companies/governments hedge downside risk by convincing a whole bunch of people to be long on a stock (or real estate).
Federal DTI maximum for mortgages is 45% with a good credit score and/or cash reserves. For apartment complexes, they typically won't lease, or will require a bigger deposit, if your gross monthly income isn't 3x the rent (which typically means it's 40%+ of your net income).
If 25% 'was' house poor, then at least 90% of today's mortgage-holding and rent-paying Americans are house poor.
I think 33% is very high. Also converting the value to % erases the fact that this is still a very high price for what you get in return. Perhaps it’s time to reevaluate the economics around housing - maybe betting against human lives doesn’t feel right. Also, with overpopulation and climate changes, access to housing and the need for relocation will drastically change the landscape of what one needs to do to put a proper roof over their head.
>>I think 33% is very high. Also converting the value to % erases the fact that this is still a very high price for what you get in return.
Guess it depends on how each person defines 'what you get in return'. It seems this chef values living in a particular expensive neighborhood in Seattle, presumably close to where s/he works - and s/he values that. The smallish apartment size is the tradeoff they make.
Warning, uncomfortable honesty ahead. I'd be betting against labor. With all the automation going on, and the "Huge" technological advancements I foresee probably < 20 years away, I don't see why I should do otherwise. I also don't see violent revolutions being a possibility with all the societal level monitoring and controls all countries are putting in place, so I'm betting on pure "capital" and "the means of production". The more I have of it, the more likely I'll be part of the upper strata of society when whatever dystopian tech hell hole we end up getting.
Of course, I won't step on others, and I'll help where my conscience requires me. But at the end of the day (or the end of the world) I am here to provide a safe future for my children, and perhaps secondary, my culture's children... but definitely not to save the world. The world is beyond saving at this point.
>The more I have of it [capital], the more likely I'll be part of the upper strata of society when whatever dystopian tech hell hole we end up getting.
Why do you conclude that money will keep you safe? Easy to hyperinflate currency, freeze bank accounts, seize gold, etc. Typically in a "violent revolution" you mentioned, power lies in the military.
Capital comes in many form, and money is just one. Probably most problematic in times of strife.
Assets, in particular high value, portable or hard to destroy ones, that are easy to defend, or skills that are very hard to replace without destroying you or their value.
Military is strong mostly due to the assets it has - obedient manpower and destructive hardware.
The problem is, however, that using these assets destroys value in the medium term, not creates.
A factory making guns is worth much more than guns themselves. People who know how to operate it, as well.
A working mine is worth more than a mountain.
Every conqueror wants submission and instead reaps destruction.
You only own said factory because government says you do and will enforce your ownership. A junta or communist party might not agree you own it anymore.
My point is, more things than not have dependency on government or legal system. In case of widespread automation via AGI, the rich are not safe. Probably drone swarms and wilderness survival are your best bet. Who would want to survive like a rat in such a world, though.
To quote the mars man: "all things considered with regard to AGI existential angst, I would prefer to be alive now to witness AGI than be alive in the past and not".
> I also don't see violent revolutions being a possibility with all the societal level monitoring and controls all countries are putting in place
In the world you're describing, they're not just possible, they're inevitable.
Consider the implications of automation taken to the extreme. Today, we have capitalists who own the means of production, and workers who use them to produce value. Workers don't get a fair slice of the pie that they make, but they get some of it at least because labor is needed for capital to be useful. The system is unfair overall and popularly perceived as such, but most people aren't pushed far enough that violent revolt would be rational and feasible.
But if means of production that don't require workers to operate them become dominant, and lots of workers become outright economically redundant, it will literally be a question of what do their children eat tomorrow. And, well, there's a lot more labor; whatever societal monitoring and control tech you devise, it won't help you if 90% of the population realize that the only way they won't starve is if they forcibly take what the other 10% has hoarded.
Not only that, but should that happen, the torches-and-pitchforks mob will target the people on the bottom of the upper class first, simply because they are more prominent in day-to-day interactions, live closer, can afford less security, and don't have ready access to escape routes (like a private plane or yacht). For some vivid descriptions of how this works out for the people who can't escape, read about the 1917 Russian revolution.
