Similar to upzoning land.

Only the big-boys that can tackle multi-million dollar bids and rental building development projects can enrich themselves by the upzoning of our existing neighborhoods, locking residents into a permanent rental class for all eternity.

I think developing an entire neighborhood of SFH is more expensive than developing a duplex or quad, which is what most upzoning would legalize.

A duplex or quadplex in a desirable area being upzoned is still going to be well outside the realm of what anyone but the “big boys” can reasonably afford to develop.

They’re going to turn it into rentals, and do their best to maximize rent for each unit.

End result is paying an obscene monthly rent for ever-shrinking square footage, while anyone being paid below a living wage sits in the 20+-year-long queue for employer-subsidizing “affordable” apartments.

It's more than what your typical person can do, maybe, but the cost of the loan to develop a duplex in SF is not as large as you are making it out to be. There could be plenty of entrants to that market.

You can avoid this with condominiums.

Higher density doesn't necessarily mean all rentals.

Past a certain level of density, the only thing you can realistically own is a condominium. The key differences between renting an apartment and buying a condo that I was able to identify seem to be that condos are more expensive, harder to get out of if you want to move, and not covered by the city's tenant bill of rights ordinance.

Rentals must on average cover the debt, taxes, and profit for the owner. The tennant pays monthly rent including all of the above and has nothing to show for it when the lease ends.

Condos at least build some equity that you can recover when you sell. Sure there are some risks and maintenance costs that renters don't "pay" but it's all included in the rent, over time.

With a rental, a single entity is responsible for maintenance, if you don't like it, you can move.

With a condo, several entities are jointly responsible. If you don't like it, you can sue.

I would rather deal with a landlord than a Surfside Tower like incident.

> Condos at least build some equity

That equity is only monthly payment - debt, taxes. So the real difference is that you can invest X in your property or X-owner's profit in the investment of your choice.

If you take loan, it is also leveraged investment with some tax benefits, and lower risk: you can file for foreclosure if underwater without need to pay out of debts.

That…. Has nothing apparently to do with what the message you were replying to was asking?

Seems to me it does.

Question was for a shred of evidence for any cause other than FED policies.

There it is an evidence, at least for Las Vegas.

Most interesting is it shows this is not a single variable issue.

There are lots of factors involved and they probably change across geographies.

I think they’re trying to say that “higher construction costs” is literally the “multi-million dollar bids” to own property without going through a HOA.

For the average person, this makes the land and construction costs unobtainable for the average person, effectively creating a monopoly for the builders and the HOA organizations with deep pockets to bid.

Is monopoly the right word for a set of thousands of developers competing to develop land and build new neighborhoods?

Nah, we call it an oligopoly or a cartel. In my city, we actually have this. There are 3 main real estate developers who own or built approximately 80% of all the land and construction in the city.

Housing prices are sky rocketing and if you want a new one built you practically HAVE to do it through them unless you’re in the upper 10% of wealth.

I call that an unfair advantage at the very least. Based on what they’re saying about Las Vegas, it sounds like a similar arrangement has developed in their zoning and development contracts for their suburbia.

Even if there are 1000 bidding players… that’s 1000 people out of the millions living in Las Vegas. Seems pretty unfair no matter how you spin it. There was a time people just bought land and built a house themselves. That time has largely passed.

No, because the only monopolies in real estate are land and maybe grandfathered construction that would be illegal to build today.

The construction industry might be considered a cartel though if they coordinate behind the scenes.

Knowing and working with a large number of custom home builders, a single ‘cartel’ is as far from the on the ground reality as you’re likely to get.

In some areas, maybe more like ‘collection of competing cartels that hate each other’.