We need homes. A lot of homes. Not just affordable, but also middle-income homes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many cities here have ADU ordinances already. Do you know why they aren’t being built? The market, even the investor market which ironically would shut out new owners, won’t support it.

Even somewhat off the hook, you’re talking about a custom house, $150K, for a studio or studio plus, that may only rent for $1,200 a month. That’s a CAP rate of about 9%, but pretty average or even below average for Class B or worse property.

Easier than that is an index fund. Less risk, less work, more liquidity, and I don’t have to deal with landlord issues. That’s in an area that respects property rights. DC? Forget about it. I’d want at least 12% to make it worth my wild, and then no other issues, but at that point I’ll still take easy.

That’s why certain homes aren’t built. Everyone “needs” to get at least 4-8% off the deal, and if they don’t, it doesn’t happen and many don’t.

Sorry, this is wrong. We're not talking about building tiny mini-houses adjacent to one SFH. Although in some cases this might help, it's not upzoning.
First the true parts: yes, index funds (over the last 10 years when the market went up 5+% per year) are often better investments than RE. But they're uncorrelated and RE can help diversity a portfolio.

Onto the rest:

What we need is BY-RIGHT construction of 3-6 dwelling units on SFH-zoned lots. And, by-right, allow building higher: 4-8 stories. Yes, owners will hate this. You will hate it! NIMBYs will hate it. But it's the only way to increase housing units in DC.

I hesitate to engage your flawed economic analysis, but I will, briefly: take a $1.2 M SFH and lot. A developer buys it. Builds 6 units over 6 stories on that lot. Sells each for $500,000. Total revenue: $3M. Capital cost: 1.2M. Construction cost: say $1.5M. Profit for owner: $300k. Prices for other units in DC then go down because demand slightly decreases.

This is simple.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Remote work (accelerated by Covid and dim-witted CEOs finally realizing that paying for large office space doesn't help productivity and employee engagement along with climate change focus that realizes millions of people commuting to work everyday doesn't help the global warming cause) will change everything over the next 20 to 30 years. People will move to suburbs, ex-urbs, rural areas and still have a good paying job. This will depress existing cities even further and make lots of housing more "affordable" there, by default.

This would be amazing. We’ve realized most office work can be done remotely, but I don’t think it will be permanent.

The federal government could revitalize other areas of the country by simply allowing remote workstations. Plenty of people will need to stay here for classified work or Hill jobs, but so many will be able to leave. The feds could set up one salary scale for all remote capable jobs so no one would be enticed to stay in high cost of living areas.

Rhetorical question, is the point of the federal government to get stuff done, or as a jobs program?

On job relocation, everyone was up in arms about a mere few hundred jobs for BLM and USDA when it was Trump but several agencies have stated, and received no press, about downsizing 50%. I guess when it’s Biden all is well. Cages are no longer cages. Etc.

Seriously this is the biggest threat to the region and it is being ignored.

https://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2021/03/08/pto-weighing-plans-to-shed-excess-space.html

[Anonymous]

Just increase the height limit on new construction. Prices will fall eventually.

[Anonymous]

Ugh we already have a YIMBY thread.

[Anonymous]

When is the last urban area that has been created? Australia and Brazil built cities for their capitols. We need more cities for the growing population.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Remote work (accelerated by Covid and dim-witted CEOs finally realizing that paying for large office space doesn't help productivity and employee engagement along with climate change focus that realizes millions of people commuting to work everyday doesn't help the global warming cause) will change everything over the next 20 to 30 years. People will move to suburbs, ex-urbs, rural areas and still have a good paying job. This will depress existing cities even further and make lots of housing more "affordable" there, by default.

This would be amazing. We’ve realized most office work can be done remotely, but I don’t think it will be permanent.

The federal government could revitalize other areas of the country by simply allowing remote workstations. Plenty of people will need to stay here for classified work or Hill jobs, but so many will be able to leave. The feds could set up one salary scale for all remote capable jobs so no one would be enticed to stay in high cost of living areas.

More than 95% of the federal workforce already is outside of the beltway. You want to disperse it more?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When is the last urban area that has been created? Australia and Brazil built cities for their capitols. We need more cities for the growing population.

We have plenty of cities. But if we are going to consolidate our population more, then we need to reform the gerrymanding, the number of House seats and the way the Senate is constructed, because having 65% of the senators representing 35% of the people is not the way to run a functioning republic.

