Reply to City of Alexandria rolls out timeline for massive housing reform project

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is one building (The Blake on Beauregard) and just the availability of 2 bedroom units available immediately- ie- today.

https://8934213.onlineleasing.realpage.com/#k=95825

That's 45 units. They also have studios, one bed units, and 2+den units so lets be conservative and say there are 100 units available in just this one building.

Where is the crisis? Where is the shortage?

Seriously- someone ELI5- where is the crisis? Why are these units not OK but ones built in Del Ray would be the cure all?

Can anyone answer that?

If not, maybe we don't change the entire zoning code, mmm'kay?
[/quote]

It's 42 units, [u]total[/u], in a building with 300 units. Starting with $2000-$3000/month for a 519 sf studio.

Noting, also, that units turn over all the time. [u]There should be units available for rent[/u]. The existence of units that are available for rent does not negate the existence of a housing crisis.[/quote]

No, that is incorrect. There are 42, two bedroom units availbale right now. If you add the one bed and studios in too, it's easily 100 units.

Would you have us believe that the proposed Del Ray 4 plexes will rent for less than these? :roll:

Or do you think people have the right to live exactly where they please for exactly the price they deem affordable?

And if units turn all the time, well then, great. That shows mobility in the housing market, which is a chief indicator of abundance.

So, again, where is the crisis?[/quote]

I clicked on your link and posted the information I found there, which included all units, not just 2 bedroom units..

Your idea that mobility in the housing market is a chief indicator of abundance is, well, a novel economic idea. The more standard economic idea is that price is the chief indicator of supply vs. demand.

Now, if you want to make a normative argument, for example, "I believe it's just fine if people who don't have a lot of money have to spend a large proportion of their income in order to live in tiny spaces in unpleasant or dangerous areas far from where they work, and actually it would be even better if they just went away altogether", feel free, but that's a normative argument, not a data argument.[/quote]

Serious question. What is your plan to create a socialist utopia where this does not happen?  What would Alexandria do and look like?  How would it be paid for?  [/quote]

I think it says a lot about your beliefs that you think anywhere where poor people have decent housing in safe neighborhoods close to jobs is some kind of unaffordable "socialist utopia".[/quote]

You are avoiding the questions. How does this happen in Alexandria?  And it is a “socialist utopia” because the plan to make this happen in urban settings will inevitably involve government taking of private land and providing some sort of social welfare.  If the wealthy leave you get Baltimore or Detroit and no jobs with an abundance of housing. Even big houses. [/quote]

You don’t seem to understand the basic idea of missing middle. The whole point is to increase supply of housing units overall thus leading to downward pressure on overall prices. [/quote]

Right, but that doesn’t work.  That’s illusory. How does building a 4-plex on a lot that cost $1.5 million to procure decrease prices?  It may on condos, but it increases SFH prices.  Should no one live in a SFH?[/quote]

A four-unit building increases the supply of housing by three units, compared to a one-unit building.[/quote]

3 $750k units does what for those workers living in cramped spaces you alluded to earlier?  Your argument makes 0 sense.  [/quote]

The concept of supply and demand is used to explain how price is influenced by the supply of goods and services available and the demand for those products. When supply decreases, the price of the good increases. Inversely, when the supply of the good increases, the price falls. A similar relationship exists between price and demand. When the demand for the good increases, the price of the good also increases. When the demand decreases, the price of the good falls with it.

[/quote]

Assuming the goods are fungible. A $350k home is not the same as a $750k home.[/quote]

There is a market for housing. The market for housing is a market. The market for housing includes supply and demand, with price as an indicator, because it is a market.[/quote]

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