I don’t get this argument at all. If you want to live in cheap housing - move to Anacostia. There is a lot available there….. oh wait. Hold on…. Oh yeah… of course ….now I get why you all want to have cheap housing in Ward 3…

Anonymous wrote:

That would demand that every single "developer" is in cahoots and a huge, thousand-person conspiracy.

Yeah, champ. That's it. These "evil" companies, who make money by building things (hint, different companies do the building and operating) are just sitting in their offices, doing nothing.

What are you smoking? Can I have some?

Nimby, homeowner, shills. This entire forum.

You seem to have a distorted, utopian GGW view of how this actually works, so let me see if I can help you understand it better. Start by asking yourself if any one of the for-profit developers in Seattle was happy that its new projects generated less than their expected returns or that their existing buildings suddenly became less profitable. Next, ask what happened after rents dropped. Deliveries slowed. This happens everywhere, including here. Finally, ask what happened to rentals at the low end of the market. Prices must have dropped there too because of filtering, right? Wrong. Rents at the low end of the market increased, even faster than inflation. So much for filtering and the trickle-down economics that GGW loves to push.

It's possible for developers to reach similar conclusions without conspiring. They all have similar profit motives and funding constraints, so it's not surprising that they make similar decisions. This isn't a volume business, and the local housing market is not functioning well because it's dominated by a small number of large suppliers who already have a lot of units in the market.

Some companies are vertically integrated and conceive projects, raise money for them, and operate them. Some even have their own construction companies. If by building you mean pouring concrete and placing beams, yes, construction companies are most often separate firms hired at arms length to build. But construction companies don't decide how many units are delivered and when. The developer makes those calls. I point this out only because your glib "what are you smoking" question makes me wonder whether you actually understand any of this with any degree of sophistication, champ.

If you don't believe that developers are limiting supply, then start reading planning and zoning applications. You'll see requests to delay projects (almost always granted) and requests to reduce units just before delivery because developers are concerned about absorption (always granted). That means they're concerned there won't be enough high-income households to rent their apartments. Developers have a completely different read of this market than you do.

Developers aren't working hard math problems, and the institutional investors backing their projects have a lot of people who are good at math. Developers are clearly targeting 100 to 120 percent AMI with their new projects. Estimate how much that population will grow, survey existing inventory, and decide whether there's an opportunity to build. The business model is to extract as much of residents' monthly income as they're willing to pay.

My complaint is that developers are not building enough given existing approvals and zoning, so I'm not sure how that makes me a NIMBY. I think developers should build every property to the limit and that the limits should be high. I want more walkable communities with many services nearby, which is impossible without denser development. I think we should be making development easier and making more land available for dense development. But I also recognize that's not sufficient, and unless we simultaneously address developers' increasing tendency to constrain supply and to maintain high rents, the benefits of upzoning will all accrue to developers in the form of profit instead of to communities in the form of more livable spaces.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can have my single family house - im moving because the dc council voted to raise taxes again - maki g them the highest in the nation.

1) DC tax burden is lower than MD or VA.
2) if you are making over $500,000 and the $30/mo in additional taxes is going to overburden you, then you are a horrible money manager. You will spend more on your moving truck and crew.

Sales Tax
DC 6%
MD 6%
VA 5.3%

Ppty Tax (per $100)
DC 0.85
MoCo from 1.08 to 1.64
PG 0.86
Arlington 1.013
Alex 1.13
Fairfax 1.03
LoCo 0.98

Need to factor in the annual car tax in Virginia - that is fairly significant.

And income tax

Anonymous wrote: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.

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.

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.

Anonymous wrote:

Did the 10 percent decrease make Seattle housing affordable? Would a 10 percent decrease in dc make housing affordable?

Yes another poster said rents went down in dc in the last year. Oh, but they forgot to mention that the last year included a global pandemic when thousands of people in dc lost their jobs.

By definition, yes it made it more affordable for a lot of people.

