Portland, Ore. is facing a huge housing crisis because single-home zoning prevented increasing density. Without the ability to create more housing on existing land, there is a shortage. It's that simple. They recently passed a law allowing more dense developments, and that will create more supply. There are currently 10 apartment projects in flight in the city, so there is no cabal conspiring to not build housing as you suggested.
Unfortunately, current homeowners love the shortage because it is increasing the value of their homes in ways we haven't seen since ... ever. Which is incredibly short-sighted because the economy will stall without housing, which will crater the boom. Moreso because if they sell, where are they going to move in the same town? They would need to sell and leave town to someplace cheaper. It is amazing to me how many people don't think one more step ahead.
Yes, I’m familiar with that narrative. Perhaps it is reality in _Portland_and_handful_of_other_places. In that case, you’re actually specifying the different case of solving a real housing shortage, not a manufactured shortage.
I routinely take 3-mile walks through my neighborhood in NE Los Angeles. There are at least two homes on each block that are unoccupied. The nearby stack and pack developments don’t offset the inventory sitting idle.
If I understand your argument correctly, you are making an un-evidenced claim that a cabal of housing developers are conspiring creating a housing shortage despite the biggest housing boom in the US since post WW2, while also claiming single-dwelling zoning as the root cause is somehow just an anecdote?
No, I'm making an evidenced claim. I have observed this with my own eyes. And you're moving the goalposts.
I'm saying by taking inventory off the market by buying houses and leaving them vacant, investors are contributing to the housing shortage. I'm pretty sure collectively controlling a small percentage of the market, investors can cause an increase in the cost of housing, per the law of supply and demand.
it doesn't take some kind of cabal to do the incentivized thing, plow millions/billions into properties and don't bother with the hassle of renters when the amount they increase is far more than you would have gotten from rent before you flip them.
Vacant houses do not match the behavior of private equity investors. PE will rent out houses and viciously profit maximize at every step.
Vacant homes from "investors" are almost certainly older residents that have moved, or passed away and left it to kids that haven't figured out what to do, or just owners in the area that have locked in low property taxes and don't want to bother with the hassle of renters.
These are precisely the small-time landholders that benefit the most from stopping apartments from being built, because the source of their investment games is entirely from scarcity.
And the cure is precisely to take away their ability to limit housing by building what you call "stack and pack."
I would like to engage constructively, but I'm not sure what you doubt, and you seem to be holding me to a far different standard than you hold your own comments to.
Here's the behavior of PE firms when it comes to renting houses, they rent them out and charge for everything:
As for the vacancy rates, how do you know the homes are vacant, and what is the proper vacancy rate? These can be looked up in from Census ACS estimates, though I hear that the Post Office sometimes has better data.
I would say that a healthy vacancy rate is at least 7%, possibly higher.
I'm quite familiar both with Vancouver's and Oakland's vacancy taxes, and have endeavored to get them enacted in my town. Not because it will solve any housing problem, but because it's a nice revenue stream for various much needed services, and it eliminates one way that people try to wriggle out of the need to build more homes.
If anything, Vancouver is solid evidence that vacant homes are not the problem, despite so many current homeowners being desperate to use them as an excuse not to build more homes. In Vancouver, the tax provides a small income stream, but has changed nothing at all structurally. And that's in combination with the foreign purchaser tax.
The one solution is to start building what people want, what you derisively call "stack and pack", in sufficient numbers over a long enough period of time to satisfy everyone's desire for housing.
We are not off the mark by 10% in the amount of homes needed in LA or the Bay Area, we are 30%-50% off or more. We have been under building for decades now.
Portland has an Urban Growth Boundary [1] that makes it very difficult (de-facto illegal) to build new housing on undeveloped land. That is a major cause of the housing shortage, but it was passed by people like you who wanted it to artificially densify the city. Current homeowners who want to maximize their house's value would be in favor of keeping the urban growth boundary (it restricts the supply of houses) and encouraging high density projects (if apartments can be built on a lot, it makes it more valuable), which coincidentally is the status quo in Portland and other cities on the west coast. You may personally hate sprawl for various reasons, but there is a reason why the sprawling cities of the South and Midwest are cheaper than the densifying cities of the PNW, despite many of them having larger populations. Building apartments and tearing down houses lowers the price of apartments and raises the price of houses; it's simple supply and demand. Repealing both zoning regulations and the urban growth boundary would result in a free market, but don't be surprised if people make lifestyle choices you don't approve of and the suburbs sprawl outwards in such an environment.
