Legit, but dumb question about MoCo (property values & housing)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, Elrich is terrible on housing. His position against accessory dwelling units was unforgiveable hypocrisy. Also, housing in Montgomery County is unaffordable because we are not building anywhere near enough housing and because under current zoning, it's illegal in most parts of the county to build the kind of housing that would make housing more affordable. And he supports those policies too.

On the other hand, the stuff you read on DCUM about Elrich is mostly pure bunkum. Half of the posters can't even spell his name right.

So: is Elrich going to make Montgomery County a hellhole, thereby lowering housing costs, thereby making housing more affordable? No.

I'm just going to note two things:

1. there aren't any more yuppies; they were in their 20s & 30s in the 80s, which means (40 years later) that they're now pushing 70.
2. if you moved in with your partner, your combined household income of $140,000 would be 30% higher than the median household income in the county (though student loan debt is an issue, of course).

(

and yet, some are convinced that people are moving out of moco in droves.

I have a question for OP.

Let's say at some point, you are able to buy a house in a nice area in MoCo, and eventually, your property value starts to go up to the point where now younger people can't afford to buy a home. Would you want your property value to go down so that these young folks can afford a home in your neighborhood?

I find housing stability more important. I want to own a home so that I don’t have to worry about my landlord taking my place off the market or raising the rent. I just want a forever home, the equity issue is secondary to me. So of course I’d be more concerned win other people having homes than me making money off owning mine.

You are thinking this way because you are not a long time home owner. Once you become one, I guarantee you that you will think differently.

My neighbors are pretty old and very liberal, yet they still care about their home values because they are about to sell soon. They want the neighborhood to be zoned for the "better" neighboring school district (ie, hardly any poor people) so their home values go up.

This will be you in 20 years.

No, in 20 years I will be 50 and possibly with children in school. I would like good schools for all, and the thing I keep hammering at is stability. I don’t want to move. I want to grow roots and stay. I’ve moved around almost every other year for the past ten years and I’m tired. It’s so stressful to always pack up and leave. I’m just want a place with a little yard (so not a huge condominium, but a duplex or triplex is fine) to grow old in. I’m not interested in buying in a place as an investment to sell in the future. I’m just looking to lock down one thing in my life to not have to stress out about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I work in county government. Backstory:

1. MoCo decline is real and has been going on for a while. Elrich not the cause. You can go to empowermontgomery.com and read a whole report about it if you want.

2. To stop that it would be helpful to make MoCo an easier place to do business.

3. Elrich and his policies and his personality aren't helping with that.

4. County is already unattractive to businesses, making it also unattractive to rich residents is going to cause tax revenues to collapse. Which would have a lot of bad knock-on effects.

5. If you want housing affordability, it would be much more logical to just support more affordable housing development rather than purposefully try to make the place you want to live so unappealing that nobody else wants to live there. That would seem to me to be a bad plan for you and everyone else.

Aside, parts of county government are dsyfunctional and it would be fine with me if someone came in and cleaned house (as long as they got rid of the right people). I have little hope that will actually happen (or if it does they will actually get rid of the right people rather than just do some first-in first-out thing which is probably the opposite of what's needed, honestly).

? there are many cities that don't have a huge "rich resident" population, and their cities aren't collapsing. As stated up thread, MoCo keeps building new housing but it is not building enough affordable housing. So who is buying those $750K+ THs? Granted, these people aren't "rich" but I hardly think people who can afford such homes are not able to keep the tax base up, especially as we seem to getting more of those people as evidenced by the housing building boom.

I didn't say without rich people MoCo would collapse. I said the tax base would collapse. If you are OK with cuts to schools, police, fire, etc. as well as increases in property tax for less services then I suppose we have no issue.

As for Elrich, I was being charitable. Honestly, I don't think he's very bright. Or at least, in this county of a million people, we could find quite a few brighter than him. I don't think he's the most terrible person in the world or anything. Just that I think we can do better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, Elrich is terrible on housing. His position against accessory dwelling units was unforgiveable hypocrisy. Also, housing in Montgomery County is unaffordable because we are not building anywhere near enough housing and because under current zoning, it's illegal in most parts of the county to build the kind of housing that would make housing more affordable. And he supports those policies too.

On the other hand, the stuff you read on DCUM about Elrich is mostly pure bunkum. Half of the posters can't even spell his name right.