So unless you're already comfortably upper class - enough so to afford a bunker in New Zealand or similar arrangements - this doesn't sound like a good long-term survival strategy to me. Indeed, I would argue that, among white collar workers, it's precisely the high middle class people that have the most vested interest in "saving the world", in a sense of coming up with a new economic consensus that would prevent the above scenario - we have to, if we want a safe future for our families. And I don't think it is at all impossible for a political alliance of all labor across the board to push this change. Our societies are bad at democracy, generally speaking, but supermajorities still matter.
> But if means of production that don't require workers to operate them become dominant
if this happens, then production of the goods become even cheaper than before. Therefore, the availability becomes higher, and therefore, those who are not redundant would become richer, as they can now afford more, or pay less for what they consume, leaving extra for luxuries.
This would generate demand for new goods/services, which become new opportunities for those who have become redundant. And the cycle continues, until one day, every possible piece of work to be done is automated (ala, star trek).
Why would it become an opportunity, if you can take care of that new demand with more automation (produced using existing automation)? The "redundant" people become permanently redundant in this arrangement.
> I can see that studios, though relatively expensive, range around $1.5-2k a month.
Is that all? That's crazy cheap by the standards of my area. Where I live (a smallish city in western US), the cheapest housing you can find, in the least desirable part of town, starts at $1200/mo.
I would argue that the salary of 110k/yr isn't accurate. That is still entry - mid level tech in Seattle. Granted it has changed recently to be 125-135k, but I do find it hard that a head chef in Seattle would make 110k. 65-85K I can.
Capitol Hill (no one calls it Cap Hill.) is pricy, though $2,000 should find a studio easily, and no car is needed, it's a close knit enough neighborhood.
> A quick search leads me to believe that head chef pay in Seattle typically ranges from about 90k-110k per year.
This doesn't sound right to me. Maybe it's true for the very fancy quasi-Michelin places like Canlis or Shiro's, but for a nice-but-average gastropub in Cap Hill it's probably much less.
It also matters where and how far you are from things. Walkability is a big draw, so if you're within a mile of a major district with tons of food, entertainment, and culture, chances are any well-kept apartment building will raise their prices to account for that (and account for you not having a monthly car payment or auto insurance payment), and if this chef is within a few blocks of their work, it's not hard to believe their rent could be over 3,000 a month or 50%+ of their income (although, typically, management companies want to see your gross income be 3x or more of the rent).
> if you're within a mile of a major district with tons of food, entertainment, and culture
If you're within a mile of _that_, it seems reasonable to define the housing in that area as "prime" and expect it to cost a lot more than further away. The fact that rents for that housing has a cost that is prohibitive for the vast majority of people doesn't seem odd to me.
This is why I'm replying to a comment stating "I'm curious about the details". Without someone explaining their debts or where they live, we're guessing and arguing about what could drive someone to live in a 400 sqft studio where they make 3x the rent but still live paycheck to paycheck. You pay to live in that area. Even if we vastly increase the supply, these areas will always have an order of magnitude more demand than some apartment complex outside the city's beltway because living in these complexes allows you to drop your car dependency.
For me at least, reading speed inversely correlates with reading retention. There are plenty of non-fiction books that are about 20% useful information, and 80% anecdotes in support of that information.
If I find that I’m already convinced of the point that a particular subchapter / section is trying to make, I’ll speed through it. As a result, I speed read through about 80% of most non-fiction books.
My experience with speed reading is that it’s more akin to speed “skimming”. I see all the words, I understand the point each paragraph is making, but I’m not resting and respecting every word, or really paying too much attention to sentence structure. You can miss details, but this is predicated on the assumption that those details don’t matter.
If I’m reading something where every detail does matter, or fiction that’s heavy on prose, I slow down significantly, since my objective is often to enjoy the book for the maximum amount of time possible, and not to learn as many things in as short a time as possible.
If you had a massive plot in an urban area, undeveloped, presumably the unimproved portion of your property tax would be quite high! But, the issue is that restrictive zoning means that typically the unimproved value of your tax assessment are pretty low.
For example, if you live on 2 acres, but zoning says that you can only put 1 dwelling unit per 5 acres, then you can't really do much with the remaining acres. As a result, the remaining land has little value, and the tax on it is low. This is especially true in areas of little industry, where the same zoning regulations might also prohibit industrial or agriculture uses on that same plot of land!
This is all to say that the structure you're looking for may already exist, but the issue is still in zoning.
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