patrick.net

astrid, on the ground, there's scarcely any differences in the underlying framework of the so-called anglo-american welfare states. the english speaking systems tend to copy and borrow from each other enormously, and thus have quite a lot of de facto harmonisation without fiat. they are almost all at the bottom of any proposed taxonomy of welfare states.

there are a few freakish differences, such as the really high incarceration rates in the US, an order of magnitude higher than any comparable country. healthcare has not been 'socialised' to anywhere near the extent of most other OECD countries.

in that spirit of agreement, in fact, house price setting has tended to remain in the open market in many countries as a convention, where many other things have been regulated in some way. i'm amazed in fact that it remains so given the opportunities for corruption in property deals and the disenfranchisement of so many in booms and busts. the legal arrangements are still quite feudal, and in fact stem from feudal understandings and arrangements.

when you think about it, just about every aspect of housing is strongly regulated by govt EXCEPT the price -- building codes and standards, land zoning and permitted uses, block sizes and subdivision, setbacks, appearance to the street, permitted design features, water, sewage and electricity connections, property taxes, council rates, allowable modifications to buildings, FSRs, maximum heights, etc, etc. pricing has conveniently been about the only thing left out of the basket. why is that, do you think?

on the question of 'what people want', i'm not telling them what they want, it's been found in studies. if someone could buy their own place and have control over it instead of renting, at the same price, all else being equal, which do you think they would choose? why else all this sturm und drung over housing prices in society?

here is a survey on trust, at least:

The 2002-03 Wellbeing and Security Survey's author Dr Philip Hughes said levels of trust had been falling across the community for several years.

Dr Hughes said the lowest levels of trust were found among those in public housing and the second lowest was among those renting privately.

"Those people who feel more vulnerable in society are more cautious, along with those people who feel more vulnerable and those people who have lower levels of health and lower levels of financial independence and education," he said.

It's a matter of trust: but we don't even like our neighbours

in closing, interestingly, many areas in both canada and the US have remained quite affordable compared to other countries which have experienced an unremitting boom. so there has been a good de facto social settlement there concerning housing for a long time, which is only now starting to be dismantled. and at least there are options to remain in your own country and still purchase affordably -- assuming you are mobile, are happy to leave extended family, move to a strange state, and can find a reasonable job there...

It is always about where that house is, where that land is.

location, location, location... ;)

not just speculation, but ascribed land value -- agreed....

Joe,

I'm glad you gave my idea some thought, I'm never completely sure if I'm just sprouting gibberish or actually saying something that makes sense. I've lived in cheap apartments all my life, usually in middle class communities where most kids had houses, so I know what you mean about feeling oppressed.

If it came down to being unhappy in a small LA apartment or being happy in a comfortable middle class house, I would certainly recommend the latter. I hope there's a potential third way solution with a nice rental.

I think a lot of the stigma of renting is going away, with many smart middle and upper middle class people doing it as an economically sane solution. SQT and Randy both have extremely successful kids, who don't seem to suffer any stigma as rental kids. I also think the stigma that you're talking about might be more obvious amongst the lower middle. I got most of my harassment amongst the economic backwaters of Oklahoma. Once my parents moved to the fairly prosperous Montgomery County, MD, it just became a non-issue.

I think the fact that your wife is there for your kids fulltime will do them much more good long term than giving them a McMansion. I really observe that with my parents' old neighbors in their upper middle class subdivision. The kids with nice, full time moms behaved beautifully and did well in school. The kids whose parents both worked and didn't closely supervise their kids ran wild.

As for the harassment issue, I agree that magnet schools or private schools might be the solution. I went to a magnet program in high school and I never got harassed about where I lived, how I was dressed, or my last name. I think the best solution to the problem of kids getting picked upon is to avoid it altogether. Getting bullied or bullying based on how much one's parent makes is idiotic.

There's not much you can do about those bitter bagholder parents. But if you want to send your kids to private school, it might not matter. These parents may soon be in no position to pay for private school.

i've got a post awating moderation, and it doesn't even have the word 'social-ism' in it :(

in the meantime, here's something that suggests home ownership might be broadly valued:

Last February the sirens howled in Hollywood as the LAPD rushed reinforcements to the 5600 block of La Mirada Avenue. While a police captain barked orders through a bullhorn, an angry crowd of 3000 people shouted back expletives. A passerby might have mistaken the confrontation for a major movie shoot, or perhaps the beginning of the next great L.A. riot.

In fact, as LAPD Captain Michael Downing later told the press: "You had some very desperate people who had a mob mentality. It was as if people were trying to get the last piece of bread."

