Our state’s housing shortage is decades in the making. It’s not going to be enough to build more housing; we’ve got to accelerate the pace of construction to get out of this mess.
Building more housing ultimately that is ultimately snapped up by venture capitalists or equity companies won't help make housing more affordable. Updating legislation to limit their monopoly in the housing market and breaking the cycle needs to happen first.
Don’t have the stats, but have witnessed the same vultures swoop down over and over to snap up residential property and devour it before actual homeseekers have a chance to put in an offer.
Happened to my grandchildren when their family started and they wanted a yard.
The same realtor kept beating them to their first choices.
Not to mention all the commercials (at least here in Ohio ) by companies offering to buy your home sight unseen! "If you are looking to sell, don't spend your money fixing things up. We'll buy your house as is, and you don't have to worry about anything". Multiple commercials, multiple companies. Meantime, housing costs are through the roof, and rental prices are even worse!
I do believe all the housing crisis and current issues started and still are illegal. Banks and investment vultures started packaging mortgages supposedly by risk level. They put say 10 or 20 properties for people to "invest in" the loan. The illegal part of their scheme was setting up a corporate in (I don't remember the state on the east coast that a lot of corporations set up) so they sort and package home mortgages. And a package can change hands multiple times. The problem is the counties each house is in keeps all records of deeds and transfers. They are all cut out of our traditional system. If you try to research a plot of land you can only find the current and past owners of record. Not any of the "owners" from a package that totally bypass the counties. Now you can ask "who actually owns the house at 1223 Park lane?).
Question! Why not just mandate landlords, private and corporate, to bring down rent and mortgage costs? Let’s also examine how most people don’t qualify for mortgage, so building really is a non issue. There are 56 empty homes per house less individual in the nation. It’s not an availability problem it’s a greed problem.
This is a misleading claim. Areas where homelessness is the highest have lower vacancy rates. Unless you plan to ship the homeless people in LA to Detroit, we need to build more housing.
It's not just build more housing.The housing actually needs to be cheaper. If you build more housing, but the housing costs just as much.How are people going to afford it?
The housing cost must come down and wages must go up
It's great to build more housing. That's great. Let's say we build two hundred and fifty thousand more homes, but the price is too high and people don't make that much money.So now we have two hundred and fifty thousand homes that are empty?
No, the rent needs to come down the size of the home needs to come down because there's people that don't have family and they can live alone. I don't need a house that's two thousand square feet. 700 sq feet it's just fine.
But I can't afford an apartment that's two thousand dollars.I don't make eight grand a month, not yet.I should be making eight grand a month with my master's.In business administration, but i'm not.I'm on unemployment, and i'm only getting four hundred and fifty net.A week which is really stupid.
The reason why people are homeless is because the rent is too high and the wages aren't enough.
This us an automatic reply that is littered all over this post. Katie, you need to read the comments! Even i'm getting an education by reading the comments of others
My apologies it’s 28 per capita, 5.8 for California, 6.5 for Oregon. So instead of tearing down trees we need to fill already empty homes and then build for new generations, not build for greed. The problem with building is they aren’t affordable. They are not affordable to anyone right now.
This data is deceiving—California has among the lowest vacancy rates across the country. So even adjusting for this them CA is still behind on supply. Secondly the data does not indicate the time that properties have been vacant or why they are vacant (for example awaiting entitlements or permits for construction).
My apologies it’s 28 per capita, 5.8 for California, 6.5 for Oregon. So instead of tearing down trees we need to fill already empty homes and then build for new generations, not build for greed. The problem with building is they aren’t affordable. They are not affordable to anyone right now.
This is it right here! Also, I just read "Abundance" which talks about wealthier liberal communities making it too hard for affordable housing and other infrastructure improvements with their NIMBY movements (I live in a very blue suburb of Chicago that suffers from this greatly).
This is an insulting term that builders and developers began using to marginalize people who are rightfully protecting their own quality of life in the neighborhoods where they live.
In California we have the Builder/Developer Coalition who calls it-selves YIMBYs (Yes In My Back Yard)
They are suing my city, a legally protected Charter City, for exercising its legal right to manage all their own decisions.
