ACAB

In NYC. rent-controlled apartments, not rent-stabilized ones.

Yes and thank you - I was not aware of that in Tokyo!

To be honest I don't even think we're building enough single family housing to meet that demand given how expensive they've become as well. Not that I am a huge fan of that type of housing anyway...

I have never heard or read anything about passing rent controlled apt down to your children. I have listened to some Freakonomics podcasts about it so I am not an expert.

I personally would not want to have me and my wife’s room be my dead parents room.

As for a solution I don’t know if I have one.

That's fair, but I would say what you are looking for is for any price gradient to not go up as steeply and hopefully wages rise to meet it in a more sane place (that paper suggests in two years you can see a clear impact).

As an example of where this is going well, Tokyo builds enough housing supply that a recent college graduate can rent without roommates to my understanding.

Thank you!

To add to this, parking requirements and lot size restrictions frequently add extra costs to apartment buildings such that parking has to be built in a separate building at great expense, or even worse underground at an even greater expense.

My city's inclusive housing ordinance only requires that the development not affect traffic too much, but there's no density bonus to allow the developer to make up losses on the affordable units and the parking requirements remain.

Hmm ok. Inflation right now is insane, obviously, but I will read this paper in a bit. Initial thought is that the older (relative term) being sold still isn’t affordable to the ‘average’ person, aka someone that isn’t a software engineer or works in biotech.

Do I really have to say “not all…” Keep it moving.

Ok I hear you but rent-controlled units can be passed down in families. Of course, some may hold onto it and maybe Shari’s kids don’t want it.

For the single widow that won’t move, should they move to a smaller rent-controlled apartment? Assuming a system could be designed to allow this and for it to be easy. Or do you have another suggestion? (Serious)

Here's a recent paper about this process (housing chains) working in Helsinki:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3929243

While this is frequently derided as 'trickle down housing', it's not like the supply side economic theory about always lowering taxes on rich people. Housing chains are more like the used car market- someone paid to have a new car and eat the cost of depreciation while selling their previous car at at a much lower price than they bought it.

Where are new single family homes being built en masse?

I work in biotech and we are putting down roots and planning on starting a family in the city. Don't paint us all with a brush.

One of the biggest problems with rent control is that it prevents mobility. Then restricting future generations.

As families age and kids move out a family no longer needs the 3bed apt. However that family of 2 elderly folks and then the single widow never move out because the rent is controlled. Then a unit that can hold a family of four is now only housing 1 person. The problem is clearly visible.

Great answers here. I'd also add that single family homes are also very much luxury housing, in that they frequently have many of the same amenities as so called 'luxury' apartments while also enjoying many subsides on the public dime.

(developers: please just call them 'new' unless you're saying something truly unique, you're not doing anyone any favors)

Point #2 has been debunked, repeatedly, in large scale statistical analyses performed by numerous different groups around the country. So no, I am not "aware" of it because it isn't true.

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#1 - it discourages development of new homes. it leads to people living in homes that no longer suit their needs (elderly widows living in 3 bedroom apartments in Manhattan being the common and infamous example). it doesn't help the people already displaced or needing a place to live near their work. It is an exclusionary policy.

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#3 - So "luxury" housing is OK just as long as you get it first?

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#4 - Maybe. Who is paying for that and how?

#5 - Every policy that tries to help group A over group B inevitably screws over anyone who falls *just* outside the aided group and isn't really a member of the other group. People earning $1 over an income maximum are no better off than people inside the maximum, yet they are excluded from the program.

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"Market rate" renters/buyers are humans who need a place to live, too. And to claim that they don't have just as much of a right to live in your neighborhood as you do is to make the same mistakes that got us in to this mess in the first place.

>Are you aware... Ultimately, the luxury housing will raise the prices of nearby properties and lots.

