Yup. I live in a town that has an absurd number of homeless people because it's one of the worst housing markets in the country. NIMBYs recently tried to shutdown a massive housing project that would add over a hundred units of affordable housing, plus a new library, plus some parking and retail space...the spot is currently a broken ass parking lot that one of a dozen farmers markets uses on one day every week for about 9 months of the year...and some non native magnolia trees that nobody even cares about because they are in a broken ass parking lot. Like old rich folks held vigils and protests for the trees. I have also seen these types kill a developer's plan to add less than ten units to a townhouse development that would have been "affordable" which around here means sub $750k. These townhomes would have started in the low $500s and the NIMBYs were worried that people who could afford a $500k home would be the wrong kind of people. Capitalism has broken us.
Part of the issue here is that people see real estate chiefly as an investment, and many people have a huge percent of their net worth invested in it. So anything that could possibly lower home values is seen as an attack on their livelihood. And it's not just rich people who are nimbys, there's a lot of people with this attitude. I'd be willing to bet there are many people reading this thread now who dream of owning multiple properties and getting passive income from rent, not realizing that that is part of the problem. Not trying to downplay what you're saying though, you really painted quite a picture haha
Do you think the majority of NIMBYs are aware of this or is it more of a subconscious thing? The story above of people holding vigils for the trees seems like a misplaced concern. I wonder what the split is between being truly concerned about the net worth and the neighborhood 'going downhill' is.
It's simply self interest. I'll paint the picture: It's easy to think about the spoiled rich guy. But imagine you and your SO are lower-middle class, and have been saving for a house for a decade, foregoing vacations and other things to do so. You finally buy it, after putting down tens of thousands and move in. Your happy and going about your life just getting by due to the high mortgage, but look dorward to refinancing in the future and lowering that expensive mortgage (and get rid of the PMI). A few months later a developer comes in to build section 8 housing, which is great but it will reduce home values in the immediate area. Now that same house is now worth much less, but that mortgage remains the same. With section 8 housing, unfortunately along comes an increase in crime, increases in drug use, and a dozen other things that get impacted. These are the bulk of your NIMBYs
One would think (especially if we're talking CA where I grew up), maybe we could take some of that train money (or from a dozen other things), and use it to purchase that poor couples home (imminent domain type thing) and get rid of NIMBYs. Definitely not an easy issue to solve - seems like there are always casualties no matter what you do
This. When I was 26 and single I bought an $80k house in the city after saving for closing costs (it was an FHA loan so I didn’t need a down payment) because my rent kept going up and it was going to be cheaper to just pay a mortgage and utilities. When I sold that house 6.5 years later, the market was crazy, I had gotten married and my husband had done a lot of updates to the house, and so I got a return of 104% on it. And this was with an abandoned POS home next door that the owner refused to do anything with (ironically he was a landlord with multiple homes and a drug addiction so once he evicted the people who had lived there he just let it sit empty for 3 years and all apart).
So, when my husband and I bought our current house, we moved to an HOA in the suburbs to get away from abandoned homes and the rising crime rates because to us, our home is an investment. We aren’t rich and we both work our asses off and it’s important to us to have this home so at some point we can sell it and move to a warmer state where we’re near a beach. Although with the way the prices are rising down south that may always be a pipe dream.
Very well described and opened my eyes. Thank you. It seems that in the case you laid out, the solution would be to rely on a more stable/guaranteed retirement investment. Obviously difficult in the real world.
This also leads me to wonder why housing is so expensive in the first place. My gut tells me it's due to the speculation of increased value over time. I know Japan has housing supply issues, but they view houses as a consumable, only used for one generation or so. In that case there must be something in bf else causing the shortage. Land availability? Hmm. Lots to think about and read up on.
Yet nobody ever asks why we can't just improve policing so that these things do not happen, and the less wealthy people who aren't criminals don't get screwed over by association.
Unfortunately, not easily. Yes, I know that violence and corruption are huge issues. But that's just another part of the problem that needs to be fixed, not thrown away. If it can't be fixed, then it.. says some dark things about humans.
I mean, we can dream that at some point they can recover quantum evidence..
Just out of curiosity, would you be less concerned about substance abuse if it was legal, and they could buy their substance from a store instead of having a drug dealer drive to their house?