The bread-riot allusion was apt, although the crowd was in fact clamoring for the last crumbs of affordable housing in a city where rents and mortgages have been soaring through the stratosphere. At stake were 56 unfinished apartments being built by a non-profit agency. The developers had expected a turnout of, at most, several hundred. When thousands of desperate applicants showed up instead, the scene quickly turned ugly and the police intervened.

A few weekends after this tense confrontation in Hollywood, another anxious mob -- this time composed of more affluent home-seekers -- queued up for hours for an opportunity to make outrageous bids on a single, run-down house with a cracked foundation in a nearby suburb renowned for its good schools. "The teeming crowd," wrote Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez, "was no surprise given the latest evidence that California's public schools are dropout factories."

[more...]

ZNet | Economy | Riotous Real Estate

oh well, that's 2 posts awaiting moderation :(

must finish my letter ;)

DS,

Liberalizing home ownership is not good for most poor people, who are more likely to be economically marginal and more likely to face period unemployment.

As for cheaper land prices, I think we'll have to wait for the free market to make that correction. Given that California can't even end the miserable Prop 13, I think there will never be the political will to restrict land prices. Furthermore, while there are no constitutional support for government subsidies for the poor, there are a substantial body of law on when and what condition government can appropriate rights from individuals.

Finally, I just don't see why giving poor people homes at some cost to society is necessarily a good thing for society. Manhattan and SF both have a fairly low home owner percentage but are quite wealthy. There are pretty high home ownership rates in the middle portion of the US but there's not much innovation and wealth creation happening there.

DS,

BTW, I happen to think a society that goes too far in decadent and luxurious consumption is a sign of the end times. Not sure if there's much we can do about it though, other than burning it down and starting all over again. Maybe we can do better this time.

newsfreak Says:
One example would be the recent move by Warren Buffett to donate to the Gates Foundation—Buffett admitted that private monies can admit and correct mistakes faster than a government agancy when attempting to address the inequities of health, education, and poverty in the world.

that's very true -- govts are scared witless abot not being re-elected, so are very cautious, never want to be seen to be wrong, and employ a lot of spin doctors on high salaries as a result. they may even be proposing doing the 'right' thing, but fear a voter backlash. and they are constantly polling public opinion. a foundation has no such fears.

further, foundations are freer to operate across jurisdictions and national borders, whereas govts only want to keep their constituencies happy. hence bob geldof can do more than any one govt for world hunger. or bill gates and warren buffett.

As for cheaper land prices, I think we’ll have to wait for the free market to make that correction.

i tihnk it will correct somewhat. but govt owned lands can be more or less given as a gift to the people to build affordable housing on, kept low with price covenants and means tests -- that's one of my policy proposals. along with developer levies exacted on private sector developments.

DS,

DS, if they take up your suggestions, please tell them to study well from California and Oregon. There's a lot of pitfalls to government sponsored housing, and it'll be not to repeat the mistakes (incredibly difficult to correct mistakes, due to the vested interests once the process starts) Americans have already made.

Also keep in mind that of the presence of the "gold collar" people who work blue collar jobs but consume luxury goods. It's not just the rich who are hyper-consuming. A lot of working class and middle class families are also spending like there's no tomorrow, often taking out HELOCs to finance their lifestyle.

yes - rising interest rates, increased fuel prices, saturated housing market and price 'overshoot', economic uncertainty in general, widespread unemployment, general inflation -- will all reduce housing prices...

most of the above are occurring at present. i believe the housing boom can cause general inflation, so it is a little self-cooling that way, but it's painful, as people have to agitate for higher wages. the 'oil price shock' was not the people's fault...

DS,

From my own subjective view, the nicest thing would be the creation of nice, mix income public housing similar to those in Singapore. Nothing would be better than to turn people's attention towards things that could make a society better, like better health, education, and productivity. The housing bubble has been an orgy of greedy, fear, and keeping up with the Joneses. However, the political system and society in the US do not support it.

DS,

Au contaire, the oil shock is very much an American production. Unlike much of Western Europe and Japan, we as a collective have neglected the inevitable depletion of oil by living in big houses, driving big SUVs, and relying heavily on fossil fuel. There's also the war in Iraq.

However, how much are you Aussies hurting from oil prices? I assume the hurt is a lot more obvious in the US because our currency has devalued so much and we have been sucking on the teat of cheap oil in a much greater way than any other developed economy.

newsfreak,

I'm afraid I'm a bit vague with the phrasing, I meant the political system and society does not support public housing and government land grants to home owners (though BLM sure give out a lot of usage rights, but I guess it only applies to corporations).