So: is Elrich going to make Montgomery County a hellhole, thereby lowering housing costs, thereby making housing more affordable? No.

I'm just going to note two things:

1. there aren't any more yuppies; they were in their 20s & 30s in the 80s, which means (40 years later) that they're now pushing 70.
2. if you moved in with your partner, your combined household income of $140,000 would be 30% higher than the median household income in the county (though student loan debt is an issue, of course).

(

and yet, some are convinced that people are moving out of moco in droves.

I have a question for OP.

Let's say at some point, you are able to buy a house in a nice area in MoCo, and eventually, your property value starts to go up to the point where now younger people can't afford to buy a home. Would you want your property value to go down so that these young folks can afford a home in your neighborhood?

I find housing stability more important. I want to own a home so that I don’t have to worry about my landlord taking my place off the market or raising the rent. I just want a forever home, the equity issue is secondary to me. So of course I’d be more concerned win other people having homes than me making money off owning mine.

You are thinking this way because you are not a long time home owner. Once you become one, I guarantee you that you will think differently.

My neighbors are pretty old and very liberal, yet they still care about their home values because they are about to sell soon. They want the neighborhood to be zoned for the "better" neighboring school district (ie, hardly any poor people) so their home values go up.

This will be you in 20 years.

No, in 20 years I will be 50 and possibly with children in school. I would like good schools for all, and the thing I keep hammering at is stability. I don’t want to move. I want to grow roots and stay. I’ve moved around almost every other year for the past ten years and I’m tired. It’s so stressful to always pack up and leave. I’m just want a place with a little yard (so not a huge condominium, but a duplex or triplex is fine) to grow old in. I’m not interested in buying in a place as an investment to sell in the future. I’m just looking to lock down one thing in my life to not have to stress out about.

OK, then in 40 years stop being pedantic. I guarantee you that at some point in the future, once you own a home, you will want your home value to appreciate faster.

I, too, in my younger years moved around *a lot*. I know how that feels.

I'd love good schools for all, too. I'd love to end world hunger; I'd love for all children to have parents who love them and support them. Reality, though, is a lot different.

Appreciation in home value adds to the budget for schools, and in order to have "good schools for all", you have to have a sizeable budget.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I work in county government. Backstory:

1. MoCo decline is real and has been going on for a while. Elrich not the cause. You can go to empowermontgomery.com and read a whole report about it if you want.

2. To stop that it would be helpful to make MoCo an easier place to do business.

3. Elrich and his policies and his personality aren't helping with that.

4. County is already unattractive to businesses, making it also unattractive to rich residents is going to cause tax revenues to collapse. Which would have a lot of bad knock-on effects.

5. If you want housing affordability, it would be much more logical to just support more affordable housing development rather than purposefully try to make the place you want to live so unappealing that nobody else wants to live there. That would seem to me to be a bad plan for you and everyone else.

Aside, parts of county government are dsyfunctional and it would be fine with me if someone came in and cleaned house (as long as they got rid of the right people). I have little hope that will actually happen (or if it does they will actually get rid of the right people rather than just do some first-in first-out thing which is probably the opposite of what's needed, honestly).

? there are many cities that don't have a huge "rich resident" population, and their cities aren't collapsing. As stated up thread, MoCo keeps building new housing but it is not building enough affordable housing. So who is buying those $750K+ THs? Granted, these people aren't "rich" but I hardly think people who can afford such homes are not able to keep the tax base up, especially as we seem to getting more of those people as evidenced by the housing building boom.

I didn't say without rich people MoCo would collapse. I said the tax base would collapse. If you are OK with cuts to schools, police, fire, etc. as well as increases in property tax for less services then I suppose we have no issue.

As for Elrich, I was being charitable. Honestly, I don't think he's very bright. Or at least, in this county of a million people, we could find quite a few brighter than him. I don't think he's the most terrible person in the world or anything. Just that I think we can do better.

in bolded you stated.. "unattractive to rich residents is going to cause tax revenues to collapse"... I stated that tax revenues won't collapse just because MoCo is not attractive to rich people since many not so rich but can afford $750K are still moving here.

