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Comment by austenallred | Hacker News Reader

The amount of housing in the most expensive housing market in the world is going down because of lack of capital? That passes a sanity check for you?

Or maybe the regulations are so insane you spend millions in legal fees before you even have a glimmer of hope and eventually say “this isn’t worth it.”

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See, this is what I mean. I posted sources that literally interviewed developers and researched the causes for construction delays on approved projects -- "project was approved in late 2016 as construction costs were escalating more than 10 percent a year and lenders were tightening their criteria for loans." And you responded with unsupported political talking points.

Let's bring this back to a fact-based discussion, ok? That's what HN is supposed to be about.

> “For-profit developers have predominantly built for the luxury and higher end of the market, leaving a glut of overpriced apartments in some cities,” said Diane Yentel, president and chief executive of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, an advocacy group.

I can't read the chronicle article, but your wapo article is mainly just the opinions of interested people like this. For example, nowhere does it give the actual number of "luxury" units built in Seattle, SF, or Portland -- those would be important numbers if you're trying to comprehend the argument being put forward.

The Chronicle article is worth reading but you can trust me that it points to capital markets and labor shortages as holding back approved projects.

Here is a deeper analysis of the Seattle market with specific housing construction figures.[1] It argues "there is no general housing shortage, that the catastrophic figures above are a product of the Great Recession and the normal lag in construction. Because the market appears to be duly responding to demand, efforts to 'free' the housing market are not as effective as efforts to shape the market toward more just ends."

This is consistent with the causes cited in the SF Chronicle article that hold back approved projects, as well as the SF Business Times(!) article pointing to the 2008 recession as a cause of the labor shortage, cited previously.

[1] https://www.theurbanist.org/2016/11/22/what-housing-shortage...

There’s such an enormous mountain of evidence on the other side I’m genuinely unsure where to start

Start with the early 70s. The housing problem started around then. Some years they went up by 20-30% in value. My parents were on track to lose their relatively modest 1800 square foot house in San Jose just 6 years after moving there despite being dual income tech workers at the time.

Note that it predates prop 13, so I hope that doesn't play a central role in this enormous mountain of evidence.

I find responses like this fairly patronizing. I think it’s preferable to not respond at all or substitute a link to an article like Kim Mai’s (in)famous TechCrunch piece instead of this veritable shrug.

Edit: After seeing your profile, I feel even more disappointed. Imagine if a Lambda School student asked a plausibly sincere question and they were met with a response which amounted to, “That is so stupid, I don’t even know where to start.” Let’s strive for better.

There’s a pretty big difference between chatting on a message board and a student asking a question of a school. I’m currently at Disneyland with my family and don’t believe the parent response was earnest, but here: https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/

I’ve learned a lot from HN, so perhaps I don’t view the environs as so different. I suspect the parent may not be entirely sincere, but perhaps it’s better to call that out directly. Enjoy Disneyland and best of luck with your company!

I found this to be a very interesting survey of the different things affecting the SF housing market. Whether you agree with all of the points brought up it's hard to deny that it's a complex issue.

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