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Comment by sampo | Hacker News Reader

> It’s not my fault she’s gone, that all 12 of them are gone. Normal. People move all the time. Nothing I could have done.

Except allow building more homes. Vote for politicians who'd have allowed building more homes. My guess is, the author has voted against her own interests.

Which one is more important, keeping the "charm" of houses and neighborhoods where you cannot afford to live anyway, or keeping those 12 your closest childhood friends, even if that means allowing to build apartment buildings for them to live in? You choose.

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Yes, exactly: https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/

SF is a city where zoning and homevoters: http://cityobservatory.org/homevoters-v-the-growth-machine/ have made the city impossible for any normal person to live a normal life there. Even tech workers making $150k/yr find it hard to live there. The solution is simple (remove any parking minimums, lot setbacks, and non-technical height limits) and the problems are entirely legal/regulatory.

> lot setbacks

Does San Francisco enforce lot setbacks? I don't think I've seen many buildings in San Francisco that weren't just immediately adjacent to the sidewalk.

It depends on the zone.

RH-1, which is a bulk of the city west of Divis, is approx 15' (depends on historical building construction)

https://sf-planning.org/sites/default/files/FileCenter/Docum...

I don't know anything about planning that document says 'up to' 15 feet (which is about 4.5 m), not 'approx', and it also says 'based upon average of adjacent buildings', so if the rest are already against the sidewalk then new builds can be as well.

Take a stroll through Outer Sunset/Richmond and let us know how many buildings front up to the property line, thanks

"Which one is more important, keeping the "charm" of houses and neighborhoods where you cannot afford to live anyway, or keeping those 12 your closest childhood friends, even if that means allowing to build apartment buildings for them to live in? You choose."

It is worth noting that both of those are reasonable, acceptable democratic outcomes.

I personally would like to see much more in-fill and height in a lot of the city of San Francisco - but I am dismayed when I hear other such proponents of this idea rejecting the results of democratic processes as illegitimate.

There is a serious movement underway in California to remove local control of housing/zoning/development and enact statewide, top down controls and incentives - simply because democratic processes did not produce "acceptable" results.

The common retort is that local councils and county boards and neighborhood associations - local control - is by nature undemocratic (something something only old retired people have time to go to county board hearings something something) but I would like to point out that those very same people who hope to remove local controls in favor of top-down, region-wide planning, were very much in favor of legalizing marijuana (as I was) and instituting local control at the expense of the (federal) top-down, region-wide planning.

Democracy for thee, but not for me ...

Very few people are pro- or anti- local control in general. People have specific policy goals, and achieve those goals at the level (local, state, federal) where they’re most feasible. There’s no hypocrisy there.

I encourage you to read the local progressive press in San Francisco - for instance, the 48 hills blog[1]. There is a serious and growing sentiment that removing local housing authority and controls is the proper solution to these problems.

In fact, there are governmental working bodies that are moving in this direction - Plan Bay Area comes to mind, as well as Governor Newsome's proposed transportation funding mechanism[2]. Or just read the literature from the Yimby party in SF[3] - see part VI, bullet #2 ...

[1] https://48hills.org/

[2] https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/01/gavin-newsom-...

[3] https://yimbyaction.org/sf/platform/

Killing all left-handed people is also a possible valid outcome of a democratic process. That wouldn't make it acceptable. You can't wave the democracy wand over a bad outcome and make it immune from criticism.

The whole situation is complicated. While I'm sympathetic to people who want the place they've lived in for 30 years to remain the same, there's already a federally mandated (and, thus, undemocratic) thing which ensures that change will happen: unrestricted internal migration. So the question is not about whether change will happen, it's just a matter of whether change comes in the form of increasing costs or increasing density.

I think it's too late for that. Adding more reasonable priced homes just means that companies currently looking outside the valley can now continue to grow there so there will continuously be a shortage and thus high pricing and wages. It's going to take a significant bubble burst to reset it.

If it's too late, when (in the past several years) would it have not been too late? There were always companies that have considered expanding in San Francisco, as there will be for years to come, and if building more housing helps at least a few existing residents then it seems like a net positive.

At any given point in time, there is a roughly finite amount of demand, and inching closer to meeting that demand can't hurt.

I agree that it can't hurt. My point was simply at this time it's not enough to solve the problem so it can only be a part of the solution.

