NextStep recycling or local estate sales
letsmakeafriendship
joined 2 years ago
Post about Eugene but applies to every other metro area where prices are increasing.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/18067704
Rent in Eugene is high for one simple reason: it's a highly desirable place to live and the people who want to live here are all competing to rent the same units. There is more demand than supply, by a lot. Period. We have under-built for decades despite consistent net migration into our city. Landlords can charge the rent they do because somebody will pay it. The only way to get lower average rents is to reverse migration into Eugene or increase the housing supply.
Why have we under-built for decades? Because city council is an elected position. Homeowners vote, tenants tend to not vote. And to make this worse, homeowners benefit from this supply & demand mismatch because it causes their property values to go up. Politicians don't listen to blocks of voters who don't vote. Eugene homeowners, the neighborhood associations, etc have all lobbied successfully for "single family only" zoning and kept development out. City Council members also tend to be homeowners because at 15K a year you basically need a second source of income to even scrape by on that salary. Tenants and homeowners have opposite goals when it comes to land value.
So tenants, if you care about rent prices, make sure you vote, and make sure your city councilors hear from you that you want more units. If you don't like the options you get at the ballot box in general elections or think there aren't enough, vote in the primaries where your vote will have an even greater impact since you'll be choosing who other people get to vote for. All you need to do in order to vote in the primaries is select a party and your ballot will be mailed to you automatically. The whole process takes less than 5 minutes, can be done online, and you can change parties whenever you want. Selecting a party doesn't mean you have to vote for that party, only that you get the chance to vote in their primary. And vote YES on Ranked Choice Voting which is a measure that will be up for vote in the November election.
What about private equity? Blackrock? "Price-fixing software"?
I know it's popular to point the finger at private equity, AirBnb, or price-fixing software or whoever, but they are drops in the bucket compared to the massive supply and demand mismatch we have. And many urban areas in America have. Price fixing software won't enable you to charge more for rent than the market will allow, because another landlord without said price fixing software will just rent at a more reasonable price and get the tenant while your unit sits vacant and burns a hole in your pocket.
What about rent control?
Rent control will just advantage people in existing units while disadvantaging anybody who moves here from elsewhere or even from in-town. It also gives your landlord great incentive to constructively evict you and means whenever you move, your rent will take a very steep hike. It just polarizes the rental market. The total amount of rent being paid stays roughly the same, it's just no longer equally distributed among the entire renting population. Rent control doesn't work. Yes, it freezes rents for some segments of the population, but it prejudices in favor of whoever happens to be in a unit right this very moment and never moves and screws over everybody else w higher rent, especially those trying to get off the street!
What about expanding the Urban Growth Boundary?
This would make more cheap land available for development at the expense of nature being harder to access and farther away. We can build up without building out. I'm not in favor of expanding the UGB personally, but it would probably help.
But I hate all these new luxury condos!
K be mad then, but it's more supply. Now people who can afford luxury condos will rent them instead of out-bidding you for other units.
But the condos are all empty?!?
As a tenant, you want vacant units. Vacant units mean landlords have to live with the threat of their units not being rented, which means they will lower prices to make sure they stay occupied. Vacant units mean more negotiating power for tenants which turns up in things like pet-friendly complexes. Every market has inefficiencies and vacant units, this is normal. Trust me, those vacant units are costing them money. If they remain vacant long enough, the price will drop. That only happens if they actually remain vacant though, which our supply & demand mismatch won't actually let happen sustainably.
What about banning corporations from owning homes?
The legal structure of an entity owning a property doesn't matter, they can't actually set prices, the market does. Just like you can't buy a $1 million house and sell it for $2 million tomorrow, neither can blackrock. If they are sitting on property, they are losing money, but that's only true if the real estate market doesn't going up because we keep refusing to build more real estate. You need corporations to build apartment complexes, they require tens of million dollars to build, which means you need investors, which means you need a legal structure for investment to occur through safely. Most single home landlords are also LLCs.
What about forcing developers to make "affordable" units?
