Notice how they don’t mention there’d be more construction and lower rents if local governments weren’t extorting $150k/unit in fees and permits. That doesn’t even count the developer concessions that are demanded (fix up the neighborhood park at developer’s expense).
The thing that has always upset me is that most economists have sided against rent control yet no one listens or is willing to explore alternative policies. Why?
People can’t understand past the first step. Rent is high. I pay my rent to the landlord, so the landlord must be the reason rent is to high. Then they vote for anything that seems like it’ll protect them from the evil landlord. They aren’t thinking past that first step.
Also, most people only care about their own rent. They could care less about the overall rental market as long as they personally have a deal.
There’s a reason they are life long renters and not home owners. If they were thinking more ahead, then they’d have bought years or decades ago. That’s also why large numbers of people want the government to make the decisions for them and take care of them. It makes their life easier, and they don’t have to live with their own bad decisions.
It’s a battle between the ants and grasshoppers…The Grasshoppers are threatening to take over…Too bad nobody is trying to encourage new construction…
Well, Wiener in CA is with his latest bill is trying…
New construction won’t happen without relaxing zoning and building rules…Building departments have been slowing down builders for decades…They are incapable of treating builders like they did in the 60s. They believe their job is to make construction as slow and expensive as possible in the name of public safety…
If rent control passes another ballot initiative should allow for suspension of all building restrictions for 5 years…Would allow for a massive increase in housing development
Doesn’t address the $150k/unit of fees and permits. Think about it. $150k builds you a house in most of the country. In the bay area, it pays for permits and fees. You don’t even have land or building materials yet.
I think builders would rather pay the fees than be forced to build BMRs the double whammy kills most projects…
Now where are you getting this number???
I think we will gradually build more. The trend is the government will force NIMBYs to back off to allow more developments. Look at the amount of condos in the pipeline in SF.
But building in my opinion is the easier part. When rules are relaxed, builders will find the lots and get financing and hire the workers and sell the condos. What’s really hard is to improve transportation. Traffic congestion is a non-linear function of the amount of cars on the road. A 5-10% increase in the amount of cars can cause 50% longer commute time since the roads are already very congested. Maybe in 5 years it will be impractical to commute from north of Fremont down to the south bay every day during rush hours.
There’s been articles before with it. It’s insane.
Housing wont improve till transportation is improved…chicken and egg problems…But mass transportation doesnt work without high densisty…like in downtown SF…until cities except Manhatanization
there will be no useful mass transit and
traffic will be awful…50 year problem
But that is the beauty of Wiener’s legis…it revolves around existing or soon to be transit stations or hubs. Makes a lot of sense. Will it pass though???
My property manager is there protesting it. Even the most recent Stanford study says rent control leads to less supply and higher rents. Why is this even a topic of conversation?
Agreed! And of course the vast majority of economists from way back have said the same thing. Why the Supreme Court was not able to see the overall argument (pros/cons) of the current law is beyond me. Ok, maybe you deem it is a society need for some reason, but certainly you can also see that it is not fair to the owners in many ways. Suggestion: make the law fairer then. That is all I am asking. Means testing’s day has come!!!
Courts have let a lot of things stand that seem to go against the idea of property rights. It’s not a good thing. Property rights were a founding principle of this country.