Post by penguincascadia in Sim Nimby comments

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Reminder that there are not actually that many vacant properties out there where people want to live:

https://ggwash.org/view/68831/no-vacancy-is-a-problem-when-people-need-homes

Vacancy rates are very low in cities with high housing prices, and most vacancies in those cities are simply units changing hands between different residents.

As for investors buying up units, we know that they are not keeping them empty, because vacancy rates count investor owned units as well, yet have found the same very low vacancy rates. Why would investors want to lose money on an empty unit when they can simply rent out the unit instead?

Vacant units are not a solution to high housing prices.

Ravery (Ravery.net)3 years ago(+7)(-2)

Look up e.g. the Vacancy Report by the ACCE institute, which states: "With more than 36,000 unhoused residents, Los Angeles simultaneously has over 93,000 units sitting vacant, nearly half of which are withheld from the housing market."

"Why would investors want to lose money on an empty unit when they can simply rent out the unit instead?"

Properties are often used to protect wealth from recession and inflation. Depending on local laws it might be considered too costly to have e.g. low-paying tenants as the value of a property is affected by occupants. A vacancy tax is often named as a way to force the property owners to have the property be of use to the public.

penguincascadia3 years ago(+2)(-2)

Los Angeles has millions of people, so what we should be looking at is the vacancy rate, which is very low at about 3%: https://therealdeal.com/la/2022/02/09/study-confirms-market-heat-pinch-on-apartm...

The higher the vacancy rate, the lower rents and homelessness typically are: https://www.sightline.org/2022/03/16/homelessness-is-a-housing-problem/

There is demand for a lot more housing in LA and other cities, which can only be met by building much more housing.

It still doesn't make sense to have an empty unit, because there are plenty of high paying tenants in a supply constrained market.

Ravery (Ravery.net)3 years ago (1 edit) (+1)(-2)

"There is demand for a lot more housing in LA and other cities, which can only be met by building much more housing."

Why do you think you have to meet demand? (Also in a way that is against(!) the will of the people.)
Why do you even WANT more people in overcrowded cities? Is it some kind of Sim City worldview and you are trying to maximize population numbers simply because "big numbers are good"?

Imagine if your neighbor was like "yo, my family wants to live here, so I'll put a bed in your room, so my peeps can live there. And a bed in your kitchen. Also please empty a few fridge compartments, so they can use your fridge."

Anyway. I've addressed a few other points under your NYC comment.

penguincascadia3 years ago(+2)(-1)

Demand means a lot of people want to live there. America has already sprawled out all it can.

A lot of people want to live there. That’s literally the will of the people.

Polling shows that building more housing is the will of the people: https://www.theurbanist.org/2022/02/03/poll-indicates-wa-favor-missing-middle/

American cities are far from overcrowded. NYC is half the density of Paris, a city many people find desirable and achieves most of its density through 5 story and below buildings.

And besides, it's literally the people themselves who want it- they want to live there, so we should let them.

If we don't want people to have to share housing, there is a simple solution to that. Build more housing so people can have their own apartments and houses.

Ravery (Ravery.net)3 years ago(-3)

"Polling shows that building more housing is the will of the people"

Building more housing in their "backyards"? Is this what the poll about? Cause so far you haven't addressed my points and I'm not sure why I should invest more time looking into your points, when you simply ignore mine.

So please answer that first. Is this a poll about people being in favor that some development company starts building "social housing" in their "backyards"?

penguincascadia3 years ago(+3)(-1)

The article talks about how the poll tested things like upzoning in people's own neighborhoods and found a majority in support, so yes, it is in their own backyards.

I've already addressed your arguments in previous posts.

Ravery (Ravery.net)3 years ago(-4)

I think you are NOT reflecting the poll correctly (i.e. again: debate tactics).

The poll talks about people's support to have more housing being built near public transportation, allowing the construction of duplexes, fourplexes and sixplexes being built "in all large cities" and giving homeowners the right to build e.g. "in-law suites" and "cottages" in their own backyards.