How do you make low and medium income housing? You build new, luxury housing and wait 20 years. This is similar to rent control where it just shifts around the rent to different parts of the market. Additionally, doing this makes this place less attractive to developers. Developers want to build units that are actually going to make them money, the more red tape and regulations, the more money they waste fighting or complying with them. And it's not just the developer's decision: they have to answer to investors. Investors don't want to invest in things which don't make money. Apartment complexes cost tens of millions of dollars, you need people to invest to make that happen, so you need to make investment attractive. Investors have the luxury of investing wherever they want. Unless Eugene is "investable", they will go elsewhere and you get no units.
Rent in Eugene is high for one simple reason: it's a highly desirable place to live and the people who want to live here are all competing to rent the same units. There is more demand than supply, by a lot. Period. We have under-built for decades despite consistent net migration into our city. Landlords can charge the rent they do because somebody will pay it. The only way to get lower average rents is to reverse migration into Eugene or increase the housing supply.
Why have we under-built for decades? Because city council is an elected position. Homeowners vote, tenants tend to not vote. And to make this worse, homeowners benefit from this supply & demand mismatch because it causes their property values to go up. Politicians don't listen to blocks of voters who don't vote. Eugene homeowners, the neighborhood associations, etc have all lobbied successfully for "single family only" zoning and kept development out. City Council members also tend to be homeowners because at 15K a year you basically need a second source of income to even scrape by on that salary. Tenants and homeowners have opposite goals when it comes to land value.
So tenants, if you care about rent prices, make sure you vote, and make sure your city councilors hear from you that you want more units. If you don't like the options you get at the ballot box in general elections or think there aren't enough, vote in the primaries where your vote will have an even greater impact since you'll be choosing who other people get to vote for. All you need to do in order to vote in the primaries is select a party and your ballot will be mailed to you automatically. The whole process takes less than 5 minutes, can be done online, and you can change parties whenever you want. Selecting a party doesn't mean you have to vote for that party, only that you get the chance to vote in their primary. And vote YES on Ranked Choice Voting which is a measure that will be up for vote in the November election.
What about private equity? Blackrock? "Price-fixing software"?
I know it's popular to point the finger at private equity, AirBnb, or price-fixing software or whoever, but they are drops in the bucket compared to the massive supply and demand mismatch we have. And many urban areas in America have. Price fixing software won't enable you to charge more for rent than the market will allow, because another landlord without said price fixing software will just rent at a more reasonable price and get the tenant while your unit sits vacant and burns a hole in your pocket.
What about rent control?
Rent control will just advantage people in existing units while disadvantaging anybody who moves here from elsewhere or even from in-town. It also gives your landlord great incentive to constructively evict you and means whenever you move, your rent will take a very steep hike. It just polarizes the rental market. The total amount of rent being paid stays roughly the same, it's just no longer equally distributed among the entire renting population. Rent control doesn't work. Yes, it freezes rents for some segments of the population, but it prejudices in favor of whoever happens to be in a unit right this very moment and never moves and screws over everybody else w higher rent, especially those trying to get off the street!
What about expanding the Urban Growth Boundary?
This would make more cheap land available for development at the expense of nature being harder to access and farther away. We can build up without building out. I'm not in favor of expanding the UGB personally, but it would probably help.
But I hate all these new luxury condos!
K be mad then, but it's more supply. Now people who can afford luxury condos will rent them instead of out-bidding you for other units.
But the condos are all empty?!?
As a tenant, you want vacant units. Vacant units mean landlords have to live with the threat of their units not being rented, which means they will lower prices to make sure they stay occupied. Vacant units mean more negotiating power for tenants which turns up in things like pet-friendly complexes. Every market has inefficiencies and vacant units, this is normal. Trust me, those vacant units are costing them money. If they remain vacant long enough, the price will drop. That only happens if they actually remain vacant though, which our supply & demand mismatch won't actually let happen sustainably.
What about banning corporations from owning homes?
The legal structure of an entity owning a property doesn't matter, they can't actually set prices, the market does. Just like you can't buy a $1 million house and sell it for $2 million tomorrow, neither can blackrock. If they are sitting on property, they are losing money, but that's only true if the real estate market doesn't going up because we keep refusing to build more real estate. You need corporations to build apartment complexes, they require tens of million dollars to build, which means you need investors, which means you need a legal structure for investment to occur through safely. Most single home landlords are also LLCs.
What about forcing developers to make "affordable" units?
