California Homeowners: Please Convert Garages into Apartments

Look, what’s going to happen? Garages prove to be a safety valve, it’ll become a new normal that allows this “can” of housing issues to get kicked down the road. I don’t see how this helps.

It’s not all that different from saying allow six to a room or something. Sure, it increases “density” but it’s not a solution.

One of their examples is garages in the mission (SF). Those things are low ceiling, dingy, etc. Students might be okay. Not grown adults. Like I said, it’d become a new normal, an accepted solution. But it’s not a solution. It just postpones things and makes sub-par acceptable.

10% "vacancy" tax / year can solve this problem and drive property speculations out of the housing market.

I don't think prop13 needs to be repealed entirely, just changed so it only applies to the owner's primary home.

Then prop 13 will meet its ostensible purpose -- so the elderly don't get forced out of their homes by taxes, while those that own investment properties pay taxes on the market value of their property.

(note that I say this as someone that owns a couple rental properties in the California and benefit from Prop 13)

I don't think it would unite homeowners with non-homeowners.

It’s weird how millionaires are the evil outsider enemy, but old people living in the million-dollar houses they own are sympathetic.

Maybe the progressive tax scheme will one day switch from an income-based gradient, to a function of both income and age.

Okay, how about as a first step we eliminate prop 13 only for 'new' houses, say bought after 2015 and also eliminate it for houses that change hands via estate transfer?

wait -- is that allowed by prop 13?

this seems like a separate issue. these are individuals who are simply breaking the existing tax law combined with a miserably run local government that fails to do even the most basic job of enforcing that law.

i mean, when someone dies, a death certificate is issued. the county government finds out about that event and it's losing money by not putting 2 and 2 together -- but it still fails. IMHO a better-run government is the first remedy here.

one of the interesting special cases here is rental properties, in particular apartments. if the property tax is raised on these buildings, the costs will ultimately pass through to the tenants.

The real issue is that (1) people want housing to be affordable and (2) people want housing to be an investment, and this is simply not sustainable. It's obvious. Only the first few generations get to have both, everybody else gets fucked. They will give you a bunch of reasons that all sound very different but somehow all magically take the side that favors (2). Weird. At this point for housing to become affordable the prices need to tank. This can be achieved in many ways but nobody is going to vote for any of them because of (2). Housing is a massive political sticking point. Too many people have too much of their livelihood invested in their house. Their votes are easily manipulated. You say build more, I guarantee that the build rate will be such that prices are not affected negatively. You can try to lower demand by raising ongoing fees in order to make housing a worse investment in hopes to drive out foreign investors and other speculators but clearly this will only work if prices drop and that will not happen because of (2). Things outside of voter control, specifically owner-voter control, need to crash the housing prices for the current generation to afford a house. _And_ the growth must be kept down to around inflation levels, because otherwise the problem is just postponed. The problem with California is that there hasn't been anything outside of voter control to affect housing prices like in other states. People are adamant to stay where they are and there are no big enough disasters to damage the properties.

False.

http://www.savingcommunities.org/issues/taxes/landvalue/

Exclude single primary residence. Bam - solved it.

You are preaching to the choir here. I loved when Micah Posner, one of the chief NIMBYs of Santa Cruz, turned out to be an illegal ADU slumlord. That in my opinion explains a lot about how Santa Cruz really works. Or as I refer to it to outsiders: Mayberry politics by the sea.

“Standard” is one of the reasons costs are so high. New builds and large remodels in my city require overhead sprinkler systems... why? 2 car garages too, even though everyone I know uses them for storage or as a workshop. We need to lower housing standards if we want to house everyone.

most cities in the central valley are growing. My hometown has grown from a population of 27k in 1970 to 133k today, with massive developments on West side replacing walnut groves. Same story pretty much everywhere. Farmers can make a lot of cash selling land to developers, and people complain about the dust and smell and other pollution from farms neighboring their new homes.

My last bit about florida was a sidenote, because I never considered people living in a garage a thing. Here in Florida I never see that kinda thing anywhere I've lived, but I'm just one person and there's a whole lot of Florida I have not seen.

Many investors find a property momentarily unprofitable and set it on the back burner while the neighborhood they dont have to live in goes down the drain. It is a huge negative externality that affects millions directly. But prvitizing gains and socializing losses seems to be the cali way.