Nowhere does it say: "Are you okay that the state simply builds 'social housing' next to you."

There is a giant difference between a "sixplex" like:

And "social housing":

penguincascadia3 years ago(+1)

I am talking about upzoning and building more housing in general, not social housing. I'm not sure where you got the impression that I'm talking about social housing.

Anyway, back to the point. Polling finds that a lot of Americans in big cities are fine with building more housing to meet the demand from people who live there.

Ravery (Ravery.net)3 years ago (1 edit)

"I'm not sure where you got the impression that I'm talking about social housing."

I literally asked you: "Is this a poll about people being in favor that some development company starts building "social housing" in their "backyards"?"

And instead of saying "no", you simply kept going. Also I asked you directly whether your goal is to address homelessness and you already said how horrible homelessness is and how this aims at addressing it. (Which sounds very much like social housing.)

Regardless. It feels very, very "vague" talking to you as you try to use the urgency of homelessness, but in reality you simply want to house as many people as you can - no matter how many people want to move into some city. It feels like you deliberately misrepresent statistics and polls and misuse the results just to make points, while constantly jumping from one location to the next, changing goals, changing problems, changing everything.

It feels like you are desperately avoiding the actual issue of the conversation:

Literally nobody cares about duplexes and the poll shows it. But that's not what the resistance of "NIMBYs" is about. It's not about duplexes. People don't want "social" housing near them, because people who have lived near some projects knows how unpleasant it is to get mugged by some drug addict or get beaten up by some thug, who wants to prove their strength to their "peers". Only privileged young people, who were born with a silverspoon up their butt and who were driven around by helicopter parents don't know the danger of having "social" housing in the neighborhood. I enjoy jogging without getting my teeth kicked in. I enjoy a stroll through the neighborhood without getting stabbed, just because someone wants my wallet to fuel their addiction. Do you understand that difference?

I had enough beatings in my childhood and my teen years, when I lived near "social" housing. I do not want any more constant, physical danger and I do not want my children to experience that. And sorry that people like you will be opposed by me, when you do your "big numbers = good" game, but my security and the security of my family is far more important to me than whatever "points" you want to maximize.

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Beta Wilds3 years ago(+5)(-1)

There is a repair shop owner who regularly films empty places around his location in New York that ask for huge piles of money that no one can pay, for what are basically tiny dumps.

He's struggled to find properties he's looked at, which are not vacant currently.

penguincascadia3 years ago(+1)(-3)

New York City's vacancy rate is very low: https://inhabit.corcoran.com/new-york-city-residential-rental-market-report-may-...

Manhattan has a vacancy rate of about 1.7%!

Ravery (Ravery.net)3 years ago (1 edit) (+4)(-1)

This article lists Manhattan's rent vacancy rate as 10.01% for February-July 2021:
https://www.thecity.nyc/2022/5/17/23108792/nyc-apartment-vacancy-rate-housing-em...

Your source (Corcoran Group) states a 1.7% in May 2022. That's quite a big difference for a one year.

So what gives?

The source in TheCity article is based on a governmental department survey, while the Corcoran number is based on (property rental and leasing) agencies' listings and reports.
The Corcoran report even states (in the smallprint): "Real vacancy is unknown as not all vacant units are publicly listed".

So, what could be a motivation to underreport vacancy and omit unlisted vacant objects, except in the smallprint?

The answer is: "Money".

The article you link to even begins with the words:

"Unfortunately for apartment seekers, record-high rents have done nothing to curb tight vacancy rates market-wide. This limited inventory has kept New York City’s rental market extremely competitive."

The translation is: "It's expensive, but that's totally justified. It's sooo rare."

Could there be a link between rarity, high price and the Corcoran Group? Even the title of their site could have been an indicator: "The Corcoran Group: Luxury International Real Estate"

They are in the business of dealing with expensive apartments. One method to justify it is to communicate rarity.

