[vedanta]

There are also YIMBY orgs almost everywhere. The south bay YIMBY twitter account has updates on what you can do as well.

From following the YIMBY movement (http://www.slate.com/articles/business/metropolis/2017/06/yi...) it's hard to not take the YIMBY position. More needs to be built, but we can have ~10% BMR requirements as ways of increasing diversity in a neighborhood and preserving some local control/culture. If enough is built, there won't be a need for BMR.

[epicureanideal]

BMR is a scam in my opinion. It just prevents wages rising as they would naturally need to if housing became increasingly unaffordable to the point that workers can't even commute in. It recruits people into a program of lucky allocation rather than working for more. Busy or I'd write more.

Look how rent control turned out.

[vadym909]

I agree BMR is a scam, but not because of its effect on wages. It is too small of a factor, but because it is not market-based and leads to quotas, lotteries, middlemen, bribes- all bad.

To offset crazy high demand and prices, the only option is to increase supply (build taller, denser apartments/condos) or limit demand (disallow foreign buyers who speculate or invest, increase property taxes for owners that rent out their houses)

[ido]

Rent control works great when it cover the entire rental stock.

See e.g. Berlin vs LA: https://goo.gl/aNHzGQ

In Berlin all rents are controlled by default[1]. And despite similar purchase prices, rental prices are half of LA's.

[1] only newly built units or those renovated for more than 1/3 the value of the unit are allowed to be rented without price restrictions. This keeps the vast majority under rent control.

[Zahlmeister]

Affordable housing is actually quite scarce inside the city right now, people on average don't really earn that much. The rent controls had no actual effect on price increases. It has been suggested that the rules are simply being ignored and most tenants won't pick a legal fight with their landlords when housing is so scarce:

https://www.welt.de/finanzen/immobilien/article150877146/Die...

There's more than enough housing for higher-income people, so rent control there is moot.

[ido]

Rent control in berlin goes beyond the mietpreisbrmese - most significant is that you can't increase the rent once you get a tenant beyond the rate of inflation and that you (almost) can't kick out a tenant.

I have friends in London whose rent (in the same apartment) went up 10% every year for years until they had to leave the apartment. This is not happening in Berlin.

[Zahlmeister]

You can increase the rent up to 15% (Berlin) within three years, well above the rate of inflation. This forces some people to move out, as well.

Rents in Berlin are a joke compared to London. You can actually get cheap and plentyful housing just outside the city, but then you'll need a car as well.

[ido]

I didn't know that, every place I lived in here had much slower rent increases (despite the market around the apartment raising more than that - in fact in my current place I'm still paying then same rent 3 years into living here).

Either way 15% in 3 years is still rent control.

[et-al]

There's too many variables to say that rent control for the entire housing stock is what keeps Berlin's rents down.

For starters, Berlin is known to be one of the cheaper German cities until recently ("poor but sexy"). In addition, the climate, geographies, and economies between LA and Berlin are significantly different.

[ido]

Compare berlin to any big American city and you would see that the rent-to-purchase-prices ratio is always much lower in berlin.

[user5994461]

>>> Rental prices are half of LA's.

Because income is one half of LA.

[ido]

And yet purchase prices are the same. Rents are controlled and purchase prices are not.

[vedanta]

I don't think it's a scam. I would agree on rent control, but I think that has it's uses too in the current rental market.

[Zahlmeister]

Wages don't naturally rise just because rent is higher, if anything the converse is true.

You'd end up paying 25$ for a coffee just so that the barista can afford their overpriced housing.

If you're just raising the cost of living, but not the standard, you're not gaining anything for anyone.

[TuringNYC]

>> Wages don't naturally rise just because rent is higher, if anything the converse is true.

I'll offer a lay-person first-person view in contradiction to this theory: rents set a solid bottom salary level acceptable to people. A typical Bay Area rent can consume 100% of your salary once you have a family involved.

As countless HN threads discuss, i'll pre-answer the typical nay-sayers. Yes, i realize I can raise my entire family of four in a studio apartment. I choose not to. Most people I know choose not to. Yes, i realize I can raise my entire family on ramen noodles, i choose not to. Yes, perhaps i'm picky. Yes, I realize I can drive 5hrs a day and live in a nice house -- I choose not to (mostly because my workday is already 10+hrs.). Yes, I can have roommates live with my family (seriously, someone suggested this on another HN thread. This is down-right creepy. I dont want a roommate living in the same house as my 1yo daughter.)

Call me prissy, but I just figured that Ivy League educations, CS degrees from top-5 institutions, 15yrs of experience and two decades of hard work would afford me more than a studio apartment.

Where does this all put me? It means I have a hard-hard bottom on what salary is acceptable in the Bay Area. Practically speaking, it has meant that I stay in NYC where live is more affordable (yes, i've done the math 10x and can demonstrate it.). I have a great live in NYC on a good tech salary. I'd give up half my quality of live to live in SF, which means that I need a much, much higher salary in SF to make it worth moving there.

[Zahlmeister]

What are you contradicting? You are supporting my point. You are sitting in NYC because you're not getting enough money in SF. High rents didn't make wages rise enough to make SF attractive even for you, a hot shot software developer. Now think about all the ordinary people that hail from SF...

[closeparen]

Someone usually replies to statements about not being able to raise a family on a professional income in SF by suggesting these sacrifices and acccusing the poster of being entitled and having unrealistically high lifestyle expectations. ("Of course you can't live a suburban lifestyle here. Change your lifestyle"). Looks like parent was responding preemptively.

