Matthew Neman

[Matthew Neman @mattneman]

@otter401 @JMGregorchuk reasonable outlook but I don’t think we’d be seeing this deal if it was such a sure thing. If they takes this deal moderate Californians will continue playing whack-a-mole. Tax them, not me is at the heart of the DSA’s playbook.

[Matthew Neman @mattneman]

@otter401 @JMGregorchuk HJTA also reverts the threshold for special taxes back to a supermajority, arguably much more important than capping transfer taxes. I hope they don’t accept this deal.

[Matthew Neman @mattneman]

@mnolangray yet new housing isn’t being built

[Monica Rodriguez @LadyMRod]

So you gotta ask, why hasn’t she done any of this over the last 6 years? 🤨

[Sam Yebri @samyebri]

Hot off the press, check out @thrive_la’s common-sense guide for strategic, pragmatic voting in Los Angeles primary elections. Visit https://t.co/BkWjOSuGgI for your personalized ThriveLA voter guide.

[Justin Gordon @Justin_G0rd0n]

Moderate voters and leaders like Traci Park were against ULA from the start. Then there are others like Nithya who were for it before they were against it. But worst of all are the ppl like Traci’s opponent, Faizah Malik, who wrote ULA and lie to our faces about its effects.

[Crémieux @cremieuxrecueil]

And he's right to want that.

It's better to firebomb a city than to impose rent control.

https://t.co/TD7NKuWGz7

[Barrett Linburg @DallasAptGP]

Here's something fascinating happening in the apartment market right now.

The cheapest, oldest apartments (Class C) are getting crushed right now.

But ONLY in cities that just delivered tons of new apartments.

Let me show you the numbers:

Denver: Class C rents down 13.9%
Naples: Class C rents down 13.5%
Austin: Class C rents down 13.3%
Phoenix: Class C rents down 10.5%
San Antonio: Class C rents down 7.2%
Dallas: Class C rents down 6.5%

What do all these cities have in common?

They just absorbed a massive wave of new apartments.
But here's the twist...

In cities that DIDN'T get a big supply wave?
Class C rents are actually RISING.

20 cities saw Class C rents go UP more than 3%.

19 of those 20 cities had supply BELOW the national average.

So what's going on?

It's basically musical chairs.

When a brand new luxury apartment opens up, where do those renters come from?

They don't appear out of thin air.

They move from slightly older apartments.

Those apartments now have vacancies. So they drop their rents to compete.

That pulls in renters from even older apartments.

And down the chain it goes.

Eventually it hits the oldest, cheapest apartments at the bottom.

And here's why they get hit the hardest:

People living in Class C apartments are already spending a huge chunk of their paycheck on rent.

To fill empty units, landlords have to cut prices A LOT.

Sometimes enough to attract people who couldn't afford market-rate apartments before.

It's like a waterfall effect.

The water (new supply) at the top pushes everything down.

But here's the important part:
This proves that building new apartments - even "luxury" ones - reduces rents all the way down the spectrum.

If it was just an affordability crisis, you'd see Class C rents falling everywhere.

In high-supply cities AND low-supply cities.

But we're not seeing that.

We're seeing a perfect split:

Lots of new apartments = falling Class C rents
Few new apartments = rising Class C rents

New supply at the top creates relief at the bottom.

Also: wages have been growing faster than rents for 3 straight years.

More people can afford apartments today than before.

The bottom line?
This is what happens when you actually build housing.

Supply works.

(Chart and analysis from Jay Parsons - one of the sharpest real estate economists out there)

[The Free Press @TheFP]

Peter Thiel: If you graduated in 1970 with no student debt, compare that to the millennial experience: too many people go to college, they don’t learn anything, and they end up with incredibly burdensome debt. Student debt is a version of this generational conflict that I’ve talked about for a long time.

The rupture of the generational compact isn’t limited to student debt, either. I think you can reduce 80 percent of culture wars to questions of economics—like a libertarian or a Marxist would—and then you can reduce maybe 80 percent of economic questions to questions of real estate.

It’s extremely difficult these days for young people to become homeowners. If you have extremely strict zoning laws and restrictions on building more housing, it’s good for the boomers, whose properties keep going up in value, and terrible for the millennials. If you proletarianize the young people, you shouldn’t be surprised if they eventually become communist.”

[Rick J. Caruso @RickCarusoLA]

This is why your rent keeps rising.

Red tape, overregulation, and uncertainty are driving business out of our city while families pay more and get less.

Builders have paused projects. Investors are walking away.

Construction has slowed to its lowest point in a decade. We can’t afford this slowdown.

We need leadership that builds.

[mottsmith @mottsmith]

***** Correction ******
Thank you, @garyraybenjamin , for pointing out my oversight. I had filtered out some submittals I shouldn't have.

The result is a chart that tells very much the same story, but shows the effect of Measure ULA even more starkly.

[Michael A. Arouet @MichaelAArouet]

Just take a look what happened to supply and prices of rental property in Buenos Aires after Milei repealed the nonsense rent price controls there.

Free market works, it’s really that simple Comrades. But hey, why don’t you try rent controls in New York City? 😂

[Sam Yebri @samyebri]

🚨LA City Council just approved a budget that makes every Angeleno less safe. By cutting @lapd hiring in half (from 480 to 240 recruits), LAPD will shrink from 10K to 8K officers, below 1995 levels. Thank you these 3 principled Councilmembers @TraciParkforLA, @MRodCD7 @CD12LA

[Aviva Klompas @AvivaKlompas]

An important read from @RabbiWolpe on how Jew-hatred has raged out of control at @Harvard and efforts on the part of the administration to address it amount to spraying perfume on a sewer:

On a campus social network, students would write comments that ranged from “She looks as dumb as her nose is crooked” and “We got too many damn Jews in state supporting our economy” to far more sinister comments: “Decolonization is not a metaphor” (with Jewish blood dripping from the text). There were endless references to “Judeo-Nazis,” including by tutors in a student house, and swastikas made frequent appearances...One student in my class, after having walked through Harvard Yard and being screamed at by some of the protesters, said to me: “They don’t just hate what I believe. They hate me.”

Link to article below 📰🔗➡️

[L.A. Daily News @ladailynews]

Opinion: San Francisco fixed itself. Los Angeles can too. https://t.co/Ji7NT8ZXJj

[Westside Current @WestsideCurrent]

As the City Council begins weighing Mayor Bass’ $12B budget proposal, key decisions are being made by a committee with little background in finance - one voted against last year’s budget over LAPD funding

https://t.co/u5iKTbfdRD

[Matthew Neman @mattneman]

If the goal of these tariffs is to bring China in line, Trump walked away from a much better path eight years ago. The Trans-Pacific Partnership was designed to strengthen U.S. leverage in Asia and reduce reliance on China. Same endgame, much smarter strategy.

[@jason @Jason]

Based on what I've seen in San Francisco, the homeless industrial complex is a grift designed to keep people homeless in order to profit off them.

Which is pure evil.

[Matthew Neman @mattneman]

@JamesSurowiecki Agreed. It’s not a bad idea to strengthen national interests with strategic tariffs but this is not the way and everyone not blinded by their own ego knows it.