The Insane Battle To Sabotage a New Apartment Building Explains San Francisco's Housing Crisis

What people said

pneill · 2024-07 · Strong recommendation

Asking why there isn't enough housing is like asking why water is wet. The answer is state/local government regulation. There's an old saying "your margin is my opportunity" and I suspect that the current crop of homes that are built have decent margins, but in a deregulated market an entrepreneur could come in offer more affordable housing options with lower margins. You can see this in vehicles. Nobody complains about the vehicle affordability problem because there are far fewer regulations in the transportation industry (don't get me wrong, there are regulations, but not a constraining as you see in the housing market). There's a vehicle at every price point. You got bikes, then ebikes, mopeds, scoters, motorcycles, sub compacts, compacts, full size, trucks, suvs, and all the way to crazy expensive sports cars. You don't see that in house because affordable housing is not a good business. It's impossible to offer options at the lower end of the market because of zoning laws, environmental impact regulations, a difficult permitting process, nimby's, and affordable housing politicians that are really big proponents of affordable housing except "they have question about this particular housing project." Here is a terrific video that everyone should watch that shows how insanely difficult it is to make affordable housing. A [VIDEO] Sometimes what you need is less government regulation, not more. edited sentence "You don't see that in house it's not a good business." to You don

Read the original HN comment ↗

pneill · 2019-06 · Strong recommendation

Politics is a huge factor in the lack of affordable housing. Both legislation and concerns by citizen about how new housing will "change" a neighbor make it next to impossible to build higher density housing. Watch this video - it's eye opening [VIDEO]

Read the original HN comment ↗

pneill · 2020-02 · Recommendation

It's very complicated. People have conflicting ideas - one the one hand, they want affordable housing (ie their rent to go down) or the other, not in my backyard. Worth a view The Insane Battle To Sabotage a New Apartment Building Explains San Francisco's Housing Crisis [VIDEO]

Read the original HN comment ↗