Villaraigosa and Newsom want to build more houses in California than ever before. Experts see the candidates' goal as an (Los Angeles: low income, unemployment)
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Location: Live:Downtown Phoenix, AZ/Work:Greater Los Angeles, CA
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Originally Posted by Electrician4you
Do you even live here? I have a 3 hour average commute going home from Westwood to Corona. It takes a hour to get from Westwood to DTLA pretty much after 11/12 noon. This is as we speak. You guys can talk about building housing all you want. Until you expand the infrastructure adding more housing isn’t going to help anything. All it’s going to do is make everything more expensive. The rich can afford it. The places the rich vacate are going to raise rents to capture the higher prices which will be taken by the little less rich guys. Leaving the middle class out. When I have a tenant leave I bring the rental price to close to market rate. Why wouldn’t I?
Contractors and investors don’t build cheap housing unless someone subsidizes it. I haven’t worked on a cheap housing project since 2000. And if you guys were in the building field you wouldn’t build cheap housing either. Because you wouldn’t make money. And your investors would be screaming.
Even IF we had the capability to build the housing you guys want, fast enough (which we don’t) you have to build beyond the demand number to make a dent in the housing costs. Keeping up with demand isn’t going to lower prices.
To build a 300 unit apartment building at a accelerated pace takes 6 months. That’s literally 12-14 hour work days 6-7 days a week. The acquisition costs are tremendous in lots of cases but that depends on location. Regardless it costs a lot of money because you’re looking at a higher workload which means OT for the workers. The location in some cases can be detrimental as it could mean long commutes for workers which in turn is accounted for when bidding. Those costs have to be paid. You’re limited as to the how fast you can go because of inspection schedules and amount of inspectors. You have limitations because of the amount of skilled workers. Not to mention in a lot of cases quality suffers greatly from some trades. There is a lot more to building housing. It’s easy to say we need more housing let’s get it built.
I worked the Village at USC project. I think it’s about 2800 units housing 10,000 students. That was 4 year project to build start to finish. 6 days a week 10-12 hr days sometimes Saturdays. And we were screaming for bodies that we simply couldn’t get. Right now we’re building as fast as we can in DTLA. There is a shortage of quality tradesmen.
Just to give you a idea. In all those years USC had a graduating class. Which is now looking for housing. Do that x however many colleges have graduating classes. And given that less people are entering the trades fields and more are retiring and leaving you got problems.
There are a lot of obstacles to building housing. It’s not simple by any means
So you are denying that filtering goes on in housing? Or the exact opposite, when you get the expensive ghetto (South Central LA, houses were going for $600k in 2006)?
If nothing is built, prices will go up even faster. I get transportation needs to be improved, but it will never be done before the demand is there, since it's paid for with taxpayer funds. Hence freeway widenings happen after the fact rather than just building a super wide freeway right away; or why rail projects don't start until demand is there.
The only other thing that can be done, which is unconstitutional, is to try to make it illegal to sell or rent housing to people who weren't born in California. But again, that's unconstitutional/illegal
And here we go again with the we can't build roads fast enough argument. You sound like expatCA and Exitus who just think that nothing should be built and that people should just leave....Yeah that will do wonders for the economy...
If the market isn't asking for it, then why should it be built?
Location: Live:Downtown Phoenix, AZ/Work:Greater Los Angeles, CA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CaliRestoration
If the market isn't asking for it, then why should it be built?
The market IS asking for it. The fact that only the top 2 percent of earners can afford a single family house, and the median renter can't even afford their own one bedroom without a roommate means that there is an undersupply of housing
The market IS asking for it. The fact that only the top 2 percent of earners can afford a single family house, and the median renter can't even afford their own one bedroom without a roommate means that there is an undersupply of housing
There are pretty affordable parts of CA but the thing is a lot of people don’t want to live there . People want to live in L.A or San Francisco at Bakersfield prices .
Location: Live:Downtown Phoenix, AZ/Work:Greater Los Angeles, CA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jm1982
There are pretty affordable parts of CA but the thing is a lot of people don’t want to live there . People want to live in L.A or San Francisco at Bakersfield prices .
A. Those other parts of California don't have jobs
B. No one is asking for it to be that cheap, but rents and mortgages SHOULD be in line with area incomes, but they aren't. The median income SHOULD afford you your own one bedroom apartment, like it does in most big cities; and 2 to 2.5 times the median SHOULD be enough for at least a starter home/condo; again similar to most big cities
A. Those other parts of California don't have jobs
B. No one is asking for it to be that cheap, but rents and mortgages SHOULD be in line with area incomes, but they aren't. The median income SHOULD afford you your own one bedroom apartment, like it does in most big cities; and 2 to 2.5 times the median SHOULD be enough for at least a starter home/condo; again similar to most big cities
This is reality and has been since the beginning of time. Popular areas are always expensive. Now one is required to fund the needs of those who can't make enough to live in an area. Horace Greely's chant of "Go West young man" should now be changed to "Go somewhere else".