Thanks, that makes sense and I agree. I guess I misinterpreted a little.

Maybe the author would be happier if even just 2 out or her 12 best friends had been able to stay?

As an outside it became apparent that moving to SF/SV would be a challenge around ten years ago. There are a number of post on HN from "back in the day" that discusses this topic e.g:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=170719 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=860913 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=236853 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1255718

9-10 years is about right. 2005, I had a one bedroom for $1700, and in 2008 I moved into a studio on Twin Peaks for $1300/month. Both were high but still affordable. By 2011, a 2 bedroom in SOMA was $3000/month, and by 2014 it was $4500/month.

This coincides with when tech companies started popping up in SF, instead of South Bay where they traditionally went to.

Are you sure it's tech companies? In 2006 I was paying (part of) $2800 for a generous sized two bedroom apartment in the East Village of Manhattan. At the beginning of 2010 when I moved out the landlord wanted $3500. Today it's going for for $4400.

That's a 25% increase in 3 years and then another 25% increase over the next 9 years. And there was no, or at least only minor, tech company factor in NYC.

agreed. living in NYC, i’ve seen how extensive the problem is. we have lots of housing being built over a much broader area than san francisco and yet we still have the same problem. the number of people moving in to the city and getting high paying jobs (i’m a part of this problem) is so great that basically anyone else is pushed out. our affordable housing program has the right idea, but is so limited in its scope as to hardly make a dent. developers keep making luxury buildings with minimal affordable units and flipping them for big money. we need more regulation, more affordable housing.

The Bay Area is still much worse. In the NYC area you can rent a place for a family in Queens or parts of Jersey on a modest income and still have a not-ridiculous commute into Manhattan. There aren’t really any equivalents left in the Bay Area.

This is like adding road capacity. If you want cheap and plentiful housing or free flowing traffic at all hours, you're going to have to build ahead of demand. If you're building to satisfy demand, you're not likely to get ahead of demand, but you may be able to build to keep up, so it doesn't get worse, or so it gets worse slower.

For San Francisco, the rate of new unit construction was always too little, but in the 2008 housing crisis, construction stopped and was slow to restart; that would have been a great time to get ahead of demand -- labor and materials were less expensive (because construction was slowed everywhere), but there was risk that the prices would stay low, and difficulties with construction financing.

And like adding road capacity, improvements can increase demand and make conditions worse, so getting ahead means speeding up until other limiting factors come into play.

In transportation, this well-established response is known in various contexts as the Downs-Thomson Paradox, The Pigou-Knight-Downs Paradox or the Lewis-Mogridge Position: a new road may provide motorists with some level of respite from congestion in the short term, but almost all of the benefit from the road will be lost due to increased demand in the longer term.[0]

[0] https://www.citymetric.com/transport/does-building-more-road...

Demand is likely to increase in the longer term regardless of construction; until you get to the point where your roads and housing are so oversubscribed that people are not willing to pay $10,000/month for a sublet in a studio and have a 4 hr each way commute -- people do have limits.

Considering road or housing construction as something you can do once to 'fix' the situation only works if you are able to limit demand. Most metropolitan areas are encouraging of population growth, though. Areas with limited population growth generally can build enough roads and housing to satisfy demand and have a static demand, so there's not a lot of congestion or rapidly rising housing costs.

This.

Also, foreign investment from wealthy families stashing money overseas. Seems like we don’t talk about that much when our $100k house is worth $1.2 million

And that’s what houses are to Americans as well. Much of the real estate in the Bay Area is an investment purchase.

> Also, above all, I don’t want California to stop growing and benefiting from all the international and domestic migrants who flock here for opportunity and/or safety.

> Despite the fact that my rent makes some people do spit-takes, I am still a beneficiary of an inflated Bay Area salary.

OP did choose. The point of the article is buyer's remorse.

The one word that keeps popping up in all these types of articles is:

>> rent

There is one thing that you can do, which takes away this word’s power

>> buy

If you are a young person here, buy something. Anything. Hold onto it for life.

We’re Im from real estate is currently crashing with no floor in sight. So sometimes it’s worth it to wait a bit.

If it drops 40% I might be able to afford to go back home.

Where are you from?

It's hard to work in places that have affordable housing. Nearly everyone I know who has a mortgage (I know very few people who own) had their parents pay their deposit.

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