OT: California Dreamin': Density is the Future.

[MikeD]

The price of housing almost anywhere is insane. A lot of homeless people are out there because they can't afford the rent. It's really awful. We need other strategies other than building lots more. No foreign ownership, no Wall Street buying up of single family homes, etc. jacking up prices.

[DeBike]

Where I live in south-coastal Delaware, one of the fastest growing areas in the nation, there has been a huge explosion of population, with the past 15 years being a bit mind boggling. I have lived here for 48 years, and have never wanted to live in suburbia. But, here I am, destructive sprawl surrounding me, traffic jams everyday, all year round, with the continuation and worsening of infrastructure issues bound to get worse. Fortunately, I can go west from my house and be away from it within a few miles, for now.
I really thought I would live here the rest of my life, and that may well be how it goes. But, I have found myself considering and looking at other areas as an option. Of course, there are benefits to the influx of so much change, and no doubt,everything comes with a cost. My age I am sure has an influence, but for me, the cost has been greater than the benefits. Anyone younger, maybe raising a family, surely has a different perspective. Most definitely, all the retirees that are moving here from surrounding states/cities, have a different view than I.

[.RJ]

Originally Posted by MikeD

I don't get this housing shortage. California has been losing population, so who's buying up the real estate and raising up the prices and rents? Wall Street, foreign investors, speculators, uber rich is what I think; plus government imposed costs like costly permits and red tape. Building more housing isn't going to solve the problem unless you level the playing field. Just my $.02.

Institutional investing makes up less than 5% of the single family home market.

[makoti]

I've lived in my house in Northern Va a LOOOONG time. Never gave serious thought to moving, so never thought about if I would sell or rent it out if I did move. Well, talking to a neighbor, I just found out that the rent for my townhouse is currently at around $3200 a month. I was floored. No idea. That is damn near triple what my highest mortgage payment was to buy the place.
How? How do people afford that? If that's just to rent, what is the mortgage?

[benb]

Originally Posted by makoti

I've lived in my house in Northern Va a LOOOONG time. Never gave serious thought to moving, so never thought about if I would sell or rent it out if I did move. Well, talking to a neighbor, I just found out that the rent for my townhouse is currently at around $3200 a month. I was floored. No idea. That is damn near triple what my highest mortgage payment was to buy the place.
How? How do people afford that? If that's just to rent, what is the mortgage?

That's a 500sq. ft studio in some of the fancy buildings near my office!

A 2 bedroom apartment in some of these places is about the equivalent of a mortgage on a $2M house. $6000+ per month.

You can easily get an estimate on what the mortgage would be for a new buyer of your town house if you know what the place currently appraises for.

We bought our place 14 years ago, if we sold it and the new buyer put 20% down their mortgage would be 2.5-3X what ours is right now based on the fact the house would sell for approximately 2x what we paid and the new buyers interest rate would be more than 2x what our current one is.

[XXtwindad]

Originally Posted by makoti

I've lived in my house in Northern Va a LOOOONG time. Never gave serious thought to moving, so never thought about if I would sell or rent it out if I did move. Well, talking to a neighbor, I just found out that the rent for my townhouse is currently at around $3200 a month. I was floored. No idea. That is damn near triple what my highest mortgage payment was to buy the place.
How? How do people afford that? If that's just to rent, what is the mortgage?

On a related note: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/23/u...lar%20measures.

“As housing costs soar, Washington State wants to limit annual rent increases to 7 percent. Oregon and California have passed similar measures.“

[XXtwindad]

Originally Posted by cash05458

I think a lot of this stuff...at least here in Vermont...comes down to walk the walk...Vermont is extremely liberal...but about every time something is suggested to perhaps build some houses in a community, folks rise up...complain and are able to throw that development into years of gov tape...it doesn't take much...likewise via jobs or anything...it took St. Albans 26 years from beginning to end to actually get a damn walmart...26 years...that would be the second walmart in the entire state mind you.

Our super helpful liberal state who believes in a rehab etc has been arguing for ten years now about who will let a youth rehab center be built in their area...the entire bed count would be 4! 4 children! Think of that...but each community it comes up to put in, they all gather to vote it down...saying it would ruin their hood etc...same goes with everyone being concerned about homelessness here...any measure folks come up with or try to build, it's destroyed via local laws...true not in my back yard stuff while pretending liberal love to want to help and squawk off about and yak about how virtuous they are but it just can't be here etc...endless.

We have a similar situation here in California. It’s called “Berkeley.”

[verticaldoug]

The real estate market is really efficient. Pricing is transparent enough that is someone thinks they can make money they can try. If I could make money building new house, I would, but I can't.