> Building apartments and tearing down houses lowers the price of apartments and raises the price of houses; it's simple supply and demand.
Do you have evidence of this? I would think increasing the supply of housing would have a downward effect on all housing. Sure, if you're really set on a SFH and there are fewer of them, you'll have to compete. But I think people who want a SFH want a SFH _neighborhood_, and there's an unanswered question to what extent different types of housing can substitute for one another.
The value of _land_ may increase with zoning because development rights are still in limited supply, and the profit opportunity for a developer has gone up. But I don't see many SFH owners clamoring to let their neighbors on both sides be replaced with 5-over-1.
The housing market is not perfectly fungible. A three bedroom house is not replaceable with a studio apartment, and building a studio apartment would only lower the price of houses if there were a lot of people living in houses who would prefer to live in such an apartment. Generally the reverse is true, as more Americans aspire to own a house than live to in an apartment. This survey[1] shows this; look at the difference between live in city and want to live in suburb versus live in suburb and want to live in city. It's not a perfect proxy because many cities have houses and many suburban areas have apartments, but it should give you a general idea. This means that building houses may lower the price of apartments because there are people living in apartments who would prefer not to be. Once they move out, they open up a spot for someone who wants to live there. Three bedroom apartments are much less frequently built than 0-2 bedrooms (the smaller the floor plan, the more tend to be built), but there are still many intangibles like owning the land underneath your building and physical separation from neighbors that lead some people to prefer a house over an equivalently sized apartment/condo.
In addition, many suburban areas are not exclusively single-family houses; they already contain a mixture of apartment buildings and commercial areas, so I dispute your point that single family home buyers insist on exclusively single-family neighborhoods. In most suburban areas I've seen, the apartment buildings tend to cluster together, often near a commercial area, so if you're deep in a sea of houses it's unlikely that your next door neighbor will sell to a developer. People may not be excited if their next door neighbor sells to a developer who plans to build an apartment complex, but that doesn't change the value of their lot, which has increased because the developer is willing to pay more for it if they can build bigger buildings on it.
I was talking about a market with no rules restricting what can be built, and in such a market the neighbor has no say, so their personal opinion is irrelevant. The guy I was arguing with wanted restrictions on housing types he liked to be repealed, but wanted restrictions on housing types he didn't like to be enacted, and I was trying to point out that hypocrisy. Building houses versus apartments is a balancing act governed by demand, but market distortions like banning one type of housing or another can cause an undersupply of certain types of housing, which leads to an increase in prices for the type of housing that is undersupplied and for the substitute it's would-be buyers end up using.
Didn't say it was perfectly fungible, just fungible enough that a significant enough increase in other types of supply might bring down SFHs. Either that or the true value of a SFH in a no longer housing constrained San Francisco really is $2.5 million.
If you believe that SFH buyers do not insist on SFH neighborhoods (whole cities are not neighborhoods), and should welcome denser zoning because it makes their lot more attractive for redevelopment, go circulate a petition for this among SFH owners and see how far it gets.
You're thinking far too narrowly on SF. In SF, there are people sharing a rented house and treating it as de facto apartments, so my argument still holds. Outside of college towns, that is normally a rare thing, so it isn't applicable for most metro areas that haven't been frozen in time for decades. The Bay Area is a terrible example because they've banned ALL types of housing, not just apartments. They have an urban growth boundary and haven't upgraded their infrastructure to support their growing population, which means that for a given commute time, people must live closer to work than they would with better infrastructure, which increases the number of bidders for each property near offices. I suspect though that even if enough apartments are built in SF so that single-family homes become single-family again, the price of a house there will still be millions. For example, look at the Upper East and West Sides of New York, where there are townhouses worth millions to tens of millions, just like there are in SF, but they are surrounded by massive apartment buildings. Those townhouses are also protected by zoning (In the local government's words: "R8B contextual districts are designed to preserve the character and scale of taller rowhouse neighborhoods."), and they'd be worth even more if a skyscraper could be built there. You could argue NYC still needs more apartments there, but the value of that townhouse's land would still be high, as the developer who wants to build another skyscraper with hundreds of units can afford to pay far more than all but the very richest potential homeowners. A regular New Yorker who wants a house, while they may be priced out of Manhattan, still has the option of moving to New Jersey or somewhere on Long Island and commuting in, as NYC sprawled in addition to building up. If they want to stay a homeowner in Manhattan (or a San Francisco) then they have to outbid the developers.