Instead of paying legal costs for defending our rights against their bullying, I would like to develop more parkland, expand Section 8 low income housing, or find land for a community garden.
This is your right, but don't decry the lack of affordable housing for lots of people. Saying more housing should be built but not in your neighborhood is exactly what a NIMBY is. Again, you are free to feel the way you do but you should be clear that your position is effectively asking people to move elsewhere (and most likely out of the state).
The 53 houses/homeless stat is meaningless. Do you want to move to, say,a small, fading farm town in Wisconsin? Ah,a rural apartment or home in poor to fair condition with the closest healthcare 40 miles, full grocery 35 away and no public transportation? Employment opportunities look grim and children will be bussed 45 minutes to another communitiy’s school because your town has neither the tax base nor young population to keep a school running.
My point, how many of those jokes are actually practical for the typically homeless person?
I mean we know what makes things less expensive: building more housing quickly. There is a reams of data that show that Price controls makes the problem much worse. There’s a reason why places that’s manage to reduce costs (Austin, Houston, Minneapolis, Tokyo, Finland, Sweden, etc) don’t use price controls: it doesn’t work. Building does
I can fathom real change. It should be based on real ideas.
All the ideas that are real in the world have gotten us exactly here. Building housing is great, but what does that mean for people who can’t afford it? There goes any chance of housing. They slam up these houses and apartments in the name of housing crisis, just to turn around and charge market rent. Okay great, so now the same people that are homeless are still that. Not to mention, Canada has the lumber we use to build said housing. With tariffs and threatening to annex Canada to the 51st state, do we really think they’re gonna let us have that for cheap to solve our housing crisis? NO. So then the cycle repeats. We really need to start saying fuck money and tear it all up and come up with a plan that benefits all human beings. Until then, we’ll just be poor AND houseless i guess.
“Fuck money and come up with a plan” is not an actual workable policy nor something that will build a broad coalition. I’m simply pointing out what we know works! And considering California voters rejected rent control in a referendum in 2024, this is the path forward
Landlords only control rentals, not purchases or mortgages. Most "landords" are managed by a property management company. Many apartment complexes are owned by investment groups, some who have property management teams within their investment portfolios. Many times the larger groups are able to bring rents down because they can "buy in bulk supply". They are also more able and willing to work with different Housing Agencies, typically government assisted. Perhaps the government needs to consider increasing the allowable income/asset of prospective tenants in order to accommodate the growing market of renters.
The bottom line is always the bottom line no matter where or what.
What if we got really radical and capped rent, per the area minimum wage, per bedroom/bathroom size, no more than 30% of income. It would need creative research for each state to know real numbers and a substantial team to implement those changes. I think cutting out private landlords altogether could definitely fix things. They could rent to family or sell to an agency.
1. There would be less incentive to build housing because both private landlords and the government would effectively just lose money. We know when new car come into the market, the old versions drops in price; the same ins true in housing!
2. Demand would spike. If rent is capped, the high demand would skyrocketed for newer places, but because there would a disincentive to build new housing. Thus shortages.
3. The government hasn’t shown any capacity to build housing well, at scale. In fact most of the government projects are even more expensive than private ones because the government suffers from the same problem; over regulation and bureaucracy
I’ve never understood the fear of developers. Considering that most developers outside of mega apartment buildings are small businesses with less than 10 people. Over 60% of developers who build houses, duplexes, granny flats etc, are small businesses that live in that community, often from immigrant backgrounds
Get rid of Air B&B. I know a lot of people will jump on me for this, but these houses sit empty a lot and destroy neighborhood cohesion. Eliminate these and we'll have a lot more houses available.
Paula I could not agree more!! Additionally a lot of the Airbnb are owned by corps, LLC scooping them up essentially starting their own mini hotel chains while skirting the hotel taxes. It’s completely destroying neighborhoods
I saw a really cute airbnb on the south side of abilene, when I went out there to see my father before he passed. It was a cute little place that I stayed in for about five days in June 2021.
