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Comment by Tiktaalik | Hacker News Reader

Even if this bill passes and substantially more multi-family housing starts getting built, do not be surprised if house prices remain extremely high.

Vancouver doesn't have the same anti-development issues that SF has, and has been building multi-unit condos and apartments all over the region for decades. Multi-unit housing starts are about at its highest level ever. The average price of a detached house however is C$1.3 million (~US$998k thanks to the weak Canadian dollar) and rising. Low interest rates, "fear of missing out," incredible amounts of real estate speculation and a dash of foreign investment can go a long way.

It's likely that the strongest benefits to increased supply in SF will manifest itself in lower rents and/or lower rate of rent increases.

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Vancouver is a bit of an anomaly, and much of the housing pricing there is being driven by foreign investment rather than occupation rates.

I moved out of the sea-to-sky about 6 years ago (I'm from Whistler) but I seem to recall huge amounts of apartment vacancy in Yaletown and even Coal Harbour areas. From what I've been reading in Canadian news, it seems that many of these properties remain empty and are not in the rental pool as the act as a shell game for foreigners to move money our of other contries (mostly China, but others too I'm sure).

SF is a very small city, even compared to Vancouver, and from what I understand, vacancies are almost nil.

The official vacancy rate is low but the unofficial vacancy rate is much higher. Many empty units are kept off the rental market due to how tilted the rights are in favor of tenants. 39 percent of the landlords surveyed in 2003 said they kept vacant apartments off the market because of regulations. [1]

http://missionlocal.org/2015/06/a-closer-look-at-airbnbs-inn...

Nobody's expecting housing prices to drop by half overnight. It's just the best thing we can do to limit future growth and make it SOMEWHAT affordable.

(and, frankly, as a homeowner, I don't WANT my housing prices to drop in half overnight, but I DO what the region to be affordable to more people, and hence I support this even though it's against my own personal interest).

Detached homes will not fall in price, pretty well ever. Since San Francisco is pretty well "out of space," when it comes to developing land, building up is the only option and will come to the detriment of detached housing.

This sort of development however should, as you say, assuage high rents and perhaps expand the condo market in SF.

A one bedroom condo in downtown Vancouver is very affordable compared to San Francisco.

I think what you mean to say is cheaper, not affordable.

a software engineer makes over 80K if he is lucky, you would be considered an exception if you make anything over 100K. also pretty much everything else costs more in Canada than it does in US which leaves even less money for housing,

so cheaper yes, but definitely less affordable.

http://www.vancouver-downtown-condo.ca/details.php?id=31618&...

$300k (USD) 1 bd room apartment in Yaletown, equivalent of this in SF is at least $750k. Plus property taxes in SF are around %1.15 for a $750k condo that comes down to 10k a year, just on property taxes. Not sure about the rules in Vancouver but the link I posted above claims $1,008 in property taxes. So yea I think Vancouver is affordable.

It would be pretty much impossible to buy that unit at that price. The new normal is that you list your property at below market rate and a get nice silent auction going.

for example a friend of mine just bought a condo in vancouver last week, List price was around 500K, he put an offer of $530, got a counter of $550 and it finally sold for $580.

http://bc.ctvnews.ca/fierce-bidding-wars-a-new-reality-in-lo...

San Francisco homes typically go over asking too. I've seen 900k listings sold for 1.3 million.

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