[echelon]

> Back in 1962 my grandma [...]

Good for her. She could actually afford to own. This generation doesn't have the same luxury.

I hope Millennials and Gen-Z will be courteous enough to not defund social security and Medicare. They're growing pretty angry with student loans, cost of living, and inability to afford housing and retirement. They'll be looking for someone to blame when they're 40 and jaded.

> You would change it forever, adding all the charm of a trailer park or housing project. The free parking would be gone.

That's extreme. I was going to say apartment tower, which makes much more sense than single family dwellings with wasted space for parking cars.

> You're trying to cheat by skipping a step. You don't want to wait half a century. You want that nice neighborhood now, without investing the time to create it.

I own a half million dollar condo on the Atlanta Beltline. By all rights I should be a NIMBY too, but I empathize with those that are struggling and hope for densification and affordability. I didn't buy my place as an "investment" - I bought it because I love it and the neighborhood I live in. Lower house prices will mean lower property taxes, so it'd be a win-win. I want them to build more here.

Housing shouldn't be an investment you horde and keep from others because you've already got yours. Housing is an escape from constant shackles of rent-seeking. It should be accessible. People this generation don't even have that as a dream anymore...

> neighborhood you now covet

SF is a smelly and cold quagmire, and I only travel for business. It's a total monoculture without a thriving art or music scene. I've no interest in ever living there.

Tech either needs to pack up and leave, the law needs to enable denser building, or land owners need to see their values drop through steep, progressive taxation.

SF the city is extorting too much from business for not much in return - all of their employees are getting fleeced by the cost of housing. Businesses should shop elsewhere for a better run town that isn't controlled by rent seeking leeches preventing progress because they refuse to work hard and add new value.

I'm hoping tech leaves. My startup will be on the east coast.

[souprock]

This generation also has the luxury of building homes on undesirable hills in cities without a tech industry. Nothing has changed. My grandma might have wished to build in lower Manhattan, but that was already occupied and expensive. She went where the land was affordable.

She also didn't really get her home as an financial investment, and she is unlikely to personally benefit from the increase in value. There was no way to know she'd get lucky. She used the home to raise 7 kids and will probably die there. As you say, it was her "escape from constant shackles of rent-seeking".

It's not smelly on her street.

I also hope that tech moves elsewhere. It's insane to cram everything onto a tiny peninsula. I did go to an east coast start-up, and it worked out nicely. There's also that whole middle of the country. Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Wyoming are all fine places to live.

[nullc]

> She also didn't really get her home as an financial investment,

Probably good thing she didn't. You say the home is worth $2m today... Well if she invested $7397 in the S&P500 in 1962 it would be worth $2m today.

I'm going to guess she spent more than $7397 for the home and a lot more than $0 on taxes and upkeep. :) So if the home had been bought as an investment it wouldn't have been an amazing one.

I think it's important to point this out due to the other comments that seem to think that she's the recipient of some kind of astonishing windfall, she isn't.

The point the other commenters are making about Prop13 is a good one, however. Your central argument is essentially the problem Prop13 is intended to and actually does solve.

And bonus: You can inherit the property from her and preserve its tax level... so rising property values won't even force it out of your families ownership, not at least until you start running into estate taxes.

[Unfortunately, prop13 is also a lot stronger than what would be minimally required to solve the problem of property taxes pushing people out of their homes. E.g. some other states have similar rules but they only apply to a single residential property per person that they're required to live in, and as a result it causes a rather extreme burden shift onto newer residents including ones who opt to live in less expensive locations...]

There are plenty of reasons why nearby development can be a serious taking of an existing resident's property rights... but in California jacking up your property taxes is not one of those reasons.

Your point about parking is an actual argument that you could probably develop further. But I'm guessing that young able bodied posters who are used to living in an urban hellscape won't buy any argument that reliable nearby parking is a quality of life issue. :)

[jadead]

>They'll be looking for someone to blame when they're 40 and jaded.

No need to wait. I'm 23 and I already feel jaded.

I can't comprehend why anyone would want to treat their primary residence as an investment. My mom bought a tiny apartment in an eastern European country 30 years ago for almost nothing that has appreciated and is now worth $35000. The problem? She wants to move and an actually desirable apartment costs twice as much. Two times almost nothing is still almost nothing. Two times $35000 is $70000 which is something she can't afford.

House appreciation ends up being a a net loss because it kills any potential exit strategy. Want to cash out? You will have to sell your house and then rent for obscene prices. Want to upgrade? Better houses appreciate faster than your low end house, so you have to cough up more money. Want to move to a different location that costs the same? Your taxes have appreciated too.

So the only way this investment strategy can pay off is if you want to move away from the place which is obviously what doesn't happen because people buy homes to stay there, not to move away in 30 years after their homes have appreciated.