It was perfect too. Only 650 sq feet. Perfect. I don't know how many homes are in abilene that are small like that, but i'm sure there's many airbnbs that are that size and people can live in them.
I agree with you. A lot of these airbnbs can be freed up for people to live in, rent them out.
The very following year I went and stayed on the north side of abilene, which was a little bit more poor. I could not believe people were telling me that they were renting an apartment for only $500 a month. In abilene texas?
I asked the residents, does your place have running water? Do you have a toilet?Do you have a kitchen?
I was told yes to all three.
I was astonished.
I don't know if that's what people pay four a small 650 sq foot apartment fort worth or dallas or in houston, but it seems pretty reasonable to me.
I don't see why it can't be $800 a month in California for 1k sq feet.
I'm 1995 1996 my parents moved out of the trailer that they lived in and I stayed there. It was 950 sq feet. They own the trailer, and I only paid space rent. $350 a month!
I don't understand what happened. Where did we go in the last thirty five years?
As I see it, housing became a profit center instead of a place to live. It's greed again, which we can attribute to Reagan. He made greed acceptable and things have only gotten worse.
If I may put a slightly different prospective from Texas. I was rehabing Fanny Mae houses during and after the housing bust. Here in Dallas/Fort Worth all of those houses were getting bought up by rich people and companies to use as rent homes. First time buyers were pushed out. Houses sold the day they hit the market. The rent they charged wasn't enough to cover a regular mortgage. With in 3 years rent had doubled. When Toyota and other companies started moving from California to North Texas the people came with enough money to buy a very upscale house and 5 rent homes. New rent home owners started raising rent to California rates. Apartments jumped in on the rent increase. Pure greed. Now the housing rental cost exceeds 50% of the income for a family with 3-4 jobs. Forget saving and vacations and Healthcare and childcare is in a non licensed person's house that watches 5 or 6 kids. The owners of companies have us right were they want us.
Thank you for your experience in detailing how things worked in Texas. Unfortunately, that seems to be the way it works here in Florida. Greed is consuming every aspect of our economy and our country won’t last long.
Without the humility of men and women of faith who live by different standards we are doomed.
(l am an atheist who believes that l am my neighbors keeper and daily try to be a better human.)
It’s happened everywhere. Speculation needs to STOP!!! People need first crack at homes to buy not investors. They’ve created the shortage and bankrupting our country.
Congress needs to get off it's ass and start doing their job protecting the investments and infrastructure of Americans. Private Equity has been buying up the resources of our country for years, raising prices and laying off employees, raping us in the process, including homes, our water resources, all manner of businesses including nursing homes, hospitals, you name it. The top managers and CEOs are billionaires like Mitt Romney who has the gall to just recently complain about Elon Musk. CONGRESS DO YOUR JOB!!!
Maybe if enough people from California would come to Texas we could finally flip this state blue! Way more affordable here. Of course lots of people here have trouble too and think we have it too high. Income ratios are probably the same but retirees come and can purchase a new home outright.
The problem is if our residents move we are vulnerable to big $ buying up everything for the republicon votes. We need to fix this here. But I can appreciate your point💙
I am an elderly person dependent on the income from a rental property. My experience is that the system isn’t working for either renters or private owners. Having taxes pay for infrastructure for schools, roads, city planning and green spaces would help. A lot of the burden of home ownership revolves around hoas, special tax assessments, etc… try taxing billionaires, regulating banks and stopping insider trading in the congressional branch. Free up money for redesigning neighborhoods thoughtfully.
I would love to text the billionaires, but you know that they're going to find a loophole.To not pay those taxes. Fix the loophole.And maybe the billionaires will actually pay their fare in share taxes! The billionaires are always going to donate billions and billions of money, and as long as they continue to donate billions and billions of dollars, somewhere they're going to get tax right offs. I don't think it's right. I think it's unethical that the billionaires don't pay their fair share in taxes, I think they need to be punished greatly, I would love to be able to slap a big ole fine on the biggest billionaires on this nation. But they're going to find a way to get out of it, because money pays for everything, and it's not right.