Another motivation might be that they know the consequences of admitting high vacancy: Eminent domain or vacancy tax, that would pressure them to release the items to the public instead of being able to hoard it to increase prices.

Before you downvote my comment again, please consider why you trust the reports coming from some Luxury Real Estate Company over governmental reports. Especially when the Luxury Real Estate Company admits that the real numbers are "unknown" to them in the smallprint and when their motivation is very, very obvious. (And even stated in the very first two sentences of the article!)

Just why?

penguincascadia3 years ago(+1)(-3)

The article you cite says that the government report found that "The report found that 4.54% of all New York apartments are vacant as of 2021." That’s a pretty low vacancy rate for a city! The government survey was also conducted when NYC still felt some of the effects of people avoiding urban areas from the pandemic, while, the newer survey is from 2022, when those effects have mostly gone away. A global real estate company would also want to conduct an accurate survey, because then they can use the information to invest better.

No matter what the source being used, NYC still has a low, low vacancy rate, which landlords love because low supply means they can charge much more.

Ravery (Ravery.net)3 years ago (1 edit) (+2)(-1)

You brought up Manhattan. I responded with numbers from Manhattan. Now you move the goal post from Manhattan to NYC. Feels more like debate tactics and not like an insightful discussion, ngl.

Also you simply ignore the first two sentences of the article and you ignore the smallprint that I mentioned.

Also you state in a generalized way that real estate companies would want to make an accurate survey to invest better, which sounds like you were addressing the survey by the Corcoran Group, but why would they publish(!) their (according to you) important findings publicly. Why would they want others to invest better. Why would they hide the crucial information in the footprint? (And you didn't even admit that the numbers they provided were simply insufficient. Instead you moved the goalpost to NYC.)

Anyway.
I'm not even sure what you want to achieve except building thousands of new buildings in regular people's "backyards". Regular people who mostly don't want it. What is even your goal? What is the problem you want to solve?
Can't be solving homelessness, cause the "pretty low" 4.54% vacancy rate in NYC would solve their homelessness many times over. (NYC Population: 8.38 million. NYC Homeless population: 52,137 => NYC Homeless rate: 0.62%)

This would be on top of other policies. (NYC is spending $2.4 billion homeless over the coming year. That's $46,032 per homeless person within a year.)

(Also the homeless population number should be taken with a grain of salt too as there are some benefits to be considered homeless and its nearly impossible to verify whether somebody is really homeless or living with friends or family or just "unlisted, paying with cash".)

So why are the current solutions and the vacancy tax proposals not enough? Why do you side with giant property/investments corporations and against the will of regular people? What's even your motivation and your goal?

penguincascadia3 years ago (2 edits) (-2)

The point is that NYC is still having little in the way of vacancies, and Manhattan's vacancy rate has dropped a lot as far as I can tell from 2021 to 2022. NYC still needs more housing.

I am pointing out that the Corcoran Group's survey is much more likely to reflect current vacancy rates then the older government survey (which still shows low vacancy rates across New York City).

Companies regularly publish their own internal research for publicity. And pointing out that New York City still has low vacancy rates is a valid point to make.

People want lower rents and the ability to be able to easily move between different housing units. Building more housing lowers rents and enables people to move much more easily to where they want to live. The people demand more housing.

Polling also shows that plenty of people in America want more housing to be built: https://www.sightline.org/release/poll-strong-majority-of-washingtonians-support...

People in New York City also feel the same way: https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/rpa-org/pdfs/RPA-NYC-Issues-Survey-Topline-F0...

Most vacant units are in between residents and will have someone else in them within a few months to a year: https://ggwash.org/view/73234/vacant-houses-wont-solve-our-housing-crisis

And we also know that the higher the vanacy rate is, the lower rents tend to be and the lower homelessness typically is: https://www.sightline.org/2022/03/16/homelessness-is-a-housing-problem/

Building more housing will lower prices and reduce homelessness and unaffordability.