How do you make low and medium income housing? You build new, luxury housing and wait 20 years. This is similar to rent control where it just shifts around the rent to different parts of the market. Additionally, doing this makes this place less attractive to developers. Developers want to build units that are actually going to make them money, the more red tape and regulations, the more money they waste fighting or complying with them. And it's not just the developer's decision: they have to answer to investors. Investors don't want to invest in things which don't make money. Apartment complexes cost tens of millions of dollars, you need people to invest to make that happen, so you need to make investment attractive. Investors have the luxury of investing wherever they want. Unless Eugene is "investable", they will go elsewhere and you get no units.
"Eugene Pride will be without public parking for the first time in 15 years due to a time-conflict with a sold-out Ween concert"
AKA the city has a fair, transparent system for permitting these kinds of things and somebody else claimed the spot first and Eugene Pride organizers are throwing a tantrum that they aren't getting special treatment. They planned an event without making sure there was parking available, that's not anybody's fault but the planners. If you run big events, you need to stay on top of your paperwork and do your diligence.
Glad to see EPD I mean SPD tackling our biggest and most important issues. A three month investigation.
I'm all for corporations and the rich paying their fair share. But unless this is being matched by other states, it will just cause capital flight to those states. That's jobs and capability Oregon won't get. It will be one of many factors companies consider when asking which state to incorporate and operate in. The Oregon market is an easy one to ignore, we're not exactly a huge state, we have just over 1% of the national population. This is the kind of legislation that can only work in markets companies can't afford to leave, huge markets like California or Texas. There's a reason OR gets in bidding wars with other states over the siting of a new Intel fabrication facility etc: the state with the most favorable operating conditions gets the jobs.
A quick read of the bill text and I find "Less than $500,000, the minimum tax is $150". That's $150 for every small LLC, business with 1-3 employees, etc. It doesn't matter if your LLC is profitable or not, you're paying $150/year for the privilege of existing. Even if they lost money in the past tax year. This is in addition to existing costs you already incur like having to pay for payroll software to deal with the immensely complex state and local tax system, costs to file incorporation paperwork, and the costs for a 'registered agent'. This will hurt small businesses and startups, no doubt. California had a similar incorporation tax, and it's one of many reasons why companies try to incorporate out of state.
Why not include an exemption for small businesses or those with extremely thin profit margins? Or for those who lost money that year? You'd have to ask the petition authors that.
Who runs small LLCs?
- Small businesses, restaurants, food trucks
- Your local plumber, contractor, painter, tutor, or other independent contractor.
- Private landlords renting out a single unit. People who rent out rooms in their home and want the additional liability protection.
- Food co-ops, housing cooperatives, local sports clubs, and other forms of cooperative organizations
- People who use the anonymity provided by LLCs to escape domestic violence, stalking, etc.
"[Democracy] can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage"
Sad to see this measure lose. IMO the Star Voting people didn't do nearly enough outreach or public education on this, and the people they did have doing it we're not doing a great job. STAR is clearly superior to our current system regardless of your political leanings. I saw many common and easy to clear up misconceptions from people.
Principle. It's not what recalls should be used for.
ACLU has a decent overview of it. The tldr is that it's re-criminalizing posession. https://www.aclu-or.org/en/take-action-now-tell-lawmakers-we-need-real-solutions-not-more-jails
I would vote FOR 110 again in a heartbeat. Prohibition doesn't work, is a waste of taxpayer money, and churns people through the criminal justice system. It should be no business of the government what you put into your body in your own private residence. If you are breaking the law because of your drug use, then they should enforce those laws which they currently don't for various reasons.
The whole point of ballot initiatives is to go over the head of the state legislature. It is a check on their power and the two party system. They have no right to reverse a ballot initiative. If they think public opinion has changed, they can send it back to the ballot. Any oregon dem who votes to repeal 110 is losing my vote in the primary.
It's linked on the sub sidebar, it's been the top post a number of times. A lot of users just will never migrate until reddit is literally un-useable.
Ballot measures are laws themselves that voters can pass without needing the approval of the legislature, that's the entire point. They can also be "straw polls" to give guidance to the legislature, but most are made to create or amend a specific law or provision of the constitution, as M110 did.
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Very interesting thank you for posting!!