Reply to We need homes. A lot of homes. Not just affordable, but also middle-income homes.

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Reply to "We need homes. A lot of homes. Not just affordable, but also middle-income homes."

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The affordable homes are being out bid by cash paying investors and torn down to build 3000 to 7000 sq ft mcmoderns.  And local zoning is allowing it.

Literally, affordable homes are being REMOVED daily.

The allegedly "affordable" townhouses of similar price are tiny by comparison.  [/quote]

There is no future equilibrium where large lots close in are affordable to most people.  The limiting factor is land, and the land is just too valuable for that to happen.  The options are:

- Use more restrictive zoning or historic designation to keep the houses as is.  They become unaffordable to most people even if the house is worth little, because the value is almost entirely in the land.
- Keep zoning as is, permitting tear downs but generally continuing to require SFHs.  The newly built homes are unaffordable to most people.  Over time, the fraction of the housing price that is the value of the underlying land goes up.
- Relax zoning to allow multi-unit development.  The value of the land goes up because it can now be used for more things, but less land is needed per resident so the price of housing is less determined by the value of the land and shelter becomes more affordable to people who cannot afford to own the land all by themselves.  If this is done on a sufficient scale, then the increased density also releases some of the pressure on land prices nearby, which partially offsets the effect of a decline in the number of close-in SFHs.  On the other hand, the reduced number of SFHs does increase the value of the remaining houses themselves. So, this doesn't actually provide a path to keeping close-in SFHs affordable to most people either.

These are your choices.  Anything else is not a real option, just wishful thinking.  If you want your kids to be able to afford a single family home in the DC metro, don't focus on trying to somehow keep the existing close in housing stock affordable. You can't win that battle.  It would be better to focus on transit improvements that will make living in a further out in a SFH more tenable.  Also, to focus on improvements that make living in multifamily housing a better alternative to SFH ownership.[/quote]

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