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by andy_ppp 4304 days ago 

    If everyone in SF rented, and everyone had to pay market rates, then there 
    would be the political backing for changes that would make housing more 
    affordable.
This is demonstrably not true in London where rent just keeps on going up and hardly any new housing is being built. For example, an MP has just resigned his £130k+ (total remuneration, that's $215'000) job because he can't afford to rent a 4 bedroom house anywhere near Westminster [1].

Sometimes the state just needs to step in and actually help people (by directly building high quality housing and selling it to people below market value). Currently if you buy a new build in London it is priced so high that you can expect it to be under water for a few years (the builders provide special mortgages because banks refuse to do them directly in many cases - the flats are not worth what they are being sold for).

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/aug/11/tory-foreign...
1 comments
cbr 4303 days ago 

    This is demonstrably not true in London where rent
    just keeps on going up and hardly any new housing
    is being built.
http://www.london.gov.uk/priorities/housing-land/renting-hom... claims only a quarter of people in london rent? So the "if everyone rented" bit isn't being met. Because property values and rents mostly move together, as long as most people own their homes you have more people backing policies that push them higher than lower.

I don't know the London political situation very well: what makes it so expensive to build new units? Are there strict historical preservation laws? Rules that let neighbors veto or slow nearby construction? Permits and taxes?

    He can't afford to rent a 4 bedroom house
    anywhere near Westminster
"Anywhere near Westminster" apparently means "within walking distance". A 30min public transit commute covers areas where renting a 4br would be ~£26/year.

    you can expect it to be under water for a few years
I'm not sure what you mean by this. You're saying if you build a flat and sell it then people are buying them at prices at which they wouldn't be able to resell them? Is this just because there's a premium for new construction? (Cars in the US, for example, lose ~20% of their value when they're bought for the first time because they stop being "new". So you could say that if you buy a new car you expect to be "under water" at first, but no one would say that.)
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