This is part of reality and while many don't like it, it won't change. No builder is going to spend money to build and then make less than cost or what he needs to meet his needs. The State does not have enough money. Who pays for it? The rich? Nope, they will simply stop being residents and keep vacation homes as many do now and ... State revenue will go down. If you don't make enough tell your boss to pay you more or you are leaving. This is nothing new for popular areas, it is just with so many more people, so many companies outsourcing their work overseas and college costing so much, many can't live in popular areas and ... the have no right to. The only solution I have seen is the permission to build Granny Flats which would allow a more reasonable rent to those who want to live in them.
Location: Live:Downtown Phoenix, AZ/Work:Greater Los Angeles, CA
27,606 posts, read 14,615,202 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by expatCA
This is reality and has been since the beginning of time. Popular areas are always expensive. Now one is required to fund the needs of those who can't make enough to live in an area. Horace Greely's chant of "Go West young man" should now be changed to "Go somewhere else".
This is part of reality and while many don't like it, it won't change. No builder is going to spend money to build and then make less than cost or what he needs to meet his needs. The State does not have enough money. Who pays for it? The rich? Nope, they will simply stop being residents and keep vacation homes as many do now and ... State revenue will go down. If you don't make enough tell your boss to pay you more or you are leaving. This is nothing new for popular areas, it is just with so many more people, so many companies outsourcing their work overseas and college costing so much, many can't live in popular areas and ... the have no right to. The only solution I have seen is the permission to build Granny Flats which would allow a more reasonable rent to those who want to live in them.
If someone has a job, then they are needed in the area they live, plain and simple. And if they leave, that job is no longer staffed. That happens in enough numbers, and people won't be able to buy food, get gasoline, see a movie, buy tools or appliances, etc etc. And that kind of contraction and lack of services will harm the economy.
Again, the only time a place is overpopulated is if unemployment is unusually high compared to other regions, and that is not the case in LA or the Bay Area right now
If someone has a job, then they are needed in the area they live, plain and simple. And if they leave, that job is no longer staffed. That happens in enough numbers, and people won't be able to buy food, get gasoline, see a movie, buy tools or appliances, etc etc. And that kind of contraction and lack of services will harm the economy.
Again, the only time a place is overpopulated is if unemployment is unusually high compared to other regions, and that is not the case in LA or the Bay Area right now
I hear this argument a lot . But then you see people still apply for and take jobs hours away.
I used to work with people that drove from Lancaster /Palmdale and Fontana to Brentwood .
Employers don’t have problems staffing the lower skilled /paid jobs .
Reality is there are enough people that would rather drive far and still live in SoCal even if it means having to live with roommates.
Wages should be based on demand too and not arbitration government imposed wages like the coming $15 min wage law in CA .
One effect it’s likely to have a lot of those jobs where lower paid people work go out of business so it might actually force those workers to move out of state.
Affordable housing for all coming soon is the lie that politicians tell people to keep them voting for them .
If someone has a job, then they are needed in the area they live, plain and simple. And if they leave, that job is no longer staffed. That happens in enough numbers, and people won't be able to buy food, get gasoline, see a movie, buy tools or appliances, etc etc. And that kind of contraction and lack of services will harm the economy.
Again, the only time a place is overpopulated is if unemployment is unusually high compared to other regions, and that is not the case in LA or the Bay Area right now
Obviously that is not happening in the popular areas of CA, so .... it is not an issue, except for those who want more than they can afford.
Note; I am not happy with the Homeless issues and even the need for many to rent rooms, but it is nothing new. My mother and I rented 2 bedrooms out in our home after my father died in the 50's to make ends meet. That is ... life.
Location: Live:Downtown Phoenix, AZ/Work:Greater Los Angeles, CA
27,606 posts, read 14,615,202 times
Reputation: 9169
Quote:
Originally Posted by jm1982
I hear this argument a lot . But then you see people still apply for and take jobs hours away.
I used to work with people that drove from Lancaster /Palmdale and Fontana to Brentwood .
Employers don’t have problems staffing the lower skilled /paid jobs .
Reality is there are enough people that would rather drive far and still live in SoCal even if it means having to live with roommates.
Wages should be based on demand too and not arbitration government imposed wages like the coming $15 min wage law in CA .
One effect it’s likely to have a lot of those jobs where lower paid people work go out of business so it might actually force those workers to move out of state.
Affordable housing for all coming soon is the lie that politicians tell people to keep them voting for them .
Do you honestly think that minimum should only be the federal $7.25/hr in a high COL low unemployment area like LA or the Bay Area? Really?
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