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][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]

Maybe, but it was built in 1940, and a whole lot of things have changed about the economy and the nation since then. So if you're trying to call me a hypocrite or something, I suppose I'm fine with that. If one point of ADUs is to add some cheaper housing to existing lots, seems like there's no reason at all to allow people to develop them AND also the larger houses on the lot as pure investment plays. If you want to have an ADU adjacent to the house you're living in, or to live in the ADU and rent out the other house, great.[/quote]

:roll:

Investment is how neighborhoods get built champ. Money doesn't grow on trees. This micromanagement of the housing market is exactly why we are in the situation we are in. None of these rules existed 50 years ago.[/quote]

No, we’re in the situation we’re in now because builders have prioritized profit margins over volume and because governments, on the advice of YIMBYs, have designed policies around maximizing profit instead of maximizing housing production. [/quote]

I wonder why builders in the past were so foolish as to not prioritize profit! That was silly of them.[/quote]

They made money on volume and their projects were short-term investments. Totally different approach compared to now and made for a healthier housing market. [/quote]

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