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New Nobody ever said late-stage capitalism would be pretty
Plutocrats are gobbling up residential properties, denying them to potential buyers, turning them into rentals.

The sordid story here .

This sort of thing is going to push the dispossessed further into fascism, which will suit the rentier class just fine until it doesn’t.
New There's more to that.
A few years ago, my son lived in community that was like the one described. People that rent a house and people that own a house have different behaviors in the neighborhood. To him, the neighborhood was going downhill as the number of rental houses increased.

Anyway, it was one of the reasons he moved on.
Alex

"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."

-- Isaac Asimov
New Renters
About thirty years and change ago, there was an impromptu “block party”—two blocks, actually, in the tony Oakland neighborhood in which I then lived. A younger couple chatted me up, and early on asked “how long have you lived in the neighborhood?” “Oh,” I replied carelessly, “it’s been a dozen years since I first rented the place.” They literally turned away without another word and went to talk to real people.

By way of historical context, that district of Oakland was what Bay Area writer Alice Kahn had in mind—yes, really—when she coined the term “yuppie” in a local alt-weekly in 1983 (The LA Times picked it up the following year, during the Hart campaign, and it went viral).

Home prices in the Rockridge were already stratospheric when I was squeezed out in 1993; at present they’re closer to the heliopause. Hell, I couldn’t afford The Crumbling Manse™ at today’s tariff,* and although the area has been “gentrifying,” it’s still fairly gritty measured against the sedate and sylvan streets of my old stomping grounds. We were, in 1999, part of the early third-wave of gentrification of what had formerly been a rough and run-down precinct: first the Chinese, than the gays, then the yuppies, although we had sort of aged out of that demographic by then. When the Food Hole opened its doors down the street eight years later, this both validated and accelerated the trend, but although a couple of thousand units of high-end housing have recently opened/will shortly open within a quarter mile of here, they are all high-density and overwhelmingly rental, aimed at the tech spillage from San Francisco.

cordially,

*Oakland’s evil reputation served as a brake on the rise in home prices so that, just as my personal finances had stabilized to the point at which I could contemplate joining the landed gentry, this place was (barely) within reach.
New Disclaimer: I haven't read the linked article
I'm seeing more and more articles "exposing" this "fact". But according to an apparently pretty rigorous study (which I saw the abstract and some of the charts) while this is happening, it's a small enough volume that it's not the primary problem with housing.

So what is the primary problem? Zoning laws and NIMBYism that makes it nearly impossible to build multi-unit housing in vast swaths of most cities. The investors are having an impact on the margins, but when there are 50 buyers for every listing the margins aren't where we should be looking for changes first.

[edit] tyop
--

Drew
Expand Edited by drook Dec. 16, 2021, 10:08:25 AM EST
New Also HOAs
They're bullshit, and shouldn't be legal.

TBH I find it a bit weird that in The Land Of The Free, people seem pretty keen to let other people say how they should keep their lawn.
New Oh, you misunderstand
HOAs exist so people can tell others how to keep their lawns.
--

Drew
New I've been a member
In those days it was a matter of we all had the same townhouses. If anybody painted any townhouse differently it would look like s*** and nock 10 grand off our home value. I understand that type of homeowners association.

I am currently in the different situation. I am a member of a property owner group. This means that I kick in for whatever cost to keep the beach access road accessible and for the airport to keep running. They don't get to tell me what to do with my house though.
Expand Edited by crazy Dec. 16, 2021, 01:58:27 PM EST
     Nobody ever said late-stage capitalism would be pretty - (rcareaga) - (6)
         There's more to that. - (a6l6e6x) - (1)
             Renters - (rcareaga)
         Disclaimer: I haven't read the linked article - (drook) - (3)
             Also HOAs - (pwhysall) - (2)
                 Oh, you misunderstand - (drook) - (1)
                     I've been a member - (crazy)

A load of old toss.
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