- Another mess: Private Equity owning so many rental communities, while pushing prices up and services down
- We can mandate geothermal, solar, wind for any community projects, determining which suits each situation, as well as insulation, etc., to keep ownership costs down
We pay too much in taxes. Fuel tax. Building permits need to be streamlined. Bullet train rethought. No end to the price hikes. State homeless workers is a taxpayer's give away job. No help to the people that need help. Ban lobiest. Make PG&E Lower rates and serve the public. Increase public transportation city to city. Free Wi-fi state wide. Flat income for tax. Californians can defend themselves without prosecution. Smash and grab perps from outta state go to the new prison in El Centro. Tents no buildings. This is a start
The main issue is homes are being grabbed up by investors, a ton of them foreign. They are outbidding families by ridiculous amounts and driving up home prices, pushing families and first-time home owners out of the real estate market. About half the houses on my street are now owned by wealthy investors who rent the houses out for insane prices; 20 years ago the homes were all owner-occupied. My husband and I bought in our 20's, working entry-level corporate jobs. Those jobs today can barely pay rent in southern CA. Now, as children are grown and homeowners retire, they're selling and it's the real estate investors coming and buying because no one else can outbid them. Some houses sit empty for months at a time, waiting for renters to pay an outrageous rent price. Some houses are in disrepair. The wealthy owners don't care, it's just another home they're sitting on for long-term investment, not monthly rent payments. My house would sell right now for 5x what I paid for it in 2000, which sounds like an amazing investment for me, but the next generation won't be able to buy it unless I'm willing to sell to them for $300k+ less than what an investor will bid. California lawmakers need to force wealthy investors, especially foreign, out of the California real estate market. But they won't because they are also investors, AND they don't want to be seen as crazy, liberal anti-capitalists who are preventing aging homeowners or their adult children from selling their property for top-dollar to whoever wants to buy. The insane real estate prices are benefitting those who already own, who already have wealth. We all complain about the high housing costs, but this is what happens in an unchecked, capitalist market of supply and demand. Building more houses will not solve the problem because those houses will also get sold to wealthy investors. We know the real answers here, but as a society we're not willing to address them yet. We're all still believing in the American Dream our grandparents were sold, which doesn't exist any longer. Greed has led to an insane wealth imbalance and it will only get worse if we leave it unchecked. So we care about families or money?
35% of single family homes in California are owned by private equity firms!! Affordable housing is necessary, but the problem must be fixed by limiting private equity ownership. Expediting building permits and allowing builders to disregarding infrastructure issues will cause serious problems in the future.
KATIE, can we talk like adults here? The past two or so years were by far the worst. I sold my home and spent the next two years putting in offers that were consistently beat out by INVESTORS!!!!! As a result I lost my transfer of base year value!!! A triple threat happened during that time - prices exponentially increased, lack of housing coming up for sale, interest rates exploded. Now all seniors are facing leaving California. Is this what you all wanted? There should NOT be a 2-year window on our property taxes being taken from us!!!!!!!
Building more housing ultimately that is ultimately snapped up by venture capitalists or equity companies won't help make housing more affordable. Updating legislation to limit their monopoly in the housing market and breaking the cycle needs to happen first.
What portion of houses do you think private equity or venture capital owns?
Don’t have the stats, but have witnessed the same vultures swoop down over and over to snap up residential property and devour it before actual homeseekers have a chance to put in an offer.
Happened to my grandchildren when their family started and they wanted a yard.
The same realtor kept beating them to their first choices.
Not to mention all the commercials (at least here in Ohio ) by companies offering to buy your home sight unseen! "If you are looking to sell, don't spend your money fixing things up. We'll buy your house as is, and you don't have to worry about anything". Multiple commercials, multiple companies. Meantime, housing costs are through the roof, and rental prices are even worse!
Happened to me multiple times we need laws preventing it
I do believe all the housing crisis and current issues started and still are illegal. Banks and investment vultures started packaging mortgages supposedly by risk level. They put say 10 or 20 properties for people to "invest in" the loan. The illegal part of their scheme was setting up a corporate in (I don't remember the state on the east coast that a lot of corporations set up) so they sort and package home mortgages. And a package can change hands multiple times. The problem is the counties each house is in keeps all records of deeds and transfers. They are all cut out of our traditional system. If you try to research a plot of land you can only find the current and past owners of record. Not any of the "owners" from a package that totally bypass the counties. Now you can ask "who actually owns the house at 1223 Park lane?).
