Motor Trends “All Girls Garage” (S12 E4) just had Riley on as a guest helping them to replace a carb on an old car… She seems like she is pretty knowledgeable about carbs to only be 17 in todays times… Again, very cool… We need more like her…
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When my daughter was doing her undergrad at MIT, she introduced me to a fellow student who was 15. MIT has a great mechanical engineering department. This 15yo designed an built a carb for small-block GM V8’s.
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Good intentions don’t always create good outcomes. Too many gummint policies just double down on their failed policies rather than honestly asses why they failed and change them accordingly. The homeless and crime problems CA is experiencing are great examples of this.
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Denmark evidently has a successful program based on completing steps one at a time. You don’t go to step two without completing step one. You don’t get a house until the very end after re-entering society. I don’t know how they deal with the problem of unemployed social workers though. Then again Denmark is not a place I’d prefer to live.
CA homeless problem is mostly due to the cost of living. The economy in CA is every strong with high paying jobs. This sends the cost of housing and apartments through the roof.
Housing-and-Homelessness-Challenges-020623.pdf (ca.gov)
Other states are now starting to experience this as their housing costs are outpacing salaries. I hired a guy last year who took over a $50k/yr reduction in pay so he can afford to buy a house for his family in the Boston and southern NH area. And Boston is ranked #2 in rental costs across the country. I think 3rd in housing.
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How did housing get to that point? Why is it still an issue when the state is losing residents for two decades now? Supply and demand should decrease prices… but it hasn’t.
Regulation is so onerous in CA, it can takes up to 10 years for a developer to gain approvals to build a new development. It is a slow and expensive process. Imagine buying land for a development and having to sit on it for years getting approvals from numerous state agencies any one of which could delay or deny permits. An already high cost of land plus time adds significant carrying costs for the builders that home buyers pay for.
Then you have the cost multipliers… The high cost area means labor pays more and building materials cost more which increases the home prices. New green initiatives add the cost of solar, insulation and maybe batteries to the bill, up front.
No wonder builders don’t want to build affordable homes, they can’t make a profit on affordable homes and the residents don’t want them in their neighborhoods! NIMBY. Residents up in arms because of “state-mandated” (see the article linked below) low cost housing…
https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/atherton-housing-element-revisions-multifamily-17907641.php
Good intentions with bad outcomes … so let’s double down and force it. And none of this helps the addicted and mentally ill at all.
Then I remember being in phoenix when people were sending their house keys to the bank. They called it jingle mail. You could buy a nice 1200 foot Spanish design rambler with a two car garage for $100,000.
Sure it does. The SF Bay Area has a ton of well paid people and they provide the demand. Just because poorer people can’t afford housing doesn’t mean that supply and demand is out of whack.
I used to stay in Palo Alto when in business trips there circa 2002. I ran through the neighborhoods around the hotel and picked up a brochure for a bungalow on a small lot. They asked $1,250,000 and I’m sure they got that and may be more. This is a very old issue and the developer has no control over it. They take the market they are given and deal with it.
Affordable homes are based on the market. This isn’t new for this area as I mentioned above. A former work colleague moved from the Sunnyvale area to the DC area so that he and his wife could finally own a home. That was 20 years ago. He could have move to the Central Valley, but the commute would have been well. Over 2 hours one way on a good day. I worked on another project in the early 1990s with someone that commuted from around Stockton to Palo Alto, a total commute on a good day of about 5 hours. He hated it, but wanted to keep the job and his marriage so he did it. BTW, his Toyota Celica had about 500,000 miles on it when it gave up the ghost.
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https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/san-francisco-population-declines-17746756.php
Based on the article supply and demand sure seems to be out of whack
Both comments are correct and both make my point, I think. The problem has existed for a long time and the CA politicians’ solutions have not worked. The developer’s “control” is to relocate to Nevada, Arizona or Idaho and drop the CA market altogether. That doesn’t help the problem.
There is a huge market for affordable homes in CA, they just are not available because building them is not profitable for developers. That is clear from your 2 examples. It pushed workers, even high paid one, farther and farther out from the LA and San Fran counties. Low income worker cannot afford that commute. That’s why the CA legislature had to mandate their construction.
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Part of the supply issue in California though is the building restrictions on single family homes.not to mention work force restrictions as in other parts of the country.
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Supply and demand is still very high for people in Tech jobs. They have the money. This drives the housing market up (WAY UP). It’s the lower income people who are really hurt.