DS,

Liberalizing home ownership is not good for most poor people, who are more likely to be economically marginal and more likely to face period unemployment.

hence the conception of a 'credit' system. look, poor people here just occupy cheap public housing on peppercorn rents for decades anyway, so it's the same outcome. the housing dept ended up selling a lot of their stock to the inhabitants because they looked after them better if they owned them themselves, for the same reason -- they value owning their own place. i know of multiple generations living in public housing.

basically, the state govt is your very tolerant mortgagee.

clearly, it's protected and subsidised ownership, we're not throwing them to the mercy of the banks with foreclosures, huge mortgages, etc. and i believe the same treatment should be extended to low and middle income earners. isn't that why you guys have Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the first place? I've read more policy words about assisting people into home ownership from US sources than anywhere...

the US, CA and OR are not the only places who have public housing and affordable housing initiatives -- it's worldwide...

DS,

That policy has "helped" so many people that the subsidy effect kicked in and pushed up the house prices. End result, the old owners, the realtor industry, and the mortgage brokers take away most of the tax payer's largess.

True public housing is a different matter, but so far your plan just sounds like another subsidy scheme that will push up the house prices and provide little long term relief for the poor.

newsfreak,

I saw some pretty overgrazed BLM land this summer...and way too many suicidal jackrabbits. ;)

Different Sean Says:

> i don’t think the ‘poor’ and working class are by
> definition poor savers and poor budgeters, they
> just have less to bring to the labour market than
> others, and therefore remain trampled at the
> bottom of the heap.

There are two reasons why people in America are poor:

1. They are Lazy
2. They are Stupid

Most poor people are both Lazy and Stupid (so are most people that end up filing BK)…

newsfreak,

I'd say that the poor also need access to free or cheap preventative care, childcare, and decent K-12 schooling. Working in meatgrinders like Wal-mart and McD's nowadays is a deadend of poverty and despair. The working class jobs nowadays aren't enough to raise a family.

True public housing is a different matter, but so far your plan just sounds like another subsidy scheme that will push up the house prices and provide little long term relief for the poor.

not at all. the plan is very deliberately designed at every step to contain prices. first, control the price of govt owned land on release -- that 's the big speculation item. control construction prices and selling prices. and, finally, put long-term price covenants on the property and stipulations of owner-occupying or renting as needs be.

another approach is for the govt to retain freehold title on the land and let the land be used as leasehold with the understanding it's for affordable housing, similarly controlling prices. if you control prices, you control prices. that's how it's done.

there's a huge ex-church owned area near me called the glebe which was made public with the stipulation that it be for public affordable housing, and that's what it's been ever since.

the principal thing is to bring down land speculation.

astrid, you're something of a faux progressive.... or a devil's advocate... i've never seen a progressive knocking every initiative and arguing that things that will work won't work and claiming that a dysfunctional market is the best possible thing... you're not ann coulter in disguise are you?

I'd say a little from column A and a little from column B. However, any society that rewards laziness is likely to see more lazy people in the future.

sybrib Says:

> The USA is becoming like so many other places,
> children of the elite families are overrepresented
> in the elite universities. Whoever said life is fair?

The USA is becoming MORE like most countries in that the elite families control more of the wealth, but LESS of the children are going to elite universities.

In the 1950’s when my parents started (but didn’t finish) college they said that the kids who had Dad’s in the Bohemian Club the PU Club (or even the Olympic Club) could get in to Cal or Stanford even with a poor High School academic record.

In the 1980’s when I was in college it was much harder for kids from elite families to get in to Cal and Stanford and it was almost impossible without a good academic record (or a huge donation).

Today it is almost impossible for all but the small number of the most elite families to pull strings and get their kids in to Cal, Stanford or other elite universities without a massive (seven figure and up) donation that again a very small number of families will write a million dollar check to get a kid in to a good school…

Glen (in a good post) Says:

> A common situation is that one of the kids will attempt
> to buy out the others. However, very few of them can
> afford to do so in today’s market. Imagine a typical
> scenario: mom and dad own a $750K house and have
> 3 kids. The parents die leaving the house (paid off)
> and $150K of other assets. One of the kids decides they
> want the house so they can keep the parents’ low tax basis.

Where I grew up on the Peninsula (with the average home price around $4mm) and where I live now in Presidio Heights (with an average home price that might even be higher) it will be tough for most kids to buy out their siblings no mater how much they want the low tax basis…

As far as dropping home prices go it looks like San Mateo will soon have a couple low comps since I have convinced my parents that we have seen the “top of the market” and it is time to (quickly) sell a couple crappy little rentals that they bought in the 70’s for under $50K each for over a million each (while they still can)… Prices in San Mateo seem to be dropping fast with current “asking” prices more than $100K less that the “selling” prices of similar homes last fall.