Yes!
Question! Why not just mandate landlords, private and corporate, to bring down rent and mortgage costs? Let’s also examine how most people don’t qualify for mortgage, so building really is a non issue. There are 56 empty homes per house less individual in the nation. It’s not an availability problem it’s a greed problem.
This is a misleading claim. Areas where homelessness is the highest have lower vacancy rates. Unless you plan to ship the homeless people in LA to Detroit, we need to build more housing.
It's not just build more housing.The housing actually needs to be cheaper. If you build more housing, but the housing costs just as much.How are people going to afford it?
The housing cost must come down and wages must go up
It's great to build more housing. That's great. Let's say we build two hundred and fifty thousand more homes, but the price is too high and people don't make that much money.So now we have two hundred and fifty thousand homes that are empty?
No, the rent needs to come down the size of the home needs to come down because there's people that don't have family and they can live alone. I don't need a house that's two thousand square feet. 700 sq feet it's just fine.
But I can't afford an apartment that's two thousand dollars.I don't make eight grand a month, not yet.I should be making eight grand a month with my master's.In business administration, but i'm not.I'm on unemployment, and i'm only getting four hundred and fifty net.A week which is really stupid.
The reason why people are homeless is because the rent is too high and the wages aren't enough.
Unemployment is an even enough.
This us an automatic reply that is littered all over this post. Katie, you need to read the comments! Even i'm getting an education by reading the comments of others
Source for 56 empty homes per homeless person? And how does it help someone in CA if there is an empty house in Maine?
My apologies it’s 28 per capita, 5.8 for California, 6.5 for Oregon. So instead of tearing down trees we need to fill already empty homes and then build for new generations, not build for greed. The problem with building is they aren’t affordable. They are not affordable to anyone right now.
https://www.google.com/search?q=how+many+empty+homes+per+homeless+person+in+america&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari
This data is deceiving—California has among the lowest vacancy rates across the country. So even adjusting for this them CA is still behind on supply. Secondly the data does not indicate the time that properties have been vacant or why they are vacant (for example awaiting entitlements or permits for construction).
My apologies it’s 28 per capita, 5.8 for California, 6.5 for Oregon. So instead of tearing down trees we need to fill already empty homes and then build for new generations, not build for greed. The problem with building is they aren’t affordable. They are not affordable to anyone right now.
https://www.google.com/search?q=how+many+empty+homes+per+homeless+person+in+america&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari
This is it right here! Also, I just read "Abundance" which talks about wealthier liberal communities making it too hard for affordable housing and other infrastructure improvements with their NIMBY movements (I live in a very blue suburb of Chicago that suffers from this greatly).
Laura
You don’t create housing by taking away the public’s right to live the way they want to live.
SB 9 and 10 ruin established neighborhoods.
That is not the answer.
No such thing as NIMBY
This is an insulting term that builders and developers began using to marginalize people who are rightfully protecting their own quality of life in the neighborhoods where they live.
In California we have the Builder/Developer Coalition who calls it-selves YIMBYs (Yes In My Back Yard)
They are suing my city, a legally protected Charter City, for exercising its legal right to manage all their own decisions.
Instead of paying legal costs for defending our rights against their bullying, I would like to develop more parkland, expand Section 8 low income housing, or find land for a community garden.
This is your right, but don't decry the lack of affordable housing for lots of people. Saying more housing should be built but not in your neighborhood is exactly what a NIMBY is. Again, you are free to feel the way you do but you should be clear that your position is effectively asking people to move elsewhere (and most likely out of the state).
Hi Barbara, What city is this?
why not just have the State centrally plan the economy at that point? Is this serious?