If OP wants the property prices to tank so that OP can afford to buy here, then yes, school budget would be cut, as would other services. But I'm not buying "unattractive rich people" will cause the tax revenue to collapse argument.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I work in county government. Backstory:

1. MoCo decline is real and has been going on for a while. Elrich not the cause. You can go to empowermontgomery.com and read a whole report about it if you want.

2. To stop that it would be helpful to make MoCo an easier place to do business.

3. Elrich and his policies and his personality aren't helping with that.

4. County is already unattractive to businesses, making it also unattractive to rich residents is going to cause tax revenues to collapse. Which would have a lot of bad knock-on effects.

5. If you want housing affordability, it would be much more logical to just support more affordable housing development rather than purposefully try to make the place you want to live so unappealing that nobody else wants to live there. That would seem to me to be a bad plan for you and everyone else.

Aside, parts of county government are dsyfunctional and it would be fine with me if someone came in and cleaned house (as long as they got rid of the right people). I have little hope that will actually happen (or if it does they will actually get rid of the right people rather than just do some first-in first-out thing which is probably the opposite of what's needed, honestly).

? there are many cities that don't have a huge "rich resident" population, and their cities aren't collapsing. As stated up thread, MoCo keeps building new housing but it is not building enough affordable housing. So who is buying those $750K+ THs? Granted, these people aren't "rich" but I hardly think people who can afford such homes are not able to keep the tax base up, especially as we seem to getting more of those people as evidenced by the housing building boom.

I didn't say without rich people MoCo would collapse. I said the tax base would collapse. If you are OK with cuts to schools, police, fire, etc. as well as increases in property tax for less services then I suppose we have no issue.

As for Elrich, I was being charitable. Honestly, I don't think he's very bright. Or at least, in this county of a million people, we could find quite a few brighter than him. I don't think he's the most terrible person in the world or anything. Just that I think we can do better.

in bolded you stated.. "unattractive to rich residents is going to cause tax revenues to collapse"... I stated that tax revenues won't collapse just because MoCo is not attractive to rich people since many not so rich but can afford $750K are still moving here.

If OP wants the property prices to tank so that OP can afford to buy here, then yes, school budget would be cut, as would other services. But I'm not buying "unattractive rich people" will cause the tax revenue to collapse argument.

I suppose collapse is relative. The DC area is very rich. MoCo could be come the poorest part of the DC area (we are already below average now) and still be relatively wealthy for the country as a whole. Life would go on. The unwind would be painful. So look at PGC government and services now and imagine "worse than that" because PGC was built up around certain budgets, and it can be easier to live within your means on a smaller budget than have a big budget and then suddenly have a small one.

I personally do not think what you are suggesting would be wise for anyone in the County, rich or poor. I can guarantee you that part of the adjustment would include things like cuts to social services, as well as increases fees (which are sometimes consider regressive taxes).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: But I'm not buying "unattractive rich people" will cause the tax revenue to collapse argument.

You can argue with the word "collapse" but not with the thesis. Less wealth per capita (esp. compared to competitor jurisdictions) = smaller tax base = need to cut services & raise taxes to balance budget.

That's just sort of an immutable law of the local government universe. It is what it is regardless of whether you like it or not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I work in county government. Backstory:

1. MoCo decline is real and has been going on for a while. Elrich not the cause. You can go to empowermontgomery.com and read a whole report about it if you want.

2. To stop that it would be helpful to make MoCo an easier place to do business.

3. Elrich and his policies and his personality aren't helping with that.

4. County is already unattractive to businesses, making it also unattractive to rich residents is going to cause tax revenues to collapse. Which would have a lot of bad knock-on effects.

5. If you want housing affordability, it would be much more logical to just support more affordable housing development rather than purposefully try to make the place you want to live so unappealing that nobody else wants to live there. That would seem to me to be a bad plan for you and everyone else.

Aside, parts of county government are dsyfunctional and it would be fine with me if someone came in and cleaned house (as long as they got rid of the right people). I have little hope that will actually happen (or if it does they will actually get rid of the right people rather than just do some first-in first-out thing which is probably the opposite of what's needed, honestly).

? there are many cities that don't have a huge "rich resident" population, and their cities aren't collapsing. As stated up thread, MoCo keeps building new housing but it is not building enough affordable housing. So who is buying those $750K+ THs? Granted, these people aren't "rich" but I hardly think people who can afford such homes are not able to keep the tax base up, especially as we seem to getting more of those people as evidenced by the housing building boom.