I have a long relationship with a local developer. We only do multi-family residential, and the occasional big-boy single family home which is typically a tear-down. Pre-Covid, the cap-rates in areas of Los Angeles were probably in the sub-3% range for prime areas. Now because of higher rates, and more rent controls, the price has declined and is probably 5%+ . That is a big hit in tradeable values.

Also Pre-Covid there was a large RTI (ready to issue) market. You could buy a vacant lot, the permits and planning were 'ready to issue' so as along as you good control your construction costs, you could start building and have good visibility on the project.

Now post-covid, the RTI is all gone. The planning and approval process is a shambles, and you have no visibility for your project. Add to that higher rates for loans, and there is not that much incentive to build. There are so many rules that work against you, you have to conclude City Hall doesn't want new construction. The same is true in NYC. They recently trumpeted a change in zoning making it easier to convert old commercial real estate to Residential, but that is much much harder than it looks.

Right now for new projects we have to be so choosey. That's why existing stock is so dear.

[.RJ]

Originally Posted by makoti

I've lived in my house in Northern Va a LOOOONG time. Never gave serious thought to moving, so never thought about if I would sell or rent it out if I did move. Well, talking to a neighbor, I just found out that the rent for my townhouse is currently at around $3200 a month. I was floored. No idea. That is damn near triple what my highest mortgage payment was to buy the place.
How? How do people afford that? If that's just to rent, what is the mortgage?

Easily $4-5k depending on down payment. Things are ridiculous in NoVa right now.

[deluz]

I have lived in San Diego for the 66 years of my life.
When I was growing up the population was a few hundred thousand.
Now it is a few Million. Luckily when we purchased our home around 1985 it was $145K and has been paid off for a while.
My kids in their 30's cannot afford to purchase a home which would cost over 1 million and so they rent.
A few years ago California passed an affordable housing law.
It requires each city to build a certain number of affordable housing units.
This means that the city is forced to approve high density developments that contain affordable housing units. Typically these developments have 10 to 20% of the units designated affordable. To qualify you must have a very low income which means most people like my kids do not qualify. The demand for these units is huge and only a small number of applicants actually end up buying them like winning the lottery. But there is a loop hole that allows investors to buy them and rent them out. I have read that this happens very often and the investors are probably connected to the developers. To me this law is a farce to allow high density developments to be forced onto the community regardless of the objections of residents and planning commissions and traffic impacts. It does little to solve the affordability of housing. In my area there are no road improvements being done because there is no space to do so. One local community that very affluent sued the state because there is literally no space to put any more housing. They lost the lawsuit. The state has enormous powers over cities in this regard. So we can look forward to increased traffic on roads that are already overloaded. If not for family living here I would consider moving to another area. I have written to my local representatives in city and state government and there has been no response.

[Big Dan]

Down here foreign buyers are a big part of the problem.

[Likes2ridefar]

Originally Posted by .RJ

Institutional investing makes up less than 5% of the single family home market.

I read it’s more like 30% now.

[.RJ]

Originally Posted by Likes2ridefar

I read it’s more like 30% now.

In some markets, it may be that high for homes bought in 2023.

But not on the aggregate.

[bigbill]

2018, I was recruited for an engineering manager job in Kingman, AZ. It's not a nice place, and the schools in town are terrible. I was finishing a divorce and took the job, including relocation from NE Texas. They paid me a lot to work at the plant, and I mostly did it to recover my retirement savings, half of which I lost in the divorce. I rented a house when I first moved to Kingman, a 1800 square foot home with a three-car garage. It was $1175 a month, and it was just me. My other option was to get an apartment, but all the available units were in sketchy areas, and I liked still having my stuff when I got home.

In 2020, I was dating the woman I'm married to now and decided to buy a house. A neighborhood about 20 miles north of town has a golf course and clubhouse, so I paid $245K for 1788 3/2 with a three-car garage on a half-acre lot. I retired from the engineering job about 18 months ago, and my wife and I have no reason to be in this town. My challenge is interest rates. This house has a 2.75% mortgage, so I'll get a lot less house for the same mortgage payment. The upside is houses compatible with mine are selling for around $400K, so we could pocket some cash if we sold. If rates drop below 5%, we're out of here.

[pdonk]

Originally Posted by Likes2ridefar

I read it’s more like 30% now.

I would suggest that is the aggregate between all housing types. For the most part, in the Canadian context, unlike apartment buildings ground related housing does not make sense from an institutional investment point of view. The number of units needed to create the critical mass /economies of scale in a geographic area would be difficult to accumulate and manage vs in a single building or portfolio of buildings.

I'd love to see the research on this.

As part of my self directed Continued Professional Learning requirements to maintain my professional accreditation I am currently doing readings on lane based housing and secondary suites and the associated tax implications in the Canadian context. If anyone comes across any articles on implementation of lane based housing, please pass them on.