The 53 houses/homeless stat is meaningless. Do you want to move to, say,a small, fading farm town in Wisconsin? Ah,a rural apartment or home in poor to fair condition with the closest healthcare 40 miles, full grocery 35 away and no public transportation? Employment opportunities look grim and children will be bussed 45 minutes to another communitiy’s school because your town has neither the tax base nor young population to keep a school running.
My point, how many of those jokes are actually practical for the typically homeless person?
So price controls? Lmfaoooooo
Ideas often seem radical and crazy to those that can’t fathom real change.
I mean we know what makes things less expensive: building more housing quickly. There is a reams of data that show that Price controls makes the problem much worse. There’s a reason why places that’s manage to reduce costs (Austin, Houston, Minneapolis, Tokyo, Finland, Sweden, etc) don’t use price controls: it doesn’t work. Building does
I can fathom real change. It should be based on real ideas.
All the ideas that are real in the world have gotten us exactly here. Building housing is great, but what does that mean for people who can’t afford it? There goes any chance of housing. They slam up these houses and apartments in the name of housing crisis, just to turn around and charge market rent. Okay great, so now the same people that are homeless are still that. Not to mention, Canada has the lumber we use to build said housing. With tariffs and threatening to annex Canada to the 51st state, do we really think they’re gonna let us have that for cheap to solve our housing crisis? NO. So then the cycle repeats. We really need to start saying fuck money and tear it all up and come up with a plan that benefits all human beings. Until then, we’ll just be poor AND houseless i guess.
The thing is: those ideas haven’t gotten us here, because *we haven’t done those ideas* in California lol.
And when you increase housing supply, *market rents decrease making housing more affordable*
You can look at actual cities that have built homes that have decreased rents:
https://www.texastribune.org/2025/01/22/austin-texas-rents-falling/
and Minneapolis:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna170857
“Fuck money and come up with a plan” is not an actual workable policy nor something that will build a broad coalition. I’m simply pointing out what we know works! And considering California voters rejected rent control in a referendum in 2024, this is the path forward
Landlords only control rentals, not purchases or mortgages. Most "landords" are managed by a property management company. Many apartment complexes are owned by investment groups, some who have property management teams within their investment portfolios. Many times the larger groups are able to bring rents down because they can "buy in bulk supply". They are also more able and willing to work with different Housing Agencies, typically government assisted. Perhaps the government needs to consider increasing the allowable income/asset of prospective tenants in order to accommodate the growing market of renters.
The bottom line is always the bottom line no matter where or what.
What if we got really radical and capped rent, per the area minimum wage, per bedroom/bathroom size, no more than 30% of income. It would need creative research for each state to know real numbers and a substantial team to implement those changes. I think cutting out private landlords altogether could definitely fix things. They could rent to family or sell to an agency.
1. There would be less incentive to build housing because both private landlords and the government would effectively just lose money. We know when new car come into the market, the old versions drops in price; the same ins true in housing!
2. Demand would spike. If rent is capped, the high demand would skyrocketed for newer places, but because there would a disincentive to build new housing. Thus shortages.
3. The government hasn’t shown any capacity to build housing well, at scale. In fact most of the government projects are even more expensive than private ones because the government suffers from the same problem; over regulation and bureaucracy
I’ve never understood the fear of developers. Considering that most developers outside of mega apartment buildings are small businesses with less than 10 people. Over 60% of developers who build houses, duplexes, granny flats etc, are small businesses that live in that community, often from immigrant backgrounds
56 empty homes per each houseless person…”
Get rid of Air B&B. I know a lot of people will jump on me for this, but these houses sit empty a lot and destroy neighborhood cohesion. Eliminate these and we'll have a lot more houses available.
Paula I could not agree more!! Additionally a lot of the Airbnb are owned by corps, LLC scooping them up essentially starting their own mini hotel chains while skirting the hotel taxes. It’s completely destroying neighborhoods
Thank you, Wendy. I hope Katie is taking note of this.
I saw a really cute airbnb on the south side of abilene, when I went out there to see my father before he passed. It was a cute little place that I stayed in for about five days in June 2021.
It was perfect too. Only 650 sq feet. Perfect. I don't know how many homes are in abilene that are small like that, but i'm sure there's many airbnbs that are that size and people can live in them.
