Seattle Housing Complaining (and not by me!) [ok, I'm meta complaining]
Ok, we're on a community web site called Nextdoor.com and there's be a few posts around housing in Seattle. I finally got annoyed enough to chime in.It basically boils down to three different arguments that people tend to post.
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"We need rent control, because people!""We need to control where people are building new stuff, because neighborhoods!""We need more jobs that pay well, because progress!"
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What people aren't realizing is that all of these are kind of opposed to each other.Let's take these in turn.If you control rents by random laws, all you're going to do is drive developers elsewhere when they are looking to add housing stock. For the folks lucky enough to already have a place they're renting, they're stuck because if they move they won't have the sweet deal they're already getting. For everyone else you are starting to get to a system where someone else (likely in the government) can decide who gets to live where -- or, more likely, who you know determines if you get a place to stay. Worse still if you compel owners to not charge what they can with their own private property.Downtown Seattle has a lot of freakishly expensive apartment/condo complexes going in. Think $1,000,000 for a 1200 ft^2 apartment, or around $3400/month for the same. People are bitching up a storm that this is unaffordable. Those same apartments are getting sold or rented. Just because you can't afford something doesn't mean it doesn't have a place in our society. (Just because I can't afford a Ferrari doesn't mean I despise the marque.)At the same time, the same people are complaining whenever new structures go up to provide more housing. Either it's ugly or doesn't have enough parking (or, I suppose, they perceive it to be too expensive). Very much "not in my back yard." They seem to believe that the city exists in stasis and should not change at all. Ever.So you want cheap rent, but you're limiting expansion.Next, they also want more jobs. You know, the jobs that pay well. (I won't even get into the minimum wage debate at the moment)So as you add jobs -- and import people from around the country and around the world to fill them -- you need some place for these fine folks and their families to stay.Well, they are well paid so they might be able to afford the apartments that you find too expensive (but you don't want to have built). Now, even with price controls in place for rent, you're stuck with owners that would sell instead of rent, because it's more profitable.
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Let's look at this in another way.Let's say you have a nice apartment on a nice road. You're compelled to rent it at $1000/month, a sweet deal. You don't like it, but fuck it, that's the law. You put an ad up and you're swamped by people that want in.There's still one unit available. You need to choose who gets it.Who decides? Just because there exists a place for $1000/month doesn't mean everyone can get it.Or, you could just sell it for $500,000 and just be done with it. Those workers with the new jobs you created can afford it, right?
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I'm tired of the debates that constantly shift from one position to another as straw man arguments are repeatedly knocked down.You can decide to build. Or decide to not build and live with the scarce supply.You can decide to have price controls, but that'll chase off developers and further constrain supply as properties get taken off the rental market.You can choose to attract new talent, but you have to be willing to accept more people -- and the demand they will create which have no outlet but increasing prices as demand increases.
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I'm tired of people that can hope away market economics. Supply and demand are real. You can't imagine them away just like you can't imagine away climate change.I'm tired of people that think that their ideas, regardless of how well intentioned, will have no consequences. Making a change to the system will affect everything connected to it.
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I have a house. I don't have as much of a horse in this race as a lot of people. Sure, I'm excited if the house goes up in value. I'm also footing the risk if the price goes down.