To your other point about insisting on SFH-only neighborhoods, in large parts of the country, there are apartment buildings and large commercial areas spread between and in single family neighborhoods, and that hasn't stopped people from buying houses there. I wasn't arguing that they all should support higher density zoning, just that it is in their financial best interest to do so. Another major problem is that because the Bay Area has refused to build anything for decades, it has decades of unmet (or to use urbanist language "induced") demand for houses, apartments, roads, transit, etc. that has to be met before prices and congestion will start to go down. To maximize housing affordability you need a mix of sprawl and density with appropriate infrastructure for the type housing built, and if you only do one type of growth you will have many people who are unhappy, which is why in another comment in this thread I accused the YIMBY urbanist of being the same as a NIMBY SFH owner, just with a different preferred housing type. The Gallup survey I linked earlier shows that there are more people currently living in cities (presumably in apartments) who wish to live in suburbs or rural areas (presumably in houses) than the reverse, so there is an unmet demand for "sprawl" and options like remote work.
My major point if a SFH owner in SF was purely motivated by money, they would welcome development on their land and wish to limit it on others'. Many of them aren't though, and they aren't lying or using euphemisms when they say they want the character of their neighborhood preserved. I hear tons of arguments that they are opposing multi-family housing because it would lower their property values, and that just doesn't make sense. A San Francisco with an apartment built for everyone there who wants one and no other changes would most likely still have million dollar houses, though the rent of the apartments would be less.
That's great. I really appreciate the growth boundary. It is one of the reasons I like Portland. That's not at all what I'm referring to. In fact, my position, is that removing the single-family zoning restriction is a good thing. That works against sprawl.
> people like you
I think you may have been triggered by poor reading comprehension and gone off in a fit of ignorant rage and assumed I thought sprawl was a good thing.
My reading comprehension is fine. I'm well aware you're an urbanist who hates sprawl and cars and loves density and transit. You need to work on yours, because I never said that you like sprawl (in fact, I said the exact opposite: "You may personally hate sprawl for various reasons"), only that urban growth boundaries raise the cost of housing and that "NIMBYs", if they were motivated by increasing their property values instead of concerns over the character of their neighborhoods, would support policies like urban growth boundaries and upzoning because they result in a reduction in the supply of houses and an increase in the potential land usage value. You argued that they loved a shortage of housing because it increases property values, and I pointed out that the reality is more nuanced.
How are you any different that the someone who doesn't want an apartment building built because it would change the character of the neighborhood? Both of you support policies that increase the cost of housing in the hopes that everyone will live the lifestyle that each of you prefer. You prefer multi-family housing and want people to live in it, and support policies that make it expensive to live in single-family housing. The hypothetical NIMBY (who is, as mentioned previously, not someone who is purely interested in maximizing their house's value) prefers to live in single family homes and wants it to be expensive to live in multi-family housing. I'm sure you'll reply with some handwavy thing about sustainability and externalities, but the NIMBY can similarly bring up crime, noise, congestion, and other issues with dense living. There is no difference other than which housing type the two groups prefer.
I would be less hostile if urbanists like yourself would just admit that they want to force everyone to live their prefered lifestyle instead of hiding behind bogus economical and questionable environmental arguments. If you truly just wanted the option to rent apartments then there would be no need for policies like urban growth boundaries. Removing both the zoning rules and the boundaries would allow for housing that people want to be developed, but what would you do if your neighbors make the "wrong" choice?
You've been nothing but hostile in this discussion (and apparently from your history, many others). Also you literally edited a comment to deny a claim you made. Just stop.
