[quote=no_such_reality]I define affordable housing as pretty much anything sub-million. Not affordable as in low income. As for not having a high volume of sales, that is a peculiar SoCal thing, we have very high population and very low housing sales. When saying we need 7000 a month, something SD has never come close to, I’m talking to have the kind of fluidity in availability of housing that will keep from what you’re seeing happen.[/quote]
For a CA coastal county, I would define “affordable” listing inventory as priced under $400K. ALL CA counties have a “low volume of sales” irrespective of their populations. There is less mobility and deed-transfers (NOT one and the same thing) in CA than other states due to Props 13, 58 and 193.
Buyers looking for a principal residence in a particular price range who are purchasing with a mortgage don’t need “fluidity,” whatever the h@ll that is supposed to mean. They need to purchase an acceptable roof over their heads under the direction of a very competent agent/broker. ESPECIALLY in the current RE climate.
[quote=no_such_reality]I’m talking what kind of volume of listings and sales a county like SD needs, with 3 million inhabits and a million+ household units to not have what amounts to chronic scarcity. At the moment SD county has about 5400 listings. Less than 0.5% of the housing stock is for sale.[/quote]
SD has 7200+ current listings which are posted on the MLS (see my sdl link in a prev post). There are no doubt hundreds more which are NOT currently posted on the MLS.
[quote=no_such_reality]Again, as for Marin or SF county, most people residing in Marin, don’t make their living in Marin. As for SF, they’re having some real problems with traffic jams OUT of the city in the morning as the youthful workers working in silicon valley and living in the city.[/quote]
It doesn’t matter. The residents of these counties, if “worker bees” in a county which is not one of the three, will do a “reverse commute” to an adjacent county to work. All three of these counties have large populations of retirees (yes, even SF). Those “youthful” commuters from SF to Silicon Valley can take the Caltrain instead of the (congested) US-101/I-280 to dozens of major SV firms (almost door-to-door in many cases).
[quote=no_such_reality]As for not building, that would be interesting. But, I really doubt the population will stop coming. In fact, I think not building and not providing adequate housing will actually have the opposite effect that you desire, actually increasing the amount of low and poverty level inhabits. They’re use to living in substandard conditions where-as mid-high level incomes know they can have more.[/quote]
This (incoming) “population” can and will continue to come. They’re welcome to buy one of the 7200+ properties currently listed on the local MLS or rent. If it gets down to 3600, 2400 or 1500 or less in the future (like what happened in those MLS’s in the Silicon Valley) they can buy one of those or rent.
I don’t agree that having a moratorium on building will create poverty in SD. It will actually eventually have the effect of enhancing current property values. We don’t have very many houses with “substandard” living conditions here, due to stricter building codes and “rental-habitability laws” than other states. It’s not that kind of a city. In addition, SD has never had any “public housing projects.” There really is little, if any, actual “blight” in SD, compared to other US cities. These “low-income and poverty-level inhabitants” you speak of are already here. Most of them have section 8 and other housing program vouchers and have resided in their current rentals for over ten years. They’re doing fine and aren’t going anywhere. They’re also beginning to occupy CA’s (now “busted”) exurbs to a MUCH GREATER DEGREE than its coastal cities.
Whether or not any new construction tracts continue to be released, “mid-high-level-income” incoming buyers (whatever that is supposed to mean) will continue to buy whatever they can afford in SD Co. If mortgage interest rates go up substantially, they will buy much less (if they want to live closer to work in SD County). If they think they “have to have more,” they will buy in another county (such as in Temecula and surrounds) and commute to their jobs in SD County.
