So what happens when this is all developers are building and they run out of people who can afford these things?
So part of it was answered by the article: these aren’t homes to be lived in, there are Homes As Commodities. Investments. They are for the ultra rich to buy and then either hold onto to see if Money Go Up or maybe rent out at stupid high prices.
I had a teacher in grad school, when going for my MBA, who discussed the Bay Area’s housing crisis. People who are living paycheck to paycheck are essentially pushed into flophouses that are illegally being rented to over a dozen people to even afford to be there. Meanwhile rich folks buy up places that sit empty, and try to evade residency-requirements by hiring firms whose whole thing is making homes look lived in (usually associated with various realtors). Also international rich buyers will do this too–American real estate is seen as a VERY safe investment. And you’re probably planning on sending your kids here for college or something so they’ll need somewhere to live, right?
Meanwhile as someone who’s been around areas these things are going up for a few years now…they’re frankly even more absurd in person than the article conveys. A huge yellow house by my parents (it was used as a halfway house for domestic violence victims til someone’s ex showed up with a gun, city sold it off) bulldozed for a home nearly the size of the lot itself, with no obvious design style looking at it. Nowhere for kids to really play, the setback is all slope because they elevated the lot a bit to accommodate a huge basement. No backyard either, all subsumed by the house to get that sweet, sweet square footage. Sticks out like a sore thumb compared to the 80s and 90s homes it shares a street with. It is over 2.5 million, mostly because of the location combined with the square footage.
Meanwhile my parents’ town has a MASSIVE affordable housing shortage and developers have found a sweetheart deal to get out of building any: when building a multi-unit structure (of which the building code requires 10% to be affordable housing that is purchased for a certain amount), every unit that was SUPPOSED to be affordable is allowed not to be if you pay a fine of $100,000 per unit. Which is fucking PEANUTS in an area just outside Arlington where the average home is around $900,000. You get to eliminate nine units that could serve the community instead of the rich for the price of housing ONE family! OBVIOUSLY they’re going to just pay the fine! They’re going to profit more than that on every unit!
Meanwhile the idiot building “luxury” townhomes on their block made the damn things so narrow you can’t open both car doors in the garage (the blueprints were inspected by the city council, who saw nothing wrong with this). In order to fit four more in an already overcrowded space. They’re all going for 1.7 million. At the MOMENT, when they’re not even done being built! It’s madness. We’re gonna have another housing crash eventually but we’re not there yet.
amhrancas 