A year or so ago they surveyed the homeless in San Diego. Everyone assumed that the homeless population is largely from out of state, coming to SD to be warm while homeless. What they found was the complete opposite.
Most of the homeless do not have a drug problem or only started taking drugs after becoming homeless. Most homeless people were employed full time for the 12 months before they became homeless. Most homeless people in San Diego were born there and watched as the relentless march of 5-10% increases (California state maximums) slowly pushed them into homelessness.
The fear of a 30% rent hike has motivated several of my big decisions, and it happened once (luckily at a time where I could recover). But ya know, compounding interest - 5% every year is still exponential. Everyone’s pretty sure the world’s ending anyway.
Healthy markets also create predictability by constraining prices.
We’d have a healthy housing market if we stopped actively suppressing new housing construction.
We make some projects impossible and every project harder than it needs to be when it comes to constructing new housing. The government’s thumb is constantly pressing, pressing, pressing on the scale to keep supply lower than natural.
Here’s the thing, it provides at least some sort of predictability for tenant.
Nothing worse than settling into a place and getting booted because rent goes up 20% or 30%.
This will largely guarantee that rent goes up by 5% every year, but it will limit crazy jumps.
A year or so ago they surveyed the homeless in San Diego. Everyone assumed that the homeless population is largely from out of state, coming to SD to be warm while homeless. What they found was the complete opposite.
Most of the homeless do not have a drug problem or only started taking drugs after becoming homeless. Most homeless people were employed full time for the 12 months before they became homeless. Most homeless people in San Diego were born there and watched as the relentless march of 5-10% increases (California state maximums) slowly pushed them into homelessness.
Banal evil, is still evil.
The fear of a 30% rent hike has motivated several of my big decisions, and it happened once (luckily at a time where I could recover). But ya know, compounding interest - 5% every year is still exponential. Everyone’s pretty sure the world’s ending anyway.
Healthy markets also create predictability by constraining prices.
We’d have a healthy housing market if we stopped actively suppressing new housing construction.
We make some projects impossible and every project harder than it needs to be when it comes to constructing new housing. The government’s thumb is constantly pressing, pressing, pressing on the scale to keep supply lower than natural.