We have the same problem here in NH (although not on the same scale). Low unemployment. Good paying high-tech jobs. And yet we have people with full time jobs living in tents. They can’t afford the rent or homes.
That is only part of the answer. The other part not answered is why hasn’t the housing market kept up to meet that demand?
I realize the east cost has a special problem… long ago the land was built out… but why is it so difficult to redevelop brownfield sites to create multi-family housing?
Because that land is far more valuable. I’ve seen perfectly good small homes on an acre sell in just one day. The new owner comes in and demolishes the house to build a newer/bigger home for a very good profit. You can watch reruns of “This Old House” (filmed in the Boston area) actually talk about it. That’s the market here and even worse in CA.
And this phenomenon is spreading.
Rising homelessness reflects a wider war on working class people | Lynn Evans | The Guardian
Of course there is, who doesn’t want to live in a beautiful weather location? 
As long as the demand is high, developers will build the most profitable homes and the prices for land and the homes themselves will be priced out of the “affordable” market. Then there is the issue of insufficient resources to support throngs of people living there. Water availability is already a huge issue. The last thing they need is cheap housing attracting more people to those states…
Absolutely correct. In order to get state and federal subsidies, most towns around here have to build some limited number of “affordable housing”. Those get tucked into the most undesirable land and only the minimum are built to meet the requirements. The one that was built in my town is next to the marsh close to the expressway. And there is no support to build more. New homes being built start around $1.5M. The number of available building sites is almost nil due to restrictions on wetlands etc. So the older smaller homes get bought and razed to make room for McMansions.
To keep it car related, the town I live in is very desirable due to commute times to Boston area and the schools- class sizes limited to around 12 students with two teachers and an aide in each classroom.
I’ve watched the show for a very long time. I’ve seen episodes where the owner was blocked from adding an apartment to help defray costs, one owner was blocked from putting a garage inside their “historic” home to have off-street parking for their car (I put in a car link!).
We have the very same issues in west coast Florida, especially in Naples. Heck, that’s why I live down here!
But it doesn’t address the issue that started this exchange;
And more importantly, why haven’t anything legislators done to address the problem fixed it? Fact is, the rules they’ve put in place in cities like SF, Boston and Naples have made the problem worse!
Example: A knockdown house on 1/2 acre lot replaced with 6 condos seems to provide adequate profit for the developer but is not allowed because of zoning regs against multi-family homes. Changes to the zoning are blocked by the current residents who also complain about shortages of nurses, police and teachers because they cannot afford a $1.5 million home but might be able to afford that $250K condo blocked by those very same residents.
We can agree on the market forces and discuss supply and demand all day long but the bigger issue has been around for more decades than I’ve been alive and the only “solutions” suggested for the problem seem to be recycled failed policies like rent control and subsidized housing. But neither really address substance abuse and mental issues that plague the hardcore homeless.
But we won’t solve it here.
To muddy the waters a little, but I noticed a whole lot of Canadians that have bought condos as a second home, for rental, or appreciation. A lot of New Yorkers too taking up two residences for same. Now a while back before the current economy, I heard of one Canadian investment firm that was buying up housing and converting to rental. A lot of factors influencing higher housing costs. I do worry some about so much foreign ownership though.
Farm land is another issue in the Midwest and Minnesota has laws limiting foreign ownership of crop land. Many states don’t though.
Another major push on demand is the AirBNB crowd. They drive up home/condo prices AND cause frequent problems with unruly renters. Win/win??
There are several investment companies that buy homes all across the country and then rent them out.
Many towns have historic areas that have special rules. Ones towns rules may be different then town next to them. We have several towns that have laws saying ALL BUILDINGS must be in line with the historic home designs. This includes commercial property. In some of these towns, try to find the McDonalds. I’ve seen them in old Victorian buildings. If you didn’t know where it was you could easily miss it. I prefer NOT to live in one of these districts. They are even worse than developments which have covenants to help keep property values up. Everything done to the property on the outside that can be seen by the public must be approved. This includes paint colors. And this really drives the cost up and can delay construction for months. A guy that works for me lives in one of these districts and did major renovations to his home (by the Sylva Brothers - but not a This Old House Episode). Took over 6 months to get approved for all the permits.
The condo we’ve rented required only white curtains could be used on the road side, and garage doors must be closed except except when entering or leaving, and many more. Some folks we talked to seem to be immune to these restrictions.