I agree with you. A lot of these airbnbs can be freed up for people to live in, rent them out.
The very following year I went and stayed on the north side of abilene, which was a little bit more poor. I could not believe people were telling me that they were renting an apartment for only $500 a month. In abilene texas?
I asked the residents, does your place have running water? Do you have a toilet?Do you have a kitchen?
I was told yes to all three.
I was astonished.
I don't know if that's what people pay four a small 650 sq foot apartment fort worth or dallas or in houston, but it seems pretty reasonable to me.
I don't see why it can't be $800 a month in California for 1k sq feet.
I'm 1995 1996 my parents moved out of the trailer that they lived in and I stayed there. It was 950 sq feet. They own the trailer, and I only paid space rent. $350 a month!
I don't understand what happened. Where did we go in the last thirty five years?
As I see it, housing became a profit center instead of a place to live. It's greed again, which we can attribute to Reagan. He made greed acceptable and things have only gotten worse.
If I may put a slightly different prospective from Texas. I was rehabing Fanny Mae houses during and after the housing bust. Here in Dallas/Fort Worth all of those houses were getting bought up by rich people and companies to use as rent homes. First time buyers were pushed out. Houses sold the day they hit the market. The rent they charged wasn't enough to cover a regular mortgage. With in 3 years rent had doubled. When Toyota and other companies started moving from California to North Texas the people came with enough money to buy a very upscale house and 5 rent homes. New rent home owners started raising rent to California rates. Apartments jumped in on the rent increase. Pure greed. Now the housing rental cost exceeds 50% of the income for a family with 3-4 jobs. Forget saving and vacations and Healthcare and childcare is in a non licensed person's house that watches 5 or 6 kids. The owners of companies have us right were they want us.
Thank you for your experience in detailing how things worked in Texas. Unfortunately, that seems to be the way it works here in Florida. Greed is consuming every aspect of our economy and our country won’t last long.
Without the humility of men and women of faith who live by different standards we are doomed.
(l am an atheist who believes that l am my neighbors keeper and daily try to be a better human.)
It’s happened everywhere. Speculation needs to STOP!!! People need first crack at homes to buy not investors. They’ve created the shortage and bankrupting our country.
Congress needs to get off it's ass and start doing their job protecting the investments and infrastructure of Americans. Private Equity has been buying up the resources of our country for years, raising prices and laying off employees, raping us in the process, including homes, our water resources, all manner of businesses including nursing homes, hospitals, you name it. The top managers and CEOs are billionaires like Mitt Romney who has the gall to just recently complain about Elon Musk. CONGRESS DO YOUR JOB!!!
Thank you Katie for stating the facts about home ownership in California.
I live in Sun City Center, near Tampa and we have a similar problem, but not nearly like California.
What you have called to our attention is a problem we MUST respond. The time is now!!
King Trump has no interest in helping find solutions for ordinary Americans.
We must have folks like you to come up with solutions.
Thank you.
Larry Brown
Oh, you said it all right, king trump. And the other king. That nobody voted for.
Maybe if enough people from California would come to Texas we could finally flip this state blue! Way more affordable here. Of course lots of people here have trouble too and think we have it too high. Income ratios are probably the same but retirees come and can purchase a new home outright.
The problem is if our residents move we are vulnerable to big $ buying up everything for the republicon votes. We need to fix this here. But I can appreciate your point💙
Thank you, but coastal California has a climate like no other.
We can’t leave.
Katie, please revise and extend your examination to address corporate abuse. There should be no tax breaks for vacant properties
I am an elderly person dependent on the income from a rental property. My experience is that the system isn’t working for either renters or private owners. Having taxes pay for infrastructure for schools, roads, city planning and green spaces would help. A lot of the burden of home ownership revolves around hoas, special tax assessments, etc… try taxing billionaires, regulating banks and stopping insider trading in the congressional branch. Free up money for redesigning neighborhoods thoughtfully.
