Reply to Say it with me: ADUs drive housing prices UP not down

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Why would DC want to open ADU development to absentee landlords and real estate speculators?  It seems counter-intuitive given the purpose of ADUs.[/quote]

It shouldn't want to, but unfortunately, too much of the discussion around this idea has been grounded in libertarian property rights terms. The point of an ADU shouldn't be "it's your land, only you can decide how you use it," it should be "this is a useful way to add more affordable housing in neighborhoods that typically haven't had it." And if it were up to me, I'd bar absentee landlords or real estate speculators from getting ADUs -- you can only have one if you live in the main house or in the accessory unit.

Of course, there are a lot of people in SFH-only-zoned neighborhoods who don't find housing affordability to be an important concern, so maybe the libertarian language is designed to appeal to them. But government can play a role in determining housing policy beyond just a straight binary "is there zoning or not" question...[/quote]

(Hint: Your house was probably built by one of those evil "speculators")[/quote]

I don’t understand why this is relevant but the developers of that house built it to sell it. They were seeking to make money in their short term through growth. Development today seems driven more by long-term rent seekers, which may be why we have a shortage. [/quote]

Developers today are also building houses to sell. Unless you're saying that developers are today are building apartment buildings to rent, and that's why we have a shortage? If so: no. That's not why we have a shortage.[/quote]

We have a housing shortage because developers aren’t building enough houses. Developers aren’t building enough housing because they prefer rent seeking to growth. There simply aren’t enough units available for purchase. Condo construction, for example, is at historic lows and condos are an important piece of the housing puzzle. [/quote]

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