It's just getting too expensive in Los Angeles (San Francisco: lease, zoning)

[sacreole]

Build Vancouver-style residential pin-towers along or near major arterial corridors such as Wilshire, Santa Monica, Olympic and Pico Boulevards.

[UKWildcat1981]

Originally Posted by PDF

Well if you refuse to live in apartments, then of course LA is going to be expensive. Even rental prices aren't cheap.

You made my point, LA is ridiculously over priced for housing hence why LA is an expensive place to live, everything else in LA was fairly priced well expect gas and housing.

[nightlysparrow]

Granted, maybe not in the best neighborhoods, but you can still buy a SFH for under $300k in the Valley. Then again, not too long ago Mar Vista, Venice and Palms were considered dicey and now prices are skyrocketing in those areas. More and more Valley areas are gentrifying, like NoHo, Valley Village, West Hills, etc., and housing stock doesn't seem to be expanding much given the focus against development, e.g., a proposed 21,000 unit tract for Newhall Ranch was just derailed (UPDATE: State Supreme Court deals Newhall Ranch a blow).

So buying in a not-so-hot area and waiting for the neighborhood to change may be a way to go.

[SOON2BNSURPRISE]

Originally Posted by majoun

Build enough housing, even "luxury housing", and the costs will decrease. That's what happened in Houston in the '80s.

Build it where? In California the nice places have these SOAR initiatives in place that do not allow you to build on open space without a vote from the people. Developments take decades to get built in California because of the politics. Land values are increased because of the red tape that a developer has to go thru to get something built. Right now is a development that has been in the works for almost 30 years between Valencia and Fillmore taking in both LA and Ventura Counties. I think it is something like 20,000 homes, shopping centers, hospitals, schools, and everything else you would need for a new city. It will be built along the 126 corridor, that is if it ever gets built.

I can name a dozen projects that are being held up in Ventura county alone because of politics. Everyone wants to be able to afford a home but they have no idea what it takes to build in California, yet they keep voting in the same people into office, and they keep voting in these SOAR initiatives.

[V8 Vega]

See nightlysparrows post above, No Newhall Ranch huge development thank goodness, we have no water and stupid goverment wont build dams to save rainwater.

[SOON2BNSURPRISE]

Originally Posted by V8 Vega

See nightlysparrows post above, No Newhall Ranch huge development thank goodness, we have no water and stupid goverment wont build dams to save rainwater.

We have plenty of ways to save water. One of the biggest ways to save water in California was shut down because of these environmentalist wackos that had them shut off the pumps to save the Delta Smelt. A small percentage of Delta Smelt were getting sucked into the pumps and the wacko's could not have even a few of these fish die. Apparently this small useless fish is more important than the millions of people that live in California.

Our system of reservoirs, aqueducts, and pumps to get water back into the aquifers worked well until this little fish became more important than people. We live in an area that has always had drought but we were able to work through that because we had saved water in the ground.

This entire idea of the environment going bad is man made confusion derived from bad science. It is all politically motivated rubbish that so many people have taken as fact. Funny that no one can back up these so called facts that are out there.

[jm1982]

Originally Posted by nightlysparrow

Granted, maybe not in the best neighborhoods, but you can still buy a SFH for under $300k in the Valley. Then again, not too long ago Mar Vista, Venice and Palms were considered dicey and now prices are skyrocketing in those areas. More and more Valley areas are gentrifying, like NoHo, Valley Village, West Hills, etc., and housing stock doesn't seem to be expanding much given the focus against development, e.g., a proposed 21,000 unit tract for Newhall Ranch was just derailed (UPDATE: State Supreme Court deals Newhall Ranch a blow).

So buying in a not-so-hot area and waiting for the neighborhood to change may be a way to go.

I'm not sure if there are many sfh under $300k in the valley today . Perhaps a smaller home like a 2bedropm that needs work in the worst parts .

I have lived in the valley for 5 years and it seems things have been changing more recently .
I'm hoping it continues and spreads . There are still a lot of rough parts of the valley where it feels like pretty much everyone is low income . Would be nice to have more of a mix and more options .

I'm not sure if Westside areas like mar vista , Venice and palms were ever bad as parts of the valley currently are now though. Plus they had the appeal of being close to the beach .

I'd like to see less run down low income rental housing and more options for people to buy condos or townhomes in these areas .

It's just better for an area when people are homeowners too.
LA seems to make it hard to build as you mentioned which makes things worse.

I'm sure there would be demand for new housing in some of the less desirable parts of the valley if people had the chance to buy it.

[nightlysparrow]

Originally Posted by jm1982

I'm not sure if there are many sfh under $300k in the valley today . Perhaps a smaller home like a 2bedropm that needs work in the worst parts .

Nah, there's actually quite a few. Realtor.com currently lists 48 in the east Valley alone, and some have 3 or 4 bedrooms. Need work, certainly.

11835 Arminta St, North Hollywood, CA 91605 - Home For Sale and Real Estate Listing - realtor.com®

15535 Lassen St, Mission Hills San Fernando, CA 91345 - Foreclosure for Sale - realtor.com®

And here's one in the west Valley:

http://www.realtor.com/realestateand...42-29057?row=3

[jtamay3]

Originally Posted by majoun

Build enough housing, even "luxury housing", and the costs will decrease. That's what happened in Houston in the '80s.

As the poster before me said - in reality, that's not happening. It will just open the door for more people to buy from the outside. You will not out-build the demand here. Why? Because it's one of the most desirable areas in the entire country.

It's just like the freeways - you build an extra lane, traffic doesn't get any better. Instead, you end up with more cars on the road. In this case, the extra housing will just lead to extra people buying/renting those places without much of a positive effect on pricing.

And again, developers aren't making investments without getting a nice profit back. So they'll either sell or rent out those apartment/condos for a large amount of cash off the bat. The rich who can afford it will buy it up or rent it themselves leaving the middle class, again, with no option.

The absolute best case scenario, is that you build up so many highrise condos and apartments, that it drives the people in Glendale, Los Feliz, Hollywood, etc. outward over there, and the middle class can jump into the homes in Glendale, Los Feliz, Hollywood, etc.

[majoun]

Originally Posted by jtamay3

As the poster before me said - in reality, that's not happening. It will just open the door for more people to buy from the outside. You will not out-build the demand here. Why? Because it's one of the most desirable areas in the entire country.

It's just like the freeways - you build an extra lane, traffic doesn't get any better. Instead, you end up with more cars on the road. In this case, the extra housing will just lead to extra people buying/renting those places without much of a positive effect on pricing.

And again, developers aren't making investments without getting a nice profit back. So they'll either sell or rent out those apartment/condos for a large amount of cash off the bat. The rich who can afford it will buy it up or rent it themselves leaving the middle class, again, with no option.

The absolute best case scenario, is that you build up so many highrise condos and apartments, that it drives the people in Glendale, Los Feliz, Hollywood, etc. outward over there, and the middle class can jump into the homes in Glendale, Los Feliz, Hollywood, etc.

Never taken an economics class? Never heard of supply and demand?
(Not surprised actually, considering how widespread ignorance of economics is in California.)
If there is a glut of "luxury housing", then the price will go down and said housing will become accessible to the middle class.