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A comment on San Francisco's zoning makes it illegal to build apartments in 73.5% of the city. Parent comment

Re:San Francisco's zoning makes it illegal to build apartmen... by rcpt on Thursday July 19, 2018 @01:01PM (#17568274)
> Oddly, those same single family home owners would become rich if they could subdivide their properties for intensive development. I have never understood this paradox.

Because there's no insurance for drops in property values and most home owners have the vast majority of their wealth tied up in a single asset they are rationally terrified of any change which might increase the variance of property values, even if it means a higher expected value.

https://www.dartmouth.edu/~wfischel/Papers/00-04.PDF is a good read

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Re:San Francisco's zoning makes it illegal to build apartmen... by dfxm12 on Thursday July 19, 2018 @01:39PM (#17568666)
most home owners have the vast majority of their wealth tied up in a single asset

Is this a problem, and is it feasible to fix it?

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Re:San Francisco's zoning makes it illegal to build apartmen... by kerbalspacepro on Thursday July 19, 2018 @04:14PM (#17569838)
It is a problem because it creates NIMBY behavior. It is not feasible to fix it because it would require rewriting the US tax code.
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Re:San Francisco's zoning makes it illegal to build apartmen... by rcpt on Thursday July 19, 2018 @07:48PM (#17571356)
The linked paper discusses the idea of an insurance market for property values.

Somehow, prior to 1970, housing was a home and not an investment. I'm not entirely sure what happened to change it.

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