Re:The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It
by Fede_V on Thursday April 07, 2016 @06:18PM
(#11451144)
I think you are exactly right, and in a healthy market that's what would happen. In practice, I believe we are so far from equilibrium that it would take such a long time for the trickle down effects to push housing costs in a range which is affordable for people that aren't well off.
Telling people that within 10-15 years if you keep building several hundreds of thousands of houses eventually rents will be affordable is not a winning slogan :)
What happens is that 10 people move into those new places and 10 people move into their old one and the vacancy works it's way down the line. Eventually some guy down the bottom gets slightly cheaper rent or a better place.
Imagine that instead 100,000 high-end apartments were built in the Bay Area. None of them will have poor people move into them but instead places like (to quote elsewhere in the thread) "downtown PA (university Ave) its right around $2800-3000 for a 1 bedroom, for places with 20 year old appliances and no upgrades." might now be $1000/month cheaper and affordable by somebody on a lot lower income.