As I have said in the past it will be interesting to see how people react when they see a couple years of home prices dropping by $10K a month. People act differently when numbers are bigger (and the ARM resets and sales by long time landlords will only help to drive prices lower faster)…

DS,

I'm not ann coulter in disguise. I do consider myself a liberal and a progressive. However, I am indeed not your typical "liberal" or "progressive". I think governments serve a vital function in society and are capable of much good. But I don't believe problems can be solved just by throwing money at problems, and I am weary of too much government intervention because I've seen law of unintended consequences work a little too often.

As I said, people have free will and there are limits to any society's resources. It's best to focus the resources in a manner that encourage good behavior. Social engineering is a dangerous thing, and has a habit of coming back to bite society on its ass.

There are two reasons why people in America are poor:

1. They are Lazy
2. They are Stupid

"god must have loved the common people, because he made so many of them."

so what if they're stupid? everyone is stupid. middle class people are stupid for speculating in google and the nasdaq. upper class people are stupid for needing esteem markers. so what?

lots of inheritance kids are lazy and stupid. lots of successful business people are lazy, they leverage other people's time.

people generally aren't allowed to choose their intelligence genes before birth... and sometimes it may because they've had mental illness, or couldn't pay a $100,000 medical bill due to unexpected illness and no insurance...

so people are stupid. so what? they still have basic human rights. no more or less than you.

see john rawls on the 'original position' and 'justice as fairness':
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_as_Fairness

is this just more US fatalism and disregard for the plight of others? devil take the hindmost, because i got mine? is that how you want to be treated if you ever have a setback?

But I don’t believe problems can be solved just by throwing money at problems, and I am weary of too much government intervention because I’ve seen law of unintended consequences work a little too often.

this is just silly. i'm proposing govts don't throw money, rather that they control expenses and curb expenditure using covenants and legislation.

and that they cut out fat developer profits (25-30%) by doing PPP developments of their own on govt owned land. that's the third arm of reducing costs.

it's all been done before, it's just that today's market-obsessed govts have forgotten about it.

i could talk forever about unintended consequences and so on, but you have to look at each project on its merits. the govt here just did a PPP tolled roadway that was completely disastrous because they're idiots -- they basically sold the road to a consortium. a child could've told them it wasn't going to work -- and i couldn't make it to a focus group i was invited to in advance to tell them...

DS,

Nobody here is advocating depriving poor people of their rights. However, they, as taxpayers, may wish the divert their tax dollars elsewhere.

As for objectively lazy and stupid people. Before the twentieth century, society had a way of clearing them out of the system. Maybe this society should also get out of the way.

enough! govt lobbying awaits...

and my two posts awaiting moderation -- can someone free them?

DS,

A well organized government housing scheme, with the proper restrictions and oversight, might do very well. I'm more dubious about the government as a mortgage holder. Wouldn't housing estates that evolve into pseudo-property be treated like property by the renters?

astrid Says:

> Working in meatgrinders like Wal-mart and McD’s
> nowadays is a deadend of poverty and despair.
> The working class jobs nowadays aren’t enough
> to raise a family.

You will learn a lot working at Wal-Mart and/or McDonalds just like I learned a lot getting up every morning to do my paper route as a kid and when I got a little older getting up early to caddy.

Working at McDonalds or as a stock clerk (or having a paper route or hauling golf clubs) NEVER paid enough to raise a family. We just seem to have more stupid people today trying to do it…

As for objectively lazy and stupid people. Before the twentieth century, society had a way of clearing them out of the system. Maybe this society should also get out of the way.

that's very bloody progressive. see what i mean? completely anti-progressive by any conceivable measure. you have no idea of the history of all that -- what did they do to lazya nd stupid people exactly? england used to deport stupid and lazy people to america, and when they lost that, to australia. their only sin was being born during a population boom during the agricultural revolution and then finding there was no work for them as adults, so they resorted to nicking things in desperation...

i'm afraid all are equally righted under the law, and welfare is there for a reason -- re-check the john rawls link above on 'the original position'...

let's go all the way back to small scale hunter gatherer societies where everyone was pretty well uniformly intelligent and all survived and no-one was branded stupid...

DS,

I've read your comments (but can't free them). I do agree with your observations. However, as I've mentioned before, what the "people" want in much of the states is to keep the RE prices as high as possible. The political process will not lead to lower overall prices. We will have much better luck waiting it out via the free market.