No, if you mean someone working at McDonalds cannot afford to live in a brand new luxury building with a pool on the roof. That seems like what most NIMBY shills seem to want, for some reason.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Much of ward 3 is zoned for SFH's only.
If we allowed anyone who wanted to to build triplexes on any lot now zoned for SFH:
- Real estate prices would go way up.
- Costs of individual units would go way down.

It might take a few years for the 2nd to happen.

But we need more houses. Many more houses. It's the only way to make it cheaper to live here.

It’s never - ever going to be cheaper to live here. Never never never. You are a shill for developers.

Are you 12? Is that how you argue your points in real life? People who understand supply and demand are "shills"?

Jesus.

Seattle had an apartment boom 3 years ago and rent went down like 10%. Do your homework.

Developers in Seattle made a mistake. They oversupplied. Developers in this area seem to be more cautious and prefer a shortage to a glut. It seems developers understand supply and demand and its effect on pricing even better than you do.

That would demand that every single "developer" is in cahoots and a huge, thousand-person conspiracy.

Yeah, champ. That's it. These "evil" companies, who make money by building things (hint, different companies do the building and operating) are just sitting in their offices, doing nothing.

What are you smoking? Can I have some?

Nimby, homeowner, shills. This entire forum.

Here's a thought: Maybe take the more than 3,000 vacant or blighted buildings away from their negligent owners and turn them into housing. Maybe give them a deadline: You have one year to start renovations or else we're taking the property in the public interest.

https://www.wjla.com/news/local/over-3000-vacant-or-blighted-properties-identified-in-dc

Yes, this would involve angering some of the biggest donors to DC elections -- churches and developers own many of these properties -- but so be it.

Except DC has a bond rating and "rainy day" surplus fund that the other jurisdictions only dream of.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can have my single family house - im moving because the dc council voted to raise taxes again - maki g them the highest in the nation.

1) DC tax burden is lower than MD or VA.
2) if you are making over $500,000 and the $30/mo in additional taxes is going to overburden you, then you are a horrible money manager. You will spend more on your moving truck and crew.

Sales Tax
DC 6%
MD 6%
VA 5.3%

Ppty Tax (per $100)
DC 0.85
MoCo from 1.08 to 1.64
PG 0.86
Arlington 1.013
Alex 1.13
Fairfax 1.03
LoCo 0.98

It is the way Bowser wastes money. Last summer FACES committee, the salaries paid to Ferebee and the rest of her unqualified cronies and the graffiti creating traffic issues downtown that is now permanent. I have no faith her abilities to spend taxpayer money on things that matter to everyone.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can have my single family house - im moving because the dc council voted to raise taxes again - maki g them the highest in the nation.

1) DC tax burden is lower than MD or VA.
2) if you are making over $500,000 and the $30/mo in additional taxes is going to overburden you, then you are a horrible money manager. You will spend more on your moving truck and crew.

Sales Tax
DC 6%
MD 6%
VA 5.3%

Ppty Tax (per $100)
DC 0.85
MoCo from 1.08 to 1.64
PG 0.86
Arlington 1.013
Alex 1.13
Fairfax 1.03
LoCo 0.98

Need to factor in the annual car tax in Virginia - that is fairly significant.

Affordable housing and middle class housing should all be the same.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can have my single family house - im moving because the dc council voted to raise taxes again - maki g them the highest in the nation.

1) DC tax burden is lower than MD or VA.
2) if you are making over $500,000 and the $30/mo in additional taxes is going to overburden you, then you are a horrible money manager. You will spend more on your moving truck and crew.

Sales Tax
DC 6%
MD 6%
VA 5.3%

Ppty Tax (per $100)
DC 0.85
MoCo from 1.08 to 1.64
PG 0.86
Arlington 1.013
Alex 1.13
Fairfax 1.03
LoCo 0.98

Anonymous wrote:You can have my single family house - im moving because the dc council voted to raise taxes again - maki g them the highest in the nation.

1) DC tax burden is lower than MD or VA.
2) if you are making over $500,000 and the $30/mo in additional taxes is going to overburden you, then you are a horrible money manager. You will spend more on your moving truck and crew.

Affordable housing equals slums, ghettos, and blight. Disband HUD. Please. Worst agency ever created.