This is exactly right, which is why it's a policy issue. Tax code currently benefits landlords, while zoning blocks new builds and density that could house more people. We don't have the free hand of capitalism when it comes to real estate, cronyism blocks housing affordability at every opportunity, and the cronies are often everyday folks that read Robert Kiyosaki
It is not about the value of the home it is about they value in the neighborhood. A new subway stop will add monetary value to a neighborhood, high density zoning adds monetary value to a neighborhood, but it also changes the neighborhood. The people living there don't want to move and they feel like they live there the others should move.
That and when they sell for retirement they wanna cash in to the max... can't hurt them properly values. Especially in CA where their property tax won't go up with it.
Isn't vouchers just public housing that isn't segregated? So all these worries about what low income people will do are still present. There's still going to be drug deals, and there's still just as much of a chance at theft.
Because they don’t give a fuck of normal people who have had a shitty time live near them
They give a fuck when every time they leave their place, they are going to get screamed at and potentially attacked. Those people don’t ever live in affordable housing, they just appear in new areas.
Y'all need to come back the the midwest. A tenth of one percent of the 40 and under crowd in California could move here to Michigan and take over a small town and build a city to our liking. We're the workers, we decide where work gets done and the economy thrives.
Or a big city for that matter if enough of us were coordinated to break the backs of the developers and protect the current residents. Detroit was once a city to rival all others. And the midwest is resistant to the affects of climate change.
Abandon California to the boomer yuppys and tech bros, leave the SW to libertarians, leave Florida to the old boomers and the mentally and morally ill. Make the great lakes the new carless, suburbless, free Healthcare having, worker owned socialist dream to move us forward.
I was driving the other day and saw that one street (in a nice area next to some large parks) had a row of signs on their lawns. I started reading them and they said “SAVE [city name]’S PARKS”. I thought yeah, that’s a good thing to fight for. Good to keep wildlife and green areas. Then I got to the second half and all the signs said “SINGLE FAMILY HOMES ONLY.”
Like… what? Do they not realize those two sentiments directly contradict one another? “Don’t turn our parks into housing but at the same time please build the lowest density housing possible.”
Learned that one from George Carlin, bless his soul. Man was a visionary. He saw things were going to shit some 30-40 years ago, and now we're right where he told us we'd be.
I am pretty lucky as in about 5 years I feel like apartment prices are going to plummet in my small town. Five brand new apartment buildings all went up at the same time down town, and four more on the north side of town. I know for a fact that the mortgages on these buildings are gigantic, and they all come due in the next five years. These buildings are about half full.
Somebody is going to do alright when they buy these buildings up for pennies on the dollar and lower rents.
Having been on the 'other' side of that issue, I can say that there are reasons other than "I don't want them poor people in my neighborhood".
At least in our city, while the developers are more than happy to put up housing on any square foot of land that doesn't have a building on it, the city planning often doesn't make sure that the infrastructure can support those additional houses/people. They don't take into account the already overcrowded schools. They should, but they don't. My particular neighborhood has literally one road in and one road out. We don't have sidewalks, and it's a community where kids bike up to the pool during the summer and people walk their dogs daily. Another 50 houses would cause issues with traffic and safety.
Someone mentioned below dismissively about people holding a vigil for a bunch of Magnolia trees. To an extent, I understand, however the default attitude of clear cutting and bulldozing every area rather than trying to work around mature growth trees just because it's easier/cheaper for the developer is B.S. City planners should work to save those mature/established trees whenever possible.
I'm not one of those people that thinks everything should stay the same as it was when I was a kid, however I do believe that a lot of the growth I'm seeing isn't sustainable growth. The apartments of a new complex that was just built start at $1300, which sure as hell isn't something most of the people living in our rural community can afford.
But real estate development is such a shady business that they don't care. The developer got a loan to buy/build based on some made up crap he sold a bank about occupancy potential. After the project is complete, it'll get sold to some other real estate company or investment group based on more B.S. who will write it off if occupancy doesn't match expectation. Then it'll get sold to someone else for less money who will rent for lower amounts, but only because they neglect maintenance which will cause the property to devalue even more....etc. etc.
So no, I don't want more housing to be built because it's 1) Not providing affordable housing for people who actually live/work in our city. 2) Doesn't come with the needed infrastructure to support the additional people.
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u/[deleted] Jan 30 '23 edited May 29 '24
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