I didn't say without rich people MoCo would collapse. I said the tax base would collapse. If you are OK with cuts to schools, police, fire, etc. as well as increases in property tax for less services then I suppose we have no issue.

As for Elrich, I was being charitable. Honestly, I don't think he's very bright. Or at least, in this county of a million people, we could find quite a few brighter than him. I don't think he's the most terrible person in the world or anything. Just that I think we can do better.

in bolded you stated.. "unattractive to rich residents is going to cause tax revenues to collapse"... I stated that tax revenues won't collapse just because MoCo is not attractive to rich people since many not so rich but can afford $750K are still moving here.

If OP wants the property prices to tank so that OP can afford to buy here, then yes, school budget would be cut, as would other services. But I'm not buying "unattractive rich people" will cause the tax revenue to collapse argument.

I suppose collapse is relative. The DC area is very rich. MoCo could be come the poorest part of the DC area (we are already below average now) and still be relatively wealthy for the country as a whole. Life would go on. The unwind would be painful. So look at PGC government and services now and imagine "worse than that" because PGC was built up around certain budgets, and it can be easier to live within your means on a smaller budget than have a big budget and then suddenly have a small one.

I personally do not think what you are suggesting would be wise for anyone in the County, rich or poor. I can guarantee you that part of the adjustment would include things like cuts to social services, as well as increases fees (which are sometimes consider regressive taxes).

I don’t think OP is rooting for an economic depression or downturn. At least it wouldn’t be in her interest. I think she wishes costs would stabilize and come to some sort of equilibrium. I’m not an economist, but I suppose there could be some advantage of not being such a “hot” market as Northern Virginia, but we really do need to build more housing (sorry, Elrich fans) at different price points and bring in more good quality professional jobs. The problem is the distortion in the private housing market to overbuild for one income bracket and under build for others. The free market alone probably can’t do this. The onus is on employers to pay better salaries with better benefits so that being “business friendly” doesn’t mean a race to the bottom with low taxes and deregulation at the expense of workers. Bring in jobs that pay the kind of salaries it takes to afford to live here and build housing at the price points available to the jobs that are coming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That’s really funny that you think most of DCUM has centrist political leanings.

If you take the left-right continuum of only this area - which leans significantly left - then maybe DCUM is in the middle for this very liberal area.

But if you are talking the overall political spectrum, DCUM isn’t remotely in the center.

I’m a socialist.

That you are even further left than much of DCUM doesn’t make DCUM centrist, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also on Elrich and housing, yes, I have read all over the place how bad he is on housing if you believe that increasing supply lowers costs. Unfortunately, the type of housing that his opponents seem to like are these micro-units developers build intended for young high-earning transient singles with high turnaround. This is the kind of housing and kind of resident that the pro-growth ilk seems to like. People who make a lot of money and eat out at restaurants and bars but don’t use a lot of services. Not so much multi-bedroom forever homes for poeple who want to stay here and raise a family. Ultimately, I voted for Elrich because he seemed to want to encourage paths to home ownership.

I don’t need to get rich off my home, I just want a modest bungalow or a duplex with a small shared yard that I can live in forever and not have to worry about moving. I want to plant my roots and stay.

I’m pro-ADU and pro-duplex which is what I disagreed with Elrich on, but in principle I’d like to see more homes priced modestly within reach of middle class people to own, not snazzy high rises that corporate landlords own to profit off a continuous turnover of high earning young professionals. That’s why I like the suburbs, not Adams Morgan.

That's the kind of housing that

(1) it's possible to build
(2) people are willing to buy

If the county's zoning laws changed, then it would be possible to build duplexes, of the kind you would like to live in. But right now it isn't.

[Anonymous]

PP above adding that the invisible hand of the market does not work for housing. Housing is closer to healthcare in that there is less leeway to shop around for cheaper options or go without. Housing is something that you can have a “budget” option for only up to a certain extent. If you make $6000/month and should be paying $1500 or less for housing, but can’t find anything, it’s not the same as giving up fine dining or new shoes. There’s only so much long commuting (to find a cheaper place) or packing a bunch of roommates into a shared unit (especially during a pandemic) people will put up with and they will just end up spending too much of their income on rent. So the person making $6000/month will probably end up paying $2000/month in rent and just not spend money elsewhere (this is also bad for the local economy), and landlords will charge high rents because they can.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
You are thinking this way because you are not a long time home owner. Once you become one, I guarantee you that you will think differently.