Think of it this way: housing is like one of those moving square puzzles, and the more open spaces you have in it, the easier it is to move around the squares. The higher the vanacy rate is, the easier it is for people to get lower rents because of the competition.

And despite all that spending, homelessness is still high in New York City. And we can turn to surveys of homelessness that don't give the homeless any benefits from participating in them, and they still find that homelessness is high in New York City.

As above, the current programs and rent control still have New York City at extremely high rents and high homelessness. They are not cutting it.

Vancouver tried a vanacy tax. It was good, but only brought a grand total of a few hundred units onto the market (because of the aforementioned most vacant units just being between residents). Vanacy taxes are only going to fix a tiny portion of the issue.

Allowing the construction of much more housing lowers rents and homelessness. It also lowers the profit per unit of landlords. Building much more housing is siding with ordinary people who need lower rents and lower homelessness.

Ravery (Ravery.net)3 years ago(-4)

So is your goal solving homelessness or building as much housing for everyone, who wants to move somewhere? Or even both? Also what exactly is your position and what is your stake in all of this?

Also can you post a picture of how a town should look like, cause I'm thinking more and more that you want everything to look like this:

As long as a few million want some housing in a city, better build more housing, right? And when those are housed and a few more millions want in, then build even more housing.

Maybe you want to go a bit further and increase density a bit more. How about this:

https://d34ad2g4hirisc.cloudfront.net/volunteer_positions/photos/000/007/972/original/2e0ef3cab808e5352cd6189b8f04b7da.jpg

https://www.avforums.com/styles/avf/editorial/block//c6c470b3a5838e750c136be795d0f0da_3x3.jpg

penguincascadia3 years ago (1 edit) (+6)

We can solve homelessness, lower rents, and enable people to easily move where they can get jobs or have family. As linked to in previous posts, building more housing immensely helps with that.

As discussed in a previous post, Paris has twice the population density of New York City, but they do it with mostly five story and below buildings:

So your argument about giant skyscrapers is false, because New York City can build the housing it needs without them and with just five story and below buildings like the ones above.

And both people in New York City and the people moving there generally support greater density as posted in a previous post, so we should give them what they want.

It should be noted that I've been talking about things like five story buildings and duplexes, yet you bring up skyscrapers when I never mentioned them. Not sure why you are doing this.

Ravery (Ravery.net)3 years ago(-1)

"It should be noted that I've been talking about things like five story buildings and duplexes, yet you bring up skyscrapers when I never mentioned them. Not sure why you are doing this."

I literally asked you what your goal is and whether you want to solve homelessness with your proposals, which you affirmed. Then you said that you want to build housing when there is demand of people wanting to get housing in a city. How many millions do you think you'll house with the buildings you've shown? And what will you do when another million wants to move to your city a year later. And then another million the year after that. And then another million. That's why you

That's why I'm saying that your "big numbers=good" worldview is bad. You can't simply match "whatever" demand by ever increasing supply, especially when one of the "problems" you seem to want to solve is affordability. (So if the new demand can't pay it, you'll have to reduce price even more by building even more housing.)

Anyway. I'm not sure why you are repeatedly bringing up Paris. Do you not know that e.g. the Banlieues exist? Maybe watch a documentary about those, just to remind yourself that not everything is like an upper-middle class downtown street in Paris.

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JeffereyAEL2 years ago(+1)

Fun fact: that doesn't mean more housing shouldn't be built, and as it currently stands it would do for us to build more affordable housing in areas that are currently net debt locations - like a lot of suburbia.

penguincascadia2 years ago

This was a response to someone who was opposed to the construction of more housing and was trying to use the excuse of vacant housing in places with little demand to oppose the construction of more housing in in demand places. I was pointing out that vacant housing isn't a solution to high rents and that we still need to allow the construction of more housing, especially in in demand cities.

itch.io

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