I would love to text the billionaires, but you know that they're going to find a loophole.To not pay those taxes. Fix the loophole.And maybe the billionaires will actually pay their fare in share taxes! The billionaires are always going to donate billions and billions of money, and as long as they continue to donate billions and billions of dollars, somewhere they're going to get tax right offs. I don't think it's right. I think it's unethical that the billionaires don't pay their fair share in taxes, I think they need to be punished greatly, I would love to be able to slap a big ole fine on the biggest billionaires on this nation. But they're going to find a way to get out of it, because money pays for everything, and it's not right.
- Another mess: Private Equity owning so many rental communities, while pushing prices up and services down
- We can mandate geothermal, solar, wind for any community projects, determining which suits each situation, as well as insulation, etc., to keep ownership costs down
Private equity owns less than 5% of housing lmfaooo
We pay too much in taxes. Fuel tax. Building permits need to be streamlined. Bullet train rethought. No end to the price hikes. State homeless workers is a taxpayer's give away job. No help to the people that need help. Ban lobiest. Make PG&E Lower rates and serve the public. Increase public transportation city to city. Free Wi-fi state wide. Flat income for tax. Californians can defend themselves without prosecution. Smash and grab perps from outta state go to the new prison in El Centro. Tents no buildings. This is a start
So how do we get around all the nay sayers here who are worried about their house values? The right wing here is opposed to helping anyone but them
The main issue is homes are being grabbed up by investors, a ton of them foreign. They are outbidding families by ridiculous amounts and driving up home prices, pushing families and first-time home owners out of the real estate market. About half the houses on my street are now owned by wealthy investors who rent the houses out for insane prices; 20 years ago the homes were all owner-occupied. My husband and I bought in our 20's, working entry-level corporate jobs. Those jobs today can barely pay rent in southern CA. Now, as children are grown and homeowners retire, they're selling and it's the real estate investors coming and buying because no one else can outbid them. Some houses sit empty for months at a time, waiting for renters to pay an outrageous rent price. Some houses are in disrepair. The wealthy owners don't care, it's just another home they're sitting on for long-term investment, not monthly rent payments. My house would sell right now for 5x what I paid for it in 2000, which sounds like an amazing investment for me, but the next generation won't be able to buy it unless I'm willing to sell to them for $300k+ less than what an investor will bid. California lawmakers need to force wealthy investors, especially foreign, out of the California real estate market. But they won't because they are also investors, AND they don't want to be seen as crazy, liberal anti-capitalists who are preventing aging homeowners or their adult children from selling their property for top-dollar to whoever wants to buy. The insane real estate prices are benefitting those who already own, who already have wealth. We all complain about the high housing costs, but this is what happens in an unchecked, capitalist market of supply and demand. Building more houses will not solve the problem because those houses will also get sold to wealthy investors. We know the real answers here, but as a society we're not willing to address them yet. We're all still believing in the American Dream our grandparents were sold, which doesn't exist any longer. Greed has led to an insane wealth imbalance and it will only get worse if we leave it unchecked. So we care about families or money?
35% of single family homes in California are owned by private equity firms!! Affordable housing is necessary, but the problem must be fixed by limiting private equity ownership. Expediting building permits and allowing builders to disregarding infrastructure issues will cause serious problems in the future.
Yes. Hear hear!!
Housing on res zoned lots must be a ministerial permit at NO COST
Inspections must be done and returned within 14 days.
Recoup costs by not having to provide homeless services ffs
Restrict investment co ownership to rental units, and to a limited % of those in every census zone (15%?)
KATIE, can we talk like adults here? The past two or so years were by far the worst. I sold my home and spent the next two years putting in offers that were consistently beat out by INVESTORS!!!!! As a result I lost my transfer of base year value!!! A triple threat happened during that time - prices exponentially increased, lack of housing coming up for sale, interest rates exploded. Now all seniors are facing leaving California. Is this what you all wanted? There should NOT be a 2-year window on our property taxes being taken from us!!!!!!!
You all?
You got a problem with my comment? Let’s go!
This platforms convo system is clunky. I can't find what you said or what I said back. So probably I did or you wouldn't come off like you have.
I hope you are successful, Katie Porter!