A majority of people own real estate, so they're happy with the status quo. Why would you put up with even the slightest personal inconvenience from added housing, if all it got you was a reduced value of your property?
The real issue with CA real estate is prop 13. It directly disincentivizes selling your home as you would be paying significantly higher taxes on the same house (same value etc) somewhere else.
So if you do own a home, you’re much better off keeping it and renting it out rather than putting it on the market. The only thing stopping one from doing that is needing the home value itself as the down payment for their next residence. But even that can be avoided by getting a line of credit on your original house.
If you want to fix CA real estate, scrap prop 13, force granny to sell and move to the boonies (to avoid the massively ratcheted property tax she will now be paying), and you’ll have a massive supply of homes for sale.
If you raise property taxes then people will leave because it’s not affordable. Not just leave their homes, they will leave CA. That will both lower demand and raise supply.
Yikes
That’s literally what every other state with property taxes assessed on the current value of the home are doing. It’s why retirees move out of their larger homes when they no longer have children occupying the other bed rooms. It’s why you have actual turnover of housing to (generally younger) people that not only want to live there, but are gainfully employed and can afford to do so.
It’s not some evil scheme to evict granny. It’s efficient allocation of a finite resource.
Why not just build more homes so she can live close to family?
Or should we tear down some grannies houses to build multi floor apartment buildings?
It's clearly interesting to speculate the ideal solution on the Internet, but after having been here 10+ years I worry that it's just never going to get better.
I wouldn’t even be interested in a house. Just give affordable cookie cutter apartments in a 50-floor building somewhere.
I don't want to be forced out of my home because the neighbors paid too much for theirs raising my "property value" and tax assessment.
Prop 13 massively distorts the market and creates large disparities in what two neighbors may be paying. It essentially ensures that you cannot live where you were born, breaking up families and hurting communities.
Oh you can live where you were born if you never move out and eventually inherit your parents home. You just won’t be able to buy a place nearby (at least without some serious down payment assistance and two high paying jobs).
Sounds callous.
I would focus first on banning the use of homes as investment and permitting mixed-use, medium- to high- density construction (with something like 15 min city as a point of reference) before we reach for the big hammer and start coercing the poors out of their homes.
You realize people live in those rental homes, correct?
Also, why is it desirable to force all renters to live in an apartment (assuming those are not banned, and people who are unwilling or unable to own their residence are not forced to wander the streets)?
I was talking about private equity/institutional and foreign investors, specifically. An average young family cannot compete against them, especially in a housing shortage.
Don't hide behind the "freedom" defense. Being priced out of housing isn't freedom. Housing is a place to live and to build a life, not an investment.
Home ownership is higher in the US than many other countries, and banning certain groups from participating in a sector will not increase supply.