[Anonymous]

Not in my backyard!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Remote work (accelerated by Covid and dim-witted CEOs finally realizing that paying for large office space doesn't help productivity and employee engagement along with climate change focus that realizes millions of people commuting to work everyday doesn't help the global warming cause) will change everything over the next 20 to 30 years. People will move to suburbs, ex-urbs, rural areas and still have a good paying job. This will depress existing cities even further and make lots of housing more "affordable" there, by default.

This would be amazing. We’ve realized most office work can be done remotely, but I don’t think it will be permanent.

The federal government could revitalize other areas of the country by simply allowing remote workstations. Plenty of people will need to stay here for classified work or Hill jobs, but so many will be able to leave. The feds could set up one salary scale for all remote capable jobs so no one would be enticed to stay in high cost of living areas.

More than 95% of the federal workforce already is outside of the beltway. You want to disperse it more?

Why not? That includes feds in NYC, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle etc. Plenty of feds in high cost of living areas that could work remotely elsewhere, wherever they wanted! Would be nice.

[Anonymous]

Apartment buildings are just unsightly. And in DC, they allow any fly by night "contractor" to throw up the cheapest looking buildings that are then rented to people "in transition" ... sorry to say but not many people want to live near that. Especially when you have young children who you would like to be able to play

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Remote work (accelerated by Covid and dim-witted CEOs finally realizing that paying for large office space doesn't help productivity and employee engagement along with climate change focus that realizes millions of people commuting to work everyday doesn't help the global warming cause) will change everything over the next 20 to 30 years. People will move to suburbs, ex-urbs, rural areas and still have a good paying job. This will depress existing cities even further and make lots of housing more "affordable" there, by default.

This would be amazing. We’ve realized most office work can be done remotely, but I don’t think it will be permanent.

The federal government could revitalize other areas of the country by simply allowing remote workstations. Plenty of people will need to stay here for classified work or Hill jobs, but so many will be able to leave. The feds could set up one salary scale for all remote capable jobs so no one would be enticed to stay in high cost of living areas.

More than 95% of the federal workforce already is outside of the beltway. You want to disperse it more?

8 percent are in DC and 15 percent in the DC metro area. So yes lots outside of this area but if you reduced the number of feds here, housing costs may go down. And reducing feds through telework is much more palatable than moving an agency to Kansas City and requiring all employees to move there or quit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Much of ward 3 is zoned for SFH's only.
If we allowed anyone who wanted to to build triplexes on any lot now zoned for SFH:
- Real estate prices would go way up.
- Costs of individual units would go way down.

It might take a few years for the 2nd to happen.

But we need more houses. Many more houses. It's the only way to make it cheaper to live here.

Why do you need to live in Ward 3, though? Please answer that coherently.

Deanwood is equidistant to the center of the city as AU Park. There is plenty of affordable homes in Deanwood and plenty of empty land for infill housing. Facts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Much of ward 3 is zoned for SFH's only.
If we allowed anyone who wanted to to build triplexes on any lot now zoned for SFH:
- Real estate prices would go way up.
- Costs of individual units would go way down.

It might take a few years for the 2nd to happen.

But we need more houses. Many more houses. It's the only way to make it cheaper to live here.

Why do you need to live in Ward 3, though? Please answer that coherently.

Deanwood is equidistant to the center of the city as AU Park. There is plenty of affordable homes in Deanwood and plenty of empty land for infill housing. Facts.

And this my friends is how segregation works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Much of ward 3 is zoned for SFH's only.
If we allowed anyone who wanted to to build triplexes on any lot now zoned for SFH:
- Real estate prices would go way up.
- Costs of individual units would go way down.

It might take a few years for the 2nd to happen.

But we need more houses. Many more houses. It's the only way to make it cheaper to live here.

No, they would not. If you want a SFH, you do NOT want duplexes or triplexes in your neighhorhood. There is plenty of space in the area. Rezone some commercial property.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Much of ward 3 is zoned for SFH's only.
If we allowed anyone who wanted to to build triplexes on any lot now zoned for SFH:
- Real estate prices would go way up.
- Costs of individual units would go way down.

It might take a few years for the 2nd to happen.

But we need more houses. Many more houses. It's the only way to make it cheaper to live here.

No, they would not. If you want a SFH, you do NOT want duplexes or triplexes in your neighhorhood. There is plenty of space in the area. Rezone some commercial property.

I live in a neighborhood of SFHs and duplexes. It’s fine, feels like any other neighborhood. I agree with the dislike of triplexes or more, but duplexes are totally fine. Or maybe just allow really small lots and small SFHs?