Love this article in today’s NY Times. For the lazy: The article makes the case that America doesn’t have boomtowns anymore, because the cities with the most economic opportunity have put in place land0use restrictions that keep housing prices very high, blocking new workers from coming in. Now, as a developer with a growing property … Continue reading “Growth and land-use”
Category: City government
Small-scale, in-fill development blues
Everyone should read this article in today’s NY Times, which goes into great depth about the problems associated with in-fill development in coastal CA. My experience with the ground-up deal we just completed was similar. No lawsuits, but it did take nearly a year to get permits to add four units to an existing duplex, … Continue reading “Small-scale, in-fill development blues”
Dealing with vacant lots
Yesterday, Curbed described Long Beach’s attempt to beautify the city by placing a $55 annual surcharge on vacant lots. The argument is that the fee will be used to pay for monitoring these lots, which can be magnets for blight and misbehavior. This fee does not go anywhere near far enough. At a time when … Continue reading “Dealing with vacant lots”
Preservation or affordability on Sunset?
Curbed LA has a story today about the possibility that the city will deem the Hollywood Reporter building on Sunset a Historic Cultural Monument and thereby prevent a developer from moving forward with plans to build ~300 hotel rooms, ~190 condos and and ~700 apartments on the site. I appreciate interesting architecture. But I think the … Continue reading “Preservation or affordability on Sunset?”
People are moving again
Bloomberg is out today with an article confirming that people are, once again, moving around the country. This is a big deal for the real estate business. The Great Recession essentially froze people in place, because they couldn’t sell their (underwater) homes and had little confidence in finding work in other cities. This was really … Continue reading “People are moving again”
Responses to increasing rents
Here’s how housing works in LA: Lots of people want to come here because it’s beautiful and there is economic opportunity The population increases Insanely restrictive zoning prevents developers from building enough housing to accommodate population growth Responding to pressure from tenants, the city controls rents on most units (via the RSO) New-comers and residents … Continue reading “Responses to increasing rents”
Why I’m voting against Measure S and you should, too
If you’ve been driving around LA for the past few months, you’ve seen tons of “Yes on S” advertising. Want to take a moment today to explain why I think Measure S is: Bad for the city; but Great for me Before getting into the argument, let’s review what Measure S actually is. Among other … Continue reading “Why I’m voting against Measure S and you should, too”
Zoning and homelessness
Regular readers know homeless is a major interest / concern of mine. After all, our business model ends up raising rents and that unavoidably impacts housing affordability and, hence, homelessness. So it is with great interest that I am following the debate between LA County and Gov. Brown regarding whether or not the homeless situation … Continue reading “Zoning and homelessness”
How do you make money flipping land?
For today’s post, I answered another Quora question: How do you make money flipping land? It’s not a very detailed question, but it raises some interesting issues around price volatility, holdings costs, and regulatory delays. Click here to read the whole answer. Meanwhile: I’m taking the boys up to Yosemite for the holiday weekend. Hope … Continue reading “How do you make money flipping land?”
How to get more affordable housing for free
Further to my last post, here’s a pretty bad idea being proposed to help with the homelessness problem in LA. To lazy to click? Basically, two council-members are proposing a ballot initiative to increase various fees paid by developers to pay for bond which would pay for $1Bn worth of housing for the homeless. Sounds like … Continue reading “How to get more affordable housing for free”