As many of you may know, my Mother just died. I moved into her house for taking care of her during her last months. I may have to move, or not (much is uncertain). I live in a place called California, where fire destroyed much housing. Because of this a single-apartment (an apartment with just 1 small bedroom) costs 2KU$D/Month.

The original solution of the landlords was to let the high prices incentivize the building of more housing units. The renters, who cannot afford the high rents, want rentcontrol in the meantime. These 2 groups have played off of each other, so that we now have the extreme positions of all housing being rentcontrolled and no rentcontrol at all.

Before I continue, I need to go into philosophy:

Regulation is unfortunate but sometimes necessary. Regulated entities should have to earn regulation through bad behavior and then earn enforcement through continued bad behavior. One should not regulate just to regulate.

Because of lack of supply, rentcontrol seems like a necessary evil, but we must encourage increase in supply. ¿How to increase supply? ¡Encourage the building of new housing units!:

We, unfortunately, need rentcontrol on existing housing units. The lack of supply means that would-be renters need to go onto waiting lists. We need to encourage housing construction. The simplest way to do that is to allow developers to writeoff 100% of the costs of construction and make new units not subject to rentcontrol. This would hopefully lead to the construction of more housing. The increase in supply would drive down prices. in half a decade, one might be able to rent a single-apartment for 1KU$D/Month.

¿What is the opinion of you all?

Wait you also live in California? I live in Santa Ana in the heart of Orange County!!!

7038778

Yes, I live in California, but in the North.

In the past in my area, builders got around rent control by not building apartments, but by building Condo's, which were exempt from rent control. Result, lots of condo's, lots of rich neighborhoods, little building for the small folk (why build when the locals are going to cut your profit?). The result was a cut back in building permits unless new construction was mixed. Condo's and low income rental units. Surrounding towns have a lot of N.I.M.B.Y. attitude (understandable) for any large housing projects. Unfortuneatley, still have need of the 'Termite Terraces' of public housing.

7038949

Interesting. Let us ask a question based on my idea:

If new units would be exempt from rentcontrol, ¿do you believe that this would cause enough new construction so as to reduce prices and reduce the time on waiting lists? We still have the problem of Nimbys.

Unfortunately, I think there's a very easy way around the rent-control of old properties: condemn them, demolish them, and build new housing on the land. The 100% write-off on new construction would encourage this, and it would lead to even less low-income housing.

In fact, urban areas in Cali would have to do this because there are almost no suitable areas left to expand into. (San Francisco may be the most extreme example.) I live near Fresno, which is expanding into unsuitable areas. Paving over many square miles of the richest farmland in the country to put in upper middle class tract homes is... disturbing.

The underlying cause of this problem is too many people competing for too few accommodations. Economically, the cost has to rise in proportion to the demand, and your proposed regulation is just a way to (try to) restrain a natural process until one of the factors changes. (supply)

Under this scheme, I just don't believe that the supply of housing will increase faster than the demand for it, particularly factoring in the high desirability and natural limits of many urban areas. Historically, this has been the case, and unless there is some sort of "Black Swan" event, I don't see how that will change.

As a historical note, the tactic that was tried when I was a child (back in the 20th) was to mandate a certain number of low-income housing units in proportion to an area's population. The numerical goals were never achieved, and the "projects" led to high-rise slums that rapidly deteriorated into third-world conditions. So... it isn't a problem with an easy solution.

7039024

I know that it is a tricky problem. A simple solution would be to convince developers to build apartmentbuildings with triple-digit numbers of stories, capable of housing thousands of people each, but I did not put this in the post because I see no way of specifically incentivizing this. It is better to build up not out, but I could not figure out how to encourage this. Ideally, cities in the United States of America would be as dense as Hong Kong, and over 90% of the nation used for agriculture of given back to nature, but I could not think of a way make it so, as Captain Picard likes to say.

7038995
I do not think there is a simple solution. People build buildings for profit, rarely for morality. Let them build uncontrolled, they will build for the best profit (so called McMansions, Condo's, etc..."). Nimby's have their own points, they moved to these areas because of the (enter reason) and do not want to lose them. Rent control allows low income people to have housing, but such housing usually suffers from poor upkeep. Public Housing leads to Termite Terraces as politicians try to provide the most units for the most people (for votes). A workable (not perfect) solution will involve all these factors. And you can still expect somebody to scream blue bloody murder when they think they're being steamrollered.

7040165

I never believed that it would be easy. allowing developers to write off construction of units equal or less than 1Kf^2 or 100m^2 and then have the resulting new units exempt from rentcontrol. As I told Iisaw above, I would prefer to build upward, rather than destroying the landscape under sprawling housing by building outward. ¿Do you see a way to encourage building upward?

7039158

I know that it is a tricky problem. A simple solution would be to convince developers to build apartmentbuildings with triple-digit numbers of stories, capable of housing thousands of people each, but I did not put this in the post because I see no way of specifically incentivizing this.

That is the concept of an arcology: "A city of a single building." Of course, it wouldn't be limited to housing: schools, hospitals, police, civic centres, malls, hotels, entertainment, arboretums (because I don't think they would exactly fit the definition of parks) and businesses.
This will not happen, ever, through housing development. This would only happen with government money, as a megaproject of building an entire city at once.

Ideally, cities in the United States of America would be as dense as Hong Kong, and over 90% of the nation used for agriculture of given back to nature, but I could not think of a way make it so, as Captain Picard likes to say.

Seriously, dude: don't go wanting to become Hong Kong. You know of that concept of "the working homeless", people who are gainfully employed, but cannot afford a roof over their heads? Hong Kong pretty much invented it.

7040598

I did not mention arcologies precisely because I could not incentivize them, but they would be ideal. We could turn 99% of the nation over to agriculture or return it to nature. The best thing we can do for the environment is to stay as far away from it as possible.

Imagine the interior of a building resembling the interior of a BorgCube. ¡We could squeeze Tokyo into an area less than 1 square kilometer!