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Building code is one of the worst things for housing. Most of the celebrated "missing middle" type neighborhoods are illegal today. You can't build like that anymore. You can't build a single room occupancy apartment and share kitchen hookups across units, everyone needs a dedicated kitchen with a full stove and fridge to live apparently. You aren't allowed to build a brownstone where you can price it at a rate competitive for working people anymore. You can't build an apartment without a balcony in some cases, or an elevator after a certain number of stories, and of course parking requirements, but also egress requirements like how many stairwells you need to build add costs, sometimes councils even add requirements for there to be turf for dogs to pee and other things that are not housing, but have to be built because code says so, and serve to drive up the cost per unit of actual housing.

It's like, if having one fewer stairwell was so tragically unsafe, why are we not demolishing all of our single stairwell apartments across the country and starting over? Why let them live in such unsafe conditions? That's because they aren't tragically unsafe. Local leaders have just parroted a handful of rare events to justify adding yet another layer of process to development, another cost, another factor that makes it just a bit less financially safe to build an apartment as a developer, much less a small business landlord.

It all adds up. It's a death by a thousand cuts. If we the public fixate on just the one thing that the media presents on it, we allow those who benefit from the status quo to divert attention from the entire set of systematic issues that has to be fully appreciated in order to be fixed.

>. Most of the celebrated "missing middle" type neighborhoods are illegal today. You can't build like that anymore. You can't build a single room occupancy apartment and share kitchen hookups across units, everyone needs a dedicated kitchen with a full stove and fridge to live apparently

Amen, something like my first apartment,a $600 place where you didn't have a stove, didn't have a parking space and definitely didn't have a balcony, would be illegal to build.

I strongly suspect this is to drive poorer people out of certain neighborhoods. I saw a fantastic Reddit post once we're a building architect outlined all the stupid reasons. You can't build affordable housing in LA. Fighting years and years of legal challenges, having to have a minimum amount of outdoor space for each unit or whatever . Whatever .

Are any cities in America building compact transit friendly living space? I really want to travel more and see how other countries do it.

Yeah I still can’t believe they did that, basically allowing someone to occupy your property and there’s nothing you can do about it. At least the state I was in paid me for all the outstanding rent, but this kind of thing is also increasing prices because I know that the tenants had money and were still spending it, just not to pay their rent. I still haven’t been able to get a rent check and they are planning on submitting it all to housing relief again. I increased the rent to match the market (still very low for a single family home, 3 figures) and I expect the government is going to pay me.

I can’t wait to get out of this situation because I hate it and feel like I have no control over my property but the government incentivized them to not pay rent.

For now, I am also incentivized to not put them out on the street and deal with all that if I think I am ultimately going to get a fat check from the state. I expect this is not going to end well for anyone.

I will never become a landlord after seeing this unless I'm wildly wealthy and it's something like I'm owning it as a part of my portfolio. It's just way too easy to stretch out an eviction even without moratoriums.

I have a friend, and I use the term loosely, who foolishly purchased a house to rent out despite having to go into massive debt to do so. We're talking credit card debt because he couldn't afford to refurbish the building.

If a single tenant has a bad month, he's having a bad month.

I'd rather invest in anything else.

I actually think standalone single-family homes are kind of outdated. I want the freedom to live without a car, In an urban setting. Nothing like being able to walk to your local bar, Walk to the supermarket, and then take a train to a concert.

> Yeah I still can’t believe they did that, basically allowing someone to occupy your property and there’s nothing you can do about it.

The eviction moratorium didn't take anything from landlords, which is why the courts allowed it. They simply had to wait for payment and couldn't evict. The tenants still owed rent.

The alternative was potentially having roving bands of millions of angry, newly homeless people violently overthrowing the government, in which case landlords would be in an even worse predicament.

> I can’t wait to get out of this situation because I hate it and feel like I have no control over my property but the government incentivized them to not pay rent.

You can seriously look at housing prices and think to yourself that now is a good time to short the housing market?

Good luck actually collecting once you can finally evict. My parents never even bothering trying when that happens.

On the bright side, it's very likely that any losses in rental income have been more than compensated for by a huge windfall increase in equity. Beyond that, the losses in rental income can probably be written off on taxes.

Sold both of my properties right after this started for this reason exactly. Don't regret it at all, despite the recent appreciation.

Crazy how long it took the courts to overturn that. The eviction moratorium was imposed by the CDC, keep in mind. So the CDC has authority over private rental stock now?

It's something you'd see from the CCP in China

> What's even scarier is many of these units are going to remain un occupied forever. If you buy a house, and it goes up in value $50,000 per year, it might be easier to leave it vacant. The only solution is much easier zoning, and laxer building requirements.

Changes to the tax code are a better fix. Investment properties (non-primary residences) should be taxed more heavily; unoccupied properties even more so.

Recurring land value taxes would prevent people from hoarding property as an appreciating asset without putting it to productive use.

>>Recurring land value taxes would prevent people from hoarding property as an appreciating asset without putting it to productive use.

There is an awful lot of people, myself included, that don't feel vacant land is 'unproductive'. We still need trees, and places for animals to live. I for one don't want to see all available land developed.

Not vacant land vacant housing. For example there is a small apartment complex near me that was bought by an out of state investor. They moved their kids into one unit to keep an eye on the place. The rest of the units they aren't renting out. Why bother dealing with renters when the property value has more than doubled since they bought it?

> Smaller landlords who used to just rent out their vacation homes are getting out of the market.

This is a really good perspective!

I’ve been mentioning to people to remember that their local landlords - their neighbors and existing corporations - are just as responsible for gentrification when raising rents and asks to the highest possible rate their market will tolerate. They always had the option to do so but didnt take the gamble, they still dont have to, so there is an opportunity to point fingers at them more than the out of towners signing or moving in. Pressure might actually work for the landlords since they have a local network, compared to the out of towners who often times have nothing to do with what price is offered to them[0]. The landlords didnt have to raise but the speed at which they all are really could be related to trying to have an investment property during a time when their municipality was not a market based economy.

[0](Although there are also many people buying/renting way over the asking price, as well. Most landlords are just jumping on the bandwagon, hoping to see if the market applies to them too.)