You edited a comment to change your reply from being an attack based on something I did not say to including an actual argument, and I have not edited a comment beside grammatical changes/minor clarifications and my argument is consistent. Just stop commenting if you can't address my points or hold a discussion.
I think if you are using derisive terms like "stack and pack" for apartments then you are probably precisely the investor that is manufacturing the housing crisis.
Apartments create greater affordability, they allow for designing cities with lower carbon impact than single-unit homes, they allow better community, more connections, cradle-to-grave living, they allow people to survive without having to get in a car to do any task during the day. They are fantastic. I would live in a "stack and pack" home in an instant if they were allowed in my community.
try living in one. they are great maybe from age 24-29. they typically cost more than a mortgage in my area. you don't talk to people when you are that close. I find the greater the distance between neighbors the better the relationship.
I am right at the end of your range and noticing similar trends among my similar-aged peers. We all talked of condos a few years ago, but the single family home with room to breathe and quiet is overtaking our previous desires. I am still conflicted due to my hate of commuting, but the more I read about and experience the downfalls of busy-area living (noise pollution, air pollution, inability to change much about the property, etc) the more I feel the desire to buy straight up acreage in Wyoming.
I also see a lot better community with less people, and I'm sure there are many reasons for that.
I lived in a few recently, after living in a detached house, and my experience was not as you describe. The buildings housed all ages and we were all friendly with each other, and if someone was in the shared outdoor space, a neighbor would quite often come to join them. In the building before that, there was no shared space, but everyone was friendly, no different than the detached house place where I live now.
Which isn't to say anybody should be forced into a multi-unit building and mixed-use neighborhoods. But as you point out, prices for these types of settings are often higher than detached homes, indicating that they are under supplied and more people want them then are currently allowed to live in them.
Your points are true, and I’m in favor of building more housing, however the single family home has traditionally been a financial boon for lots of Americans, and having to pay for rent every month vs keeping some of that value in your mortgage is hard to discount.
I guess I’m just saying there should be cheap smaller houses and condos in cities too, not just rental places.
It's weird, people say the same things whether it's condos or apartments. Where I live, they will typically be derided as "luxury condos" despite being less than half the price of detached homes in the area.
(One of my more heretical opinions is that homes and land shouldn't be considered investments, and should perhaps not be a method of wealth building, as it turns every person into an investor whether they want to be or not. Which fuels regular people to take control of the local political processes that block new homes with talk of "luxury condos" and "stack and pack." If we are going to do something like this I'd favor a sovereign wealth REIT that redistributes the wealth more evenly and removed the financial incentive to be anti-competitive in land use decisions. That, or tax away all profits from speculation on land gains.)
By backing policies and politicians that constrain the expansion of public and affordable private housing in the face of an increasing population. Or by purchasing homes they do not intend to use as a primary residence.
An investment property still has people living in it?
I've never heard of investors lobbying against social housing (in the UK at least).
Forcing investors and developers to provide "affordable housing" arguably makes the problem worse. I.e. it makes it harder to make a profit and therefore disincentivises building new homes.
> An investment property still has people living in it?
Investment properties don't always turn into occupied rentals; sometimes they turn into vacation/secondary homes, airbnbs, &ct. They can also end up vacant if the dwelling is being used purely as an investment vehicle or if the landlord is uninterested in lowering rent in response to market forces, although it's hard (for me, a lay person who doesn't want to spend more than a couple minutes googling) to know if those are significant quantities of homes or just a rounding error.
>I've never heard of investors lobbying against social housing (in the UK at least).
I don't know how UK politics works, but in the US, large investment banks and lobbying groups pour huge amounts of money into our political system, and individual investors also happen to be voters. For example, the last CA ballot measure which would've improved housing justice somewhat (2020's prop 21) saw heavily-financed opposition from landlord associations.
>Forcing investors and developers to provide "affordable housing" arguably makes the problem worse. I.e. it makes it harder to make a profit and therefore disincentivises building new homes.
I don't really have opinions about whether you should force developers to provide affordable housing in new developments, since I think trying to wield market forces to fix social problems has a poor track record in general. If you (well, the government, civil society, whatever) want to incentivize building new affordable homes, you should just build them yourself.
