Reply to Montgomery County zoning: Council wants to change zoning throughout the county to multi-family

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Reply to "Montgomery County zoning: Council wants to change zoning throughout the county to multi-family"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is an odd proposal considering MoCo has a surplus of inventory of homes for sale and for rent. Rents are not rising fast here other than maybe in Bethesda. Most areas that do this have a housing shortage.

For MoCo this is likely to only benefit developers and not citizens. It is also likely to further depress areas that are at or past the beltway and sitting on tons of inventory. This would be hurtful to areas like Silver Spring / Wheaton, Rockville and up county. [/quote]

This exactly!

Housing shortage?  Explain why there are tons of empty apartments/condos/townhouses all over the county.  I drive all around the county for work and there are available units everywhere. It is really difficult to sell a condo in the current housing market because there is such a glut of units for sale.  [/quote]

Explain why prices are so high if there's a glut in the market, please.[/quote]

Some landlords prefer not to rent if they can't get a certain price. They want a high price and lock you into a lease. They're not pricing these things to move. They're pricing for longer term income and they want a solid tenant.  [/quote]

You're telling me that housing costs are so high because landlords are pricing rental apartments to stay vacant.[/quote]

No, I'm not saying that. I'm explaining that they are willing to wait until they find a reliable tenant who can pay what they have decided their property is worth. [/quote]

Two scenarios are possible, with your explanation.

Scenario 1: The landlord is setting the rent at market value and waiting for a reliable tenant. In a reasonable span of time, a tenant comes along who is willing and able to pay that rent, because it's the market-value rent.

Scenario 2: The landlord is setting the rent at above market value and waiting for a reliable tenant. But there are no reliable tenants who are willing and able to pay that rent, because it's above-market-value rent, and they can go somewhere else and pay market-value rent. So the apartment stays vacant.

Now there certainly are some dumb landlords, who would rather have an apartment stay vacant for a long time than reduce the rent they're asking for. And there are certainly some dumb tenants, who are willing to pay above-market-value rent (or can't figure out that it's above-market-value rent). But there is not an entire rental market worth of dumb landlords and dumb tenants.[/quote]

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