Reply to There is no housing crisis in MoCo or most of the DMV for that matter

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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]Do people not understand there’s a shit ton of cheap housing in this area? PG, most of Silver Spring (it’s a massive area), Gaithersburg, etc? No one needs to move to Iowa. You just maybe can’t afford to live in Bethesda. Neither can I. [/quote]

Define "cheap".

I don't understand why people believe this is a "Evearyone wants to live in Bethesda!!!!!!11111" problem. [/quote]

The median Montgomery household ($125,000) can barely afford a townhouse in Clarksburg($500,000ish).

Denying the housing crisis is the new denying the crime crisis. [/quote]

Which is why it’s a GOOD thing that developers are focusing on building more apartments and condos that the middle class can actually afford.  Not everyone can afford or should be trying to buy a house.  I’m sorry but it’s true. [/quote]

Real middle class cannot afford $500K.[/quote]

Real middle class in metro DC can. Two government workers are easily making 150-250k.

Two police officers making 160k combined can afford a 500k house. It may be tight but they can easily do it. [/quote]

You're describing the upper range of government pay, not purely middle class. And certainly not young-family middle class.[/quote]

No I’m not.  Per MCPD(below). Two first year officers are making 130k+. That’s solid middle class and can afford a 500k home. Stop complaining about nothing.

Starting Salary for police officer candidates is $64,556 a year. Starting salaries based on police or military police experience:
$66,818 – 1 year experience     
$69,156– 2 years experience       
$71,576 – 3 years  experience         
$74,081– 4 years experience        
$76,678 – 5 years experience  
[/quote]

I am fine with rental breaks and house buying incentives (subsidized) for providers. No need to create housing, just give them a subsidy, tax break, mortgage boost or what not  for regular rate housing.  They make great neighbors anywhere. And then we can stop complaining they cant afford to live where they work.[/quote]

+1. Everyone always brings up police officers, firefighters, and teachers. If there are certain professions where we've determined that they add value to neighborhoods, just give them appropriate incentives to buy housing. Could also help with the shortages in those professions. Seems like we keep having "affordable housing" as a goal, and we always bring up these professions, but is it reaching those people? We single out certain types of jobs in other areas (like public interest forgiveness for student loans), so it's not unprecedented to do something like this.[/quote]

Or, we could enable the housing supply to increase to meet demand, so that everyone is able to afford housing, not just certain people deemed worthy of receiving public subsidies so they can afford housing they would otherwise be unable to afford.[/quote]

There already is enough supply.  That’s the point.  It’s just that people entitled to own a 4 bedroom home with a garage in an expensive area of the country.  They feel like they’re above living in a 2-3 BR apartment, which there are plenty of available. Or they are too picky with location. [/quote]

It's actually very hard to find a 3 bedroom apartment and they don't build enough of them. I also think families need to get used to the idea of living in condos and apartments, but the apartment stock in the DC area is not always very conducive to families.

Part of the push for changing zoning is supposedly to build more family-friendly multifamily housing. For this you need larger units, and you need them designed for family life (i.e. bedrooms near each other but away from main living space, living spaces conducive to small children, building design that makes sense for people with kids and strollers, etc.) But developers have limited interested in serving this part of the market. The trend is toward smaller units, even micro units, aimed at singles and DINKs. The assumption is that families won't live in apartments, they'll move into SFH once they have kids. But increasingly it's hard for many families to afford SFHs (whether because close in housing is too expensive, or because further out housing requires an expensive and time consuming commute that also isn't conducive to having kids). So there genuinely is a lack of affordable housing for families, even if they are open to living in smaller homes or in multi-family housing.

- Signed, a parent who lives in an apartment and has no issue with that.[/quote]

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