Bruce

uptownbpackb @ bluesky
Pro housing for all, left leaning,

[Bruce @uptownbpackb]

@seandsweeney If single stair was legal, would apt's have been bigger or could you have gotten 1-2 more apt's? If Single Stair was legal at that time, How much $ would have been added to monthly income? Just best guess.

[Bruce @uptownbpackb]

@lydiakauppi This is the content I stick around for

[Bruce @uptownbpackb]

@omgsidewalks Shouldn’t you say- I don’t understand the costs associated with paying all the expenses in a senior living business because I don’t know the inputs or details- can someone help me with my lack of information and understanding?

[Bruce @uptownbpackb]

@svdate I live in MN. They tax social security.

[Bruce @uptownbpackb]

@PatrickHeizer You need to get a different hobby if that is how you get your jollies

[Bruce @uptownbpackb]

@shawngorham @robbiehendricks In my market, $400K would need $3500-$4000 in rent.

[Bruce @uptownbpackb]

@vincempls It’s a lot easier to just complain and throw ideas around than actually create and build, so there is that.

[Bruce @uptownbpackb]

@lydiakauppi I was going for the "we forgot to put a door in" look

[Bruce @uptownbpackb]

@lydiakauppi Do you think some saloon style swinging doors would be suitable?

[Bruce @uptownbpackb]

@sdho @rudyfunkmeyer They already have to show all fees upfront, right?

[Bruce @uptownbpackb]

@vincempls @rudyfunkmeyer Was talking to a renter who said his greatest superpower was he doesn't have anything invested in his rental, has no risk and can move whenever he wants.

[Bruce @uptownbpackb]

@rudyfunkmeyer Wouldn't the solution be to just buy a condo and pay all the costs of housing yourself? Seems like a good option if you think the landlords are charging too much.

[Bruce @uptownbpackb]

@kar_nels @robynngarfield That's an easy $800/month for my