FAB,

My mom worked many years as a waitress and did tons of other near minimum wage jobs. It is possible to barely support a small family on two minimum wage jobs in the middle of the country. Definitely not the case in pricier areas though. My mom got a summer job at Costco one summer. Even though they paid a starting wage of $10/hr and pretty good benefits, a lot of her co-workers were working two jobs and stacking on overtime just to stay above water. A lot of these people were forced to live an hour from work and they end up sleeping like 5 hours a day and never seeing their kids.

yeah, what the existing holders want is to keep RE prices high. the next generation wants to get them back down to something sensible.

govts are too afraid to do anything, and have always left it in the open market so they can't get the blame for anything.

i'm offering them an out position of developing 'affordable housing' for the masses but saying they are leaving the existing market arrangements alone... altho a few people will complain their place is losing value cos of the govt. sometimes govts have to show some outright leadership, preferably of the right sort...

A well organized government housing scheme, with the proper restrictions and oversight, might do very well. I’m more dubious about the government as a mortgage holder. Wouldn’t housing estates that evolve into pseudo-property be treated like property by the renters?

doesn't freddie mac or fannie mae effectively hold mortgages? regardless, it's just a hypothetical. these would be low-priced places, so not too much downside for any lender OR borrower. currently, the state govt acts as landlord to a bunch of pretty wild tenants, and wears the loss...

e.g. the bridge housing people would have some suggestions for obtaining finance...

we have to be careful to distinguish between low-middle income earners trying to get a foot on the ladder vs traditional public housing tenants -- remember a lot of low-middle income earners could easily handle a $150K mortgage, it's the $500K mortgage they can't do...

Someone wrote:

> But I don’t believe problems can be solved just by throwing
> money at problems, and I am weary of too much government
> intervention because I’ve seen law of unintended consequences
> work a little too often.

Different Sean Says:

> this is just silly. i’m proposing govts don’t throw money, rather
> that they control expenses and curb expenditure using
> covenants and legislation.

I can tell that Different Sean Does not does not live in San Francisco…

My cost for renovation of a SF single family home = $26,000
Government cost for renovation of SF apartment unit = $220,000

Recent cost for a private developer to build 350 units = $73,000/unit
Recent cost for the new North Beach 341 units = $316,000/unit

P.S. the private developer cost per unit includes the cost of the land while the government project does not….

hmm, we'll edumicate you eventually, astrid -- might start you on the communist manifesto... :P

DS,

It depends on how much you think you can change people and engineer society. However, if your definition of progressivism means supporting a solution that leads to more and more people relying on government subsidy, then I am not your kind of progressive.

DS,

Sorry, read it already, and read tons of Mao's writing too. You'll have better luck with me if you quote from the Labor movement.

Economic rights and legal rights are different things. You've confuse the two when you talk about economic rights for the poor in response to my comment that the poor have only legal rights. I personally think all rights are mallable according to the society's resources, but I know others will disagree with me.

yeah, you keep saying that FAB, altho the govt here regularly renovates and constructs public housing cheaply.

you recently claimed it cost Willie Brown $250 M to renovate 100 apartments in SF in an existing building -- that's $2.5 M an apartment! do you expect me to believe that it cost $2.5 M to renovate each simple little apartment in a public housing project with new carpet, paint and some light switches? you can source your claims from now on...

absolutely the govt project excludes the cost of land -- that's the beauty of the whole thing. the govt would partner with a responsible construction firm to do the work in a PPP, but cut out the fat 25-30% developer's profit -- i'm sick of seeing billionaire developers driving mercedes maybachs off my back... just pay honest workers for an honest day's work...

the land is owned by govt, and gifted to the people at a nominal cost. they may even exercise eminent domain over a few people if they like the look of an area...

did i mention real estate agents and apartment brokers wold be excluded from the deal as well? sorry about that...

I wrote:

> There are two reasons why people in America are poor:
> 1. They are Lazy
> 2. They are Stupid

Then Different Sean Says:

> what if they couldn’t pay a $100,000 medical bill due to
> unexpected illness and no insurance…

It is stupid not to have health insurance (I don’t think that even Different Sean can argue that it is “Smart” to be uninsured)…

Then astrid wrote:

> My mom worked many years as a waitress and did tons of
> other near minimum wage jobs. It is possible to barely
> support a small family on two minimum wage jobs in the
> middle of the country.

Not to give astrid’s mom a hard time (since it sounds like she was not lazy), but it is not smart to have kids when the only income is coming in is from near minimum wage jobs…