[TuringNYC]

I see what you are getting at and I see your point, thank you. I had an orthogonal point that high rents put an absolute minimum on required salaries. You are absolutely right that sometimes that absolute minimum required salary is realized by the job simply not being taken!

[readams]

Be definition there's always a shortage of BMR housing (otherwise it wouldn't be below market rate). BMR doesn't remotely solve the problem.

[abalone]

10% is way low. SF has been negotiating for 25% and up.[1]

BMR isn't just about culture and diversity. It's about teachers and service industry workers and everyone a functioning city needs. The gap is so large between market rate and affordability, and there are so many richer people still wanting to move into SF, that it is likely wishful thinking that market rate development will be "enough" to solve the problem.

And that is the reason why the Yimby position is not an obvious choice. Cities need to negotiate with developers to have sufficient BMR housing to be functional.

[1] http://48hills.org/2017/07/18/scott-wiener-trying-undermine-...

[kevinburke]

If you read policy documents YIMBY support all sorts of housing for everyone. Generally ambivalent about inclusionary housing requirements because a) it depresses the production of market rate housing by 2.5 to 6 units per one BMR unit and 2) historically it hasn't been very effective at adding new units. Post Prop C the housing pipeline in SF dropped off a cliff.

Targeting BMR is going to be insufficient in SF anyway when 96% of the city rents units that reset to market rate when someone moves out, only thing that's going to help is a lot more new units of all shapes and sizes, hence the legislation listed above.

[marme]

BMR units should not be required by private developers. This is a public problem that private developers are being forced to solve and many are just refusing to build more housing because they cant make a profit. Instead of requiring them to build BMR units just require all apartments to rent out 25% of units to section 8 housing and the city can subsidize the rent of low income people. The more barriers to housing you put in the more developer leave the market. If you want BMR units then have the city build them and they can build 100% BMR complexes

[ubernostrum]

This is a problem which will eventually leave shortsighted developers holding the bag if they're not forced to deal with it.

Think of it like overfishing: you could just as easily say overfishing is a public problem that private fishermen shouldn't be "forced" to solve through quotas. Some fishermen used to believe that, too, right up until the day there weren't any more fish for them to catch because they'd destroyed the population they relied on for their livelihoods.

If housing costs in and around SF don't get under control soon, we're going to have a lot of very rich people who can't do much because there won't be any Uber drivers, baristas, waiters, garbage collectors or really any lower-paid service-sector people to keep the area functioning. And that will pop the housing bubble in a way that's devastating to developers, but they currently don't believe they have any incentive to head it off -- let somebody else build the cheap housing, I'm going to build as expensive as I can!

[vedanta]

This would make sense if there was naturally 'cheap' housing and 'expensive' housing. There isn't. It's just housing. The fish analogy just doesn't work, we're talking about increasing supply of a durable good, not a natural resource. The only way is to make more. I'm sure tons of developers who don't bother playing the bay area would come back if cities lowered their BMR requirements. Leading to better designs, and more units. That plot of land that's designated mixed-use and has a gas station and a strip mall in the sunset isn't getting re-developed because developers know they'd have to do 25% BMR. With 0% BMR, that plot of land gets re-developed into 5-10 housing units. You're counting on prices being high-enough for redevelopment which is another self-fulfilling prophecy, instead of just building normal units. You can have 10% BMR and still get redevelopment quicker.

I would agree about the in-elasticity of the labor market, we're finding out right now. I see plenty of hiring signs around.

[ubernostrum]

This would make sense if there was naturally 'cheap' housing and 'expensive' housing. There isn't. It's just housing.

So luxury condos and basic apartments either don't exist, or are identical to each other?

[vedanta]

Are they both not housing? Can I not renovate one into another over a few weeks? I give developers more credit. If they want to make money, they need to figure out what the market will bare. And it's not their fault if only enough housing is being allowed that they can get away with making luxury only housing. If more was allowed without BMR conditions, there would be a much less price difference between what you find at avalon vs craigslist. The difference is actually not that much, everything is just very high and unaffordable period. Hence the dilemma we're in.

[vedanta]

BMR-renting makes sense at 25% or more. You can kick someone out in a yr. if they've started to earn more. You can rent at-cost, and not lose money like you would in a BMR sale.

Wouldn't you rather be using the loan/tax subsidy to house 10 people in rentals instead of 2 in a BMR condo? Asking for 25% BMR is holding back development and the marginal number of units built in each development. 10% is good compromise for service jobs (though service jobs do pay competitively in the bay area for the most part, teachers make 100k+, cops make 150k+). I'm not saying end BMR completely, just a compromise for which valid reasons exist, with the aim of hopefully someday eliminating it.

How long has SF had a BMR program? and rent control? I think they've both hurt more than help. Possibly even by design.

[abalone]

> teachers make 100k+

You're way off. The median annual Teacher Elementary School salary in San Francisco, CA is $69,389, as of June 28, 2017.[1]

Cities also need a large number of service industry workers that make even less than this.

[1] http://www1.salary.com/CA/San-Francisco/Teacher-Elementary-S...

[vedanta]

I would say most bay area and CA cities pay their public sector employees rather well (with pensions). It's the artists, private-sector service employees, and other low-income jobs that are squeezed the most.

[wbl]

Have you read the Obama administration's report on affordability of housing, or the UC Berkeley displacement report? Both show MR development has a protective effect on displacement.

[stale2002]

Instead of having BMR requirments, you could build so many houses that the new market prices are LESS than whatever the BMR requirements are.

[krakensden]

The higher the %, the more expensive the market rate apartments have to be, which creates its own pressures. It also seems that every time a developer caves, no one is satisfied, and people are back demanding a higher number.