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There's a quiet housing fix spreading across California (www.sfgate.com)
submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by MelonYellow@lemmy.ca to c/california@lemmy.world
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TLDR: Cities are allowing developers to re-zone retail units that go un-leased. They can then be converted into live-work studios so people can run businesses from home ie. an artist running a home studio, a massage therapist taking clients, a home daycare, etc. Seems this could really help with California’s chronic housing crisis.

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[–] PhilipTheBucket@piefed.social 21 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

I constantly feel like I'm taking crazy pills when talking about this topic. To me the problem is obviously that wealth inequality in this country allows money to snatch up properties and then rent them out at ever-spiraling-upwards rates in an ever-increasing bubble, because the demand is more or less fixed and the availability of money to drive that cycle is effectively infinite. It seems like all you're doing by creating more properties (with construction or this idea or whatever) is creating more fuel for that fire in the form of "investment opportunities."

I don't really know the facts and figures well enough to back that up, but I have looked a little bit at what happens to rents when cities invest in "building more" as a solution and it seemed like it corroborated my way of looking at it because the rents didn't go down. Why the fuck do so many people who seem to be trying to bring down rents seem so unaware of this fundamental fact about it? Am I the mistaken one? What the fuck? Why? Help me

[–] renegadespork@lemmy.jelliefrontier.net 13 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

There should be a legal limit to the ratio of homes in a given district that can be owned by non-residents. Once that limit is reached, if you want to buy a home there, you have to prove you personally actually live in it.

The same could go with commercial buildings--you would need to prove you actually operate your business there, not just letting.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@piefed.social 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

There is actually a super simple solution to this: Have the government buy up a ton of properties and then rent them out to people at reasonable rates. A little bit of it is enough to pierce the bubble and bring rents down, and it generates revenue for the government, and people start investing in productive businesses instead of in properties. Literally everyone on all sides wins, except your landlord.

We could have been working on that, but it turned out it was super important for Hilary to win the primary, and so what the fuck here we are.

[–] renegadespork@lemmy.jelliefrontier.net 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Complex economies rarely have "super simple solutions" without pitfalls, but I get where you're going with this.

The hardest part with implementing any solutions like this is that they require breaking down the existing systems. This will always be aggressively fought by the rich and powerful who benefit from the status quo, usually by flooding the media with straw-man misrepresentations of the solution to turn the public against it.

Your solution would likely require the government seizing large plots of land from private citizens/companies. This could easily be re-framed as a "The government is stealing your land" bill.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@piefed.social 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

This will always be aggressively fought by the rich and powerful who benefit from the status quo, usually by flooding the media with straw-man misrepresentations of the solution to turn the public against it.

Yeah, pretty much.

Your solution would likely require the government seizing large plots of land from private citizens/companies.

Hm? No. You just buy it. The US government under Biden spend about a trillion dollars on the IRA with all its various programs, without even needing to just blindly put it all on the government's credit card as Trump is doing for all this nonsense. But there's plenty of money.

When they did this exact system in England, a lot of landlords proactively started selling their stuff to the government, because rents were so low that they'd rather just have the money instead, to do something else with it. That's one of the advantages of this approach is that you don't have to coerce anybody or illegalize anything in order for it to work, the government just enters the marketplace and uses its money influence to fix things by playing by the marketplace rules.

[–] renegadespork@lemmy.jelliefrontier.net 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

And why would they sell an appreciating, revenue generating asset to the government unless they were forced?

And if they were forced to sell, there's your media spin.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@piefed.social 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I live in a building that's been sold three times so far. You are aware people sell real estate sometimes?

This whole thread is a pretty weird conversation lol

[–] renegadespork@lemmy.jelliefrontier.net 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I live in a building that's been sold three times so far. You are aware people sell real estate sometimes?

Obviously, but they are likely taking that money to invest in more profitable real-estate elsewhere. The ultimate goal here is to reduce the consolidation on the ownership of real-estate, meaning these investors will ultimately lose value. Morally, they could and should abdicate, but since when has that motivated the wealthy?

The mechanisms do exist for your suggestion, and some owners would actually be okay with it, but I would still expect a lot of opposition.

Look into the history of eminent domain too see (historically) just how receptive land owners have been to selling their land to the government.

All this is basically just to illustrate my original point:

Complex economies rarely have "super simple solutions" without pitfalls

I don't think that's a reason for inaction, but it does explain why real change is so hard to actually implement at scale.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@piefed.social 1 points 1 month ago

Look into the history of eminent domain too see (historically) just how receptive land owners have been to selling their land to the government.

I've been on a jury for an eminent domain case, I am familiar. Usually that's when the government needs a specific piece of property instead of just wants to buy some kind of property in general.

England has done this, and it's worked. I'm done speaking with you about this. Have a good weekend.

[–] Feyd@programming.dev 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Any mental gymnastics to avoid admitting capitalism is the cause

[–] PhilipTheBucket@piefed.social 0 points 1 month ago

Yeah. Another possibility is that they're aware that it's a big donation of cash from the city to property developers and important landlords, and that's why they are doing it, and they're just happy people haven't broken the code yet.

[–] tyler@programming.dev 2 points 1 month ago

The rates only go up if there’s a scarcity. So building more results in cheaper rent, and housing and property prices will fall, thus negating any investment opportunity.

[–] danc4498@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

I’m sure many cities could benefit from something like this.

[–] comador@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The success of this largely depends on the building itself though, so don't expect this to be a miracle cure as mileage may vary.

The older the property, the more these costs mount against this idea. Why? The cost to redo the plumbing for kitchens or bathrooms and even electrical for appliances to make them livable is quite literally more than the value of the entire property many times. Again, it's not a cure, it's a bandaid.

[–] MelonYellow@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I think in California that real estate is very valuable and these property developments are mostly modern, so it’s well worth it for real estate developers to make these changes if the areas have enough foot traffic. There’s nothing worse in California than paying millions of dollars for property and then having retail sit vacant for potentially years.

[–] dondelelcaro@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

In California, it's not unusual to see single floor retail being replaced with five (or more) residential spaces over a single floor commercial space, especially where there is significant housing demand. Higher density, nearby customers, and less need for excess parking.

[–] renegadespork@lemmy.jelliefrontier.net 2 points 1 month ago

This feels like a step in the right direction, but many more changes are needed to turn housing around--primarily the fact that real-estate is more valuable as an investment than a home.

[–] SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives