[jethro_tell]

Here's another more bleak option. Just like in 2008 when corporations bought up huge swaths of the housing market for cash while no one could get a loan. (which is part of the current issue with not enough homes to buy)

They aren't betting the market will come roaring back, they are betting that they can corner the market and housing will be a subscription just like everything else they sell.

Rent seekers aren't going anywhere, and the cost is really immaterial to them for the most part. They don't need cashflow, they need a monopoly.

[fennecfoxen]

As usual, the “speculators” and “out of towners” and others are convenient scapegoats, lest we have to face the underlying supply and demand and barriers to development.

You want to have a monopoly on housing in a major city? I’d be hard pressed to point out an industry where that would be harder. You have literally millions of competitors.

[urthor]

Absolutely this.

The out of towners, who are mostly Blackrock, is just a fella with a spreadsheet tracking new dwelling approvals vs demand.

All the Bay Area has to do is approve new dwellings. The issue is the politicians are landlords with investment properties.

[seanmcdirmid]

San Francisco is already the second most densely populated city in the USA (the first being NYC). SF is actually already slightly more densely populated than Tokyo, which many like to tout as a mecha for de-regulated zoning.

[heiniunai]

With around 6,300 people per km2, "it is similar in terms of population density to San Francisco. In Tokyo’s 23 wards, however, the density is 15,381 people per km2, making it 50% higher than New York City as a whole."

https://japanpropertycentral.com/2021/12/housing-in-tokyo-is...

The 23 wards of Tokyo are 5 times the land area of SF city proper.

[nobodyandproud]

Let’s get in the full context:

>Nakano ward’s density of 21,956/km2, does rank a little closer to Manhattan (around 28,000/km2).

NYC is quite large. Huge areas of the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island have low-risers or single family homes.

Which if course brings the average down.

[heiniunai]

My comment was more about the parent comment's poor comparison between SF and Tokyo by using Tokyo Metropolis (Tokyo-to) population density – which includes large areas of rural land and mountains – instead of the 23 Wards which is still not perfect but a better approximation of the "city" part of Tokyo Metropolis.

I agree that the link's comparison of Tokyo 23 Wards with all of NYC is not an appropriate comparison. But not necessarily because of single-family housing as you describe. Even for Nakano Ward (with population density nearing Manhattan's), 20.8% of residential buildings are detatched single-family homes and 48.9% of residential buildings are less than 3 stories tall [0], surely a higher proportion than several NYC boroughs. Its high density is more due to having fewer areas with offices, narrower streets (compared to NYC), and barely any green space.

[0] https://www.city.tokyo-nakano.lg.jp/dept/505700/d026142_d/fi...

[synaesthesisx]

But the difference is, NYC is constantly building new housing inventory, with constant construction and developments going up left and right.

Meanwhile most of San Francisco is just streets of old single-family homes.

[seanmcdirmid]

Do you mean streets of Victorian row houses? I didn’t notice many SFHs in SF unless you count row houses that are more commonly seen as town homes.

See https://westlinevillage.com/townhouse-vs-single-family-whats...

[inferiorhuman]

I'd guess no. The neighborhoods west of Twin Peaks and south of the Mission are dominated by single family homes.

[seanmcdirmid]

I guess you mean the housing that you see coming on Caltrain after pass through south San Francisco? 30% of SF’s housing is classified as single family, so there must be some in the city. Just not as common as it is say, here in Seattle.

[dublinben]

>San Francisco is already the second most densely populated city in the USA

This isn't true, even if you limit it to cities with population over 100k. New York City, Jersey City, and Paterson, NJ are all more dense than SF.[0] San Francisco is effectively tied with notoriously anti-development Cambridge, MA. Quite a few smaller cities around the country are more dense as well.[1]

The housing situation in San Francisco is nothing to be proud of, unless you think that having the highest median home prices or median rents is a laudable achievement.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...

[lazide]

That assumes they'll get takers on the areas though.

With remote work becoming more of the norm, what if the labor market doesn't move back?

They'll have a monopoly that few ever pay rent on, and they'll go broke (while the houses rot).

[heavyset_go]

Urban areas are desirable even outside of the availability of high paying jobs. There are neighborhoods in America's desirable cities filled with the adult children of wealthy people who pay their kids' insane rents while they pursue arts, fun and wait tables or bartend on the side for petty cash or to keep busy. That section of urban residents are not dependent on high paying jobs and will continue to seek out cities for the lifestyle aspect.

[jethro_tell]

Sure, It's not a sure thing forever and not all areas are going to be winners, but if you have a big enough budget, you can just buy houses everywhere for a long time and probably make decent rent for a while. Heh, if not, or when it ends, they can just dump it and or the company and walk away. It's not like they are doing it with their own money.

[marvin]

This is a spooky narrative, but the rent seekers can't be the majority. My understanding is that many Californian real estate markets are kept artificially tight due to various forms of NIMBYism.

If renters become the majority, it's suddenly no longer viable to limit new housing through regulation. Markets are nowhere near the fundamental limits of homes per square meter of the state that's good to live in.

[jethro_tell]

I don't think they are a majority and I think the main problem is lack of housing being built. But I do think that what housing is out there on the market faces stiff competition from companies not people. I'd assume there are a few people buying houses with cash but my guess is a lot of those stories you hear about people bidding 100k over ask and losing to a cash offer are mostly not people.

Theres a good number of companies that are open about increasing their housing portfolios. Even construction companies that built thousands of starter homes per year converting to rentals only.

These are long term changes, and not a quick cash grab at the bottom of the market.

[Schnitz]

Homeowners are a reliable political cohort, they tend to organize quickly as soon as any issues are on the agenda that might affect the value of their land and they will reliably push for whatever increases land values. They show up at city hall to make sure they are at least the loudest group on the issue. Homeowners are also diligent voters. You’ll need more than 50% of people to be renters to counter this, unless you can convince renters to organize as reliably and passionately as home owners.

[jjav]

> Homeowners are a reliable political cohort, they tend to organize quickly as soon as any issues are on the agenda that might affect the value of their land and they will reliably push for whatever increases land values.

I feel like this is a myth, do you have research to back this?

As a 20+ year home owner, I've never been asked to support anything to increase land/housing value (not that I'd want to, since that means higher taxes for me, which I'd rather not).

I don't think this homeowner cabal to increase values actually exists. If it does, nobody invited me and nobody invited any of my homeowner friends (which is all my friends) either, so it can't be a very large group.

[lazide]

Have you been asked to vote for/against zoning changes, or for special approvals for variances for developments?

Because I got those all the time. If I didn't show up (which I often did, as a homeowner in the area just to see what they were proposing), all the old folks in the area (90% who owned) definitely did to shoot it down or ask for crazy demands that jack up the price. Sometimes they just filibuster in the vein of 'onion on my belt'.

You'll see big boards up talking about 'Planning Commission Meeting' or 'Meeting on a Proposed Development' at the site of any proposed work, public notices in the paper, and developers in an area are usually required to send notice mailers to every address in the area too in advance.

Those are typically what you see. People generally don't propose a zoning change titled 'Plan to screw over all the poor renters and make the homeowners rich', since that's a bit too obvious and would get thrown out in court. It would be something like 'Plan to develop lot XYZ into high density residential' (which may get shot down).

Many folks (including planning commissions) are happy to ask for on the surface reasonable stuff that makes projects economically unviable, or complain about how the extra traffic from all those people will place an undue burden on them and ruins their quality of life and 'the neighborhood character'. Those complaints are also real - having more people in a small place DOES increase traffic (even with public transit), DOES change quality of life and neighborhood character (better or worse depending on who you are), etc. Adding more parking WOULD be nice for many people, even if there isn't space for it on the lot (why not do a underground parking garage then! $$$)

Which if the planning commission doesn't weigh heavily will result in a rather short tenure for them, in my experience.

All of which raises property values, and decreases the overall number of people who can have accommodation in an area by reducing density.

[jjav]

> Have you been asked to vote for/against zoning changes, or for special approvals for variances for developments?

Also, if there are cities where this level of question does go on the ballot, it's the same ballot for everyone. So both homeowners and renters in that city get to vote on that, so it's not like there is any special influence power in being in one group or the other.

[heavyset_go]

My municipality's NIMBY calling cards for proposed new development are "if dense housing is built, traffic will be even worse!", "more housing development could mean overcrowded schools!" and "what about our precious open space that some residents treat as garbage dumps and allow overgrowth of invasive species in?"

[jjav]

> Have you been asked to vote for/against zoning changes, or for special approvals for variances for developments?

No, never. That's not the granularity of questions that bubble up to the ballot. Those planning and permit commissions do whatever they do mostly behind closed doors, they certainly never ask the electorate.

[jethro_tell]

It never really gets on the ballot around here. But it is certainly brought up in counsel debates and people usually vote for that by proxy through the counsel positions.

There are also always hearings around higher density zoning and people turn out tooth and nail to oppose those at counsel meetings. On thing that is interesting, is people generally like the idea of more housing but when you say, 'We're going to add these 4 blocks near your house to the high density core', either people like it less or the people who like it less come out in droves and throw a fit.

[tekknik]

But in the spirit of the question and for curiosity’s sake, if you were faced with a decision that’s beneficial to renters but decreases your property value, which way do you go?

[jjav]

> But in the spirit of the question and for curiosity’s sake, if you were faced with a decision that’s beneficial to renters but decreases your property value, which way do you go?

Details of the proposal matter of course, but in general I'd rather not support home values going up because that just means higher taxes for me in exchange of nothing since I continue to live in the same house which is unchanged.