Comment by jrapdx3 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jrapdx3 | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

You might be right, possibly housing prices could be higher. If in fact prices have stabilized or leveled out (it's sure hard to get up to date info of that kind), it suggests there's an equilibrium between increasing population and housing availability. The more housing the higher the population will go for any particular average housing price point. Simplistically, price = population/amount of housing.

I think an issue is building new housing attracts an influx of population up to the point that housing is not too expensive, keeping the average price point about the same. Conversely, outflux of population would cause prices to plummet, which has happened in the past during recessions and high unemployment. In effect, housing stocks then are reduced by being removed from the market, but that's not exactly healthy for the community either.

> I contend that the people moving in would outbid everyone for the existing housing stock, which would drive rent increases even more than rents are currently going up.

That's possible, but unless people moving in are much wealthier than the people already there, the price could only rise a certain amount before no one could afford it and sales would fall off. That's similar to certain (expensive) condo prices around here, but still seems there's a ceiling effect.

Your comment inspires me to talk with some real estate folks I know, it's been a while since getting their perspective on the market.

> building new housing attracts an influx of population

You got this backwards: we build housing for the influx of population. People don't move to new places just to get a new house. They move for economic reasons, like they got a $150k software dev job in SF & don't want to commute 90 minutes each way, or they got evicted so the landlord could double/triple the rent.

Regardless of whether SF builds now housing stock or not, the population influx is already happening and has been happening for the last 10 years. The issue is, new, wealthier residents are pulling the market up and forcing existing, lower-income residents out to the periphery of the Bay Area.

> forcing existing, lower-income residents out to the periphery of the Bay Area.

but this should drive those who receive low income out of state, and thus lower the amount of worker available for low-income jobs, which in turn should drive up the wage?

California is big, and moving costs can trap people in places they can barely afford. Fronting up the $600 to rent a U-Haul & take it to Nebraska can be a mammoth challenge. Plus, they need a job at the other end.

It's more likely that they would move to unregulated housing or live on the streets.

Please check your comment about BART schedules. BART guarantees a ride to your destination from any point in the system if you get into a station by midnight. The last train from Embarcadero station to Pittsburg leaves Embarcadero at 12:26 AM.

I don't fancy getting home at 2am.

That's nice, but you were commenting on workers who would potentially need BART to get home after being released from work at a late hour. We are able to do so.

Oh, I based my times assuming that people didn't live at the BART & needed to catch a bus connection… but I guess driving is relatively pleasant once you get away from the city & thus you can use a car instead.

That assumes an underdamped system (and I'd be really interested to know if that feedback is generally considered underdamped). In the end, can't we agree that things would stabilize or nearly stabilize in the appropriate equilibrium?

On another note, I (as a visitor) always figured the most visible effect of the dearth of affordable housing was the ridiculously early time the city shuts down. Madrid is the city I've spent the most time in, and there SF shutdown time would be right in the middle of, or before, dinner! I just figured that the early closing time facilitates closing up, cleaning, and getting home before the transit shuts down since no one working in restaurants or nightlife could afford to live in the city. I'm sure I'm not the first one to suggest that: is that theory generally discounted/disproven?

I'm not sure I see the correlation. US cities in general start rolling up the sidewalks earlier than is often the case in Europe. Dinner times in particular tend to be earlier. 7pm is a fairly typical peak sitting time.

As a counter-example, Manhattan is an atypically late night city for the US [that also has very high housing prices]. You could argue that it also has 24 hour mass transit to cheaper areas. But, in general, tons of US cities that shutdown fairly early have low housing prices.

If you work in the Financial District and live in Pittsburgh, then you have to be on BART no later than 10:30pm to get home. Assuming a 45min clean-up and some slow diners keeping the floor occupied until 9:30, I would arrange for a 9pm closing time.

With the same situation, but a 30 minute commute and a 24h transport system and staff happy to get home around the same time, you could set the closing time at 10:30-11pm.

> tons of US cities that shutdown fairly early have low housing prices

Ah, are they low-density? I have lived places with very fast commutes and low property prices that would shut down by 7pm, since it was deep in the country and thus there was stuff-all foot traffic once people stopped working.

Agreed that Europe is a bad basis for comparison; it's only what I had, not what I would prefer to use.

I can't substantiate this, but it seems that there is a small number of US cities where it is difficult to have cars, and easy enough to use transit, that driving is prohibitive for people in these low-paying jobs. I say this having grown up in a rural area where having many cars around a home was a reliable sign of poverty, not wealth. In most US cities the amount of cheap or free parking is staggering.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com