I'm not aware, and most who know what they're talking about, aren't aware either.

https://www.planetizen.com/news/2019/06/104783-doubt-cast-induced-demand-housing

https://cityobservatory.org/another-housing-myth-debunked-neighborhood-price-effects-of-new-apartments/

https://marketurbanismreport.com/blog/is-induced-demand-a-phony-theory

https://sf.curbed.com/2020/5/1/21240992/sf-home-prices-supply-skepticism-development-bay-area

https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdf/10.1257/jep.32.1.3

It looks like the results were from a simulation based on real-world data. This is certainly an interesting paper that I will have to spend more time on, but my initial critique is that out-migration was not stratified. I think the aggregate data would be different compared to that from stratifying by race or income. Additionally, know that the sources from the data broker include USPS changes of addresses, differences in magazine subscriptions, and whatnot but I don’t think data on couch-surfing-but-truly-homeless-individuals, new immigrants such as those from Afghanistan, individuals that are undocumented, and data on individuals that do not update their address with USPS when they move is adequately captured. This data is, likely, difficult to collect but I feel it could be a valuable contribution to this data(set).

I am also concered about the low power of the study. While the authors confirmed that the sample was actually representative, I wonder about the external validity.

My town is forever adding new houses, which I'm against - solely because the water system cannot reliably support what we have now for watershed needs.

Solve the water problems first for fuck's sake.

It sure is https://www.boston.com/real-estate/renting/2022/07/22/boston-rents-hit-highs-vacancy-lows/

"town character" needs to be ridiculed until it's widely enough recognized to be a racist/classist dog whistle that it's scorned and retired. Wish SNL would do a skit or something...

> market-rate housing (i.e., luxury housing)

"New" housing is not the same as "luxury" housing. By this logic every new car is a luxury car.

> 1. Why are many of you against rent control?

It is at best flawed, at worst actively harmful to the goal of letting more people afford to live in a given place

> 2. Are you aware that building luxury housing, especially in communities with marginalized or disadvantaged populations (e.g., Malden, Chelsea, Revere), is gentrification? Ultimately, the luxury housing will raise the prices of nearby properties and lots. It will also bring businesses that cater to those in luxury apartments and, subsequently, are not as affordable as neighborhood grocery stores, hardware stores, etc.)?

Neighborhoods change over time, whether or not housing is built in them. There are ways to support the people negatively impacted by gentrification, but "build no market rate housing anywhere" is not one of them. Note that a big driver of negative impact on the poor is that often poor neighborhoods are the only ones in which NIMBY's allow ANY housing to be built

> 2. Ultimately, the luxury housing will raise the prices of nearby properties and lots

And this specific bit ^ is at best hugely misleading. Building more housing reduces the cost of surrounding housing. The literature on this is clear. While the value of land and of existing commercial structures may go up as a neighborhood becomes more desirable, building more housing is going to lower the cost of surrounding housing

> 3. Would you be open to luxury housing that is initially rent-controlled for some years before it can become market-rate? This would be similar to 421-A in NYC.

> 4. Would you be open to luxury housing that is initially rent-controlled that can be sold to the renters there for a below-market-rate price? Essentially, the renters would get priority and could decide if they wanted to continue living there (buy) when the hypothetical rent-control period ends? The renters would then be on the path to homeownership, which has numerous benefits that I will not get into here.

I'm open to anything that increases the housing supply, but why complicate ourselves? Building just affordable housing ignores the majority of the housing scarcity problem, since most people don't qualify for it, whereas just building market rate housing drives down costs for everyone.

> Do you have another idea on how our state can build new housing to increase our stock while allowing for low-income - and really, middle-income - households to become homeowners (ideally) or be able to afford better housing? Better meaning closer to transit, no slumlord, no roaches, closer to parks, in better school districts.

Yes. Make it legal to build more housing. Lots of it. In every city, and every suburb. Current zoning rules make it illegal to build things that aren't single family homes in the vast majority of residential neighborhoods. This needs to end.

This country had about a four-decade run in which market-rate housing was affordable for everyone but the very poor. We've just zoned-away the market's capacity to balance supply and demand, and we're dealing with the fallout...

I’ve had arguments on here and on the Massachusetts sub with suburban NIMBYs who literally think that when a person buys property that there is a “reasonable expectation” that things won’t ever radically change.

Yeah, no. There isn’t. You own your property, and nobody else’s.

Scroll to the bottom for the figures. I don't know why they chose to format it that way either.