[quote=bearishgurl][quote=CA renter]Absolutely, there are much more affordable houses, even for poor people, in other areas. But what about the working poor right here in San Diego? Unless we want to pay secretaries, clerks, gardeners, maids, cashiers, auto mechanics, etc. $30, $40, $50+/hr, we need to have affordable housing here, too.[/quote]
CAR, if you mean affordable rental housing, we have that here in SD. We have Section 8 vouchers (long waiting list) as well as many units adjusted to the tenants income thru the County Housing Authority and other assistance programs.
We also have most or all of an entire high rise (UR, correct me if I’m wrong on this) near dtn’s East Village with rents adjusted to tenant’s income. Most of these tenants are dtn workers in all of the occupations you listed.
SDR is correct in that if a tenant cannot afford coastal rents, then they should seek lower rents in East County (quite a bit lower in dtn El Cajon and Lakeside), a lesser-expensive county or state or even Tijuana (and many DO live in TJ and work in SD). A $400K house, even if located in Lemon Grove or Paradise Hills, is NOT a “starter home.” The same size/quality of home cost $70-$80K in parts of OK. If a worker doesn’t have the budget to live on the coast, they can’t live there.
Many years ago, when I had my rental units near NAVSTA 32nd St, it never ceased to amaze me that Navy spouses would move here from rural MO with no HS Diploma/GED and whine about the $625 rent I was asking (for a 2/1.5/1 car gar) and the ‘hood and then tour their military housing alternatives (they weren’t remodeled back then) and complain about those units/’hood and come back and rent from me (while on a waiting list for a presumably “better” mil housing complex). Their sponsors were E3’s/E4’s and these young women were SO PICKY yet had NO education and NO job skills to rent anything better for themselves. ALL wanted to live on the “coast,” lol. (This was long before exorbitant housing allowances were paid to married servicemen.)[/quote]
Yes, people can rent. OTOH, I strongly disagree with giving Prop 13 protection to landlords. They will claim that this benefits the renters, and in some cases, it does (long-time owners who value good tenants and don’t raise the rent to market rates). However, most LLs charge market rent if they can get it, so the Prop 13 protection is acutally padding their profits, not “keeping people from being taxed out of their homes.” IMHO, if they want Prop 13 protection, they should have to agree to rent control, where the rent increases are tied to property tax increases.
The application of Prop 13 protection to “investment” properties is one of the main reasons we have such a disproportionally low rate of owner-occupied housing in CA.
If it were up to me, we’d take away all “incentives” to invest in residential RE. That way, prices would be low enough that more people could afford to buy their own homes.