My neighbors are pretty old and very liberal, yet they still care about their home values because they are about to sell soon. They want the neighborhood to be zoned for the "better" neighboring school district (ie, hardly any poor people) so their home values go up.

This will be you in 20 years.

DP. I'm a long-time homeowner. I don't base everything on the possible effect on my property value. I think that MCPS needs to change school boundaries and should not take property values into account. I don't think that Montgomery County should structure its zoning laws to keep poor people out. Because I'm not a self-centered git. I want Montgomery County to be a place where my kids want to, and are able to, live.

Maybe you should retract your guarantee.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP above adding that the invisible hand of the market does not work for housing. Housing is closer to healthcare in that there is less leeway to shop around for cheaper options or go without. Housing is something that you can have a “budget” option for only up to a certain extent. If you make $6000/month and should be paying $1500 or less for housing, but can’t find anything, it’s not the same as giving up fine dining or new shoes. There’s only so much long commuting (to find a cheaper place) or packing a bunch of roommates into a shared unit (especially during a pandemic) people will put up with and they will just end up spending too much of their income on rent. So the person making $6000/month will probably end up paying $2000/month in rent and just not spend money elsewhere (this is also bad for the local economy), and landlords will charge high rents because they can.

It's not true that the invisible hand of the market does not work for housing. The market alone won't work, because even the cheapest housing costs more than a poor person can afford, and because everyone needs housing. But the market is definitely part of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
You are thinking this way because you are not a long time home owner. Once you become one, I guarantee you that you will think differently.

My neighbors are pretty old and very liberal, yet they still care about their home values because they are about to sell soon. They want the neighborhood to be zoned for the "better" neighboring school district (ie, hardly any poor people) so their home values go up.

This will be you in 20 years.

DP. I'm a long-time homeowner. I don't base everything on the possible effect on my property value. I think that MCPS needs to change school boundaries and should not take property values into account. I don't think that Montgomery County should structure its zoning laws to keep poor people out. Because I'm not a self-centered git. I want Montgomery County to be a place where my kids want to, and are able to, live.

Maybe you should retract your guarantee.

Maybe your kids should be more successful.

(Sorry, your post was so self-righteous I couldn't help myself.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
You are thinking this way because you are not a long time home owner. Once you become one, I guarantee you that you will think differently.

My neighbors are pretty old and very liberal, yet they still care about their home values because they are about to sell soon. They want the neighborhood to be zoned for the "better" neighboring school district (ie, hardly any poor people) so their home values go up.

This will be you in 20 years.

DP. I'm a long-time homeowner. I don't base everything on the possible effect on my property value. I think that MCPS needs to change school boundaries and should not take property values into account. I don't think that Montgomery County should structure its zoning laws to keep poor people out. Because I'm not a self-centered git. I want Montgomery County to be a place where my kids want to, and are able to, live.

Maybe you should retract your guarantee.

Nope... I actually don't want to be rezoned for the "better" school cluster which would drive up home prices here, so I don't base my decisions on just my property value. I like the diversity of the area. But, that doesn't mean I want the area to have stagnant home values or it to go down.

And I'm all for the boundary analysis and relieving over crowded schools, and looking at adjacent clusters when drawing boundaries.

I guarantee you don't want your home value to go down, though, especially as you are ready to sell. Would you sell your home for $100K less so that those less fortunate can afford to live where you do? I don't think so.

I think there's a happy medium somewhere. I'm not so selfish that I want my property value to go sky high so that I can make as much as I can off my house, but I'm also not completely selfless to want my property value to tank so that those lose fortunate can live in this area. But, I do advocate for helping low income families; I give to charities, etc...

[Anonymous]

OP here

My ideal situation would be a cool looking duplex with a nice, shady back yard in Takoma Park or Wheaton or outer Silver Spring. Something that two normal people with normal people jobs and normal people salaries can afford and live normally.
My partner and I don’t need fancy things. We’re work to live people, not live to work people. We’re good employees but not trying to hustle our way into stratospheric incomes. We just want to live life in the place we call home. And we think more people like us should be able to do so.