[greenie_beans]

there's a power imbalance between the homeowners and the renters. i'd be curious to see the makeup in the bay area of city council members who own vs rent. also there's discretionary zoning in the bay area which is a large driver of the problem imo.

the developers are another interesting dimension in that power imbalance.

[gosub100]

homeowners (some of whom are corporations, or use their home as a rental business and not a domicile) vs (renters and homeless). Even if homeless people don't directly get to move into new housing, it still benefits them. I think if the homeless were mobilized to vote, they could work with renters and become the majority.

[lazide]

It’s because the renters usually don’t actually care to the extent of voting. They’re not invested because they literally aren’t invested.

And they can (and do) up and leave when something changes/they don’t like it there anymore, which is something the owners can’t do.

[greenie_beans]

i'm a renter and i vote like hell. so do my friends, who are also renters.

a homeowner can sell their house if they don't like something. it's more of a PITA but this is simply a false statement: "And they can (and do) up and leave when something changes/they don’t like it there anymore, which is something the owners can’t do. "

not to mention, as a renter in a tight renter market, it's very hard to up and leave and find some place in a similar budget.

[lazide]

If you look at the stats, you’re very much outliers.

And if you’ve ever owned before (I have) and also rented (I have), the difference in ability to move and sensitivity to market conditions is dramatically in renters favor the vast majority of the time.

No renter is going to be looking at losing hundreds of grand trying to move in a downturn, for instance. Or like in ‘08, being stuck for years in frozen real estate markets or losing hundreds of grand or more.

No renter is ever going to get hundreds of grand in cash money on sale either, if things go well.

Just the paperwork involved in selling (let alone the other logistics) takes longer and is more involved than renting a new place, even in the tightest markets!

Ownership has its privileges and its costs.

[greenie_beans]

yeah i'm aware of all that. i'm in the process of moving and have thought on a few occasions that i'm glad i also don't have to worry about selling a house. i wasn't saying that it's not hard to move for an owner, was directly responding to your statement: "which is something the owners can’t do."

[lazide]

It’s been awhile since we’ve had a real estate slump. People forget.

I expect over the next year or two you’ll see what I mean. If you thought ‘thank god I wasn’t owning’ before, wait until the bankruptcies start and the market is forced to ‘move’ again.

Orders of magnitude more pain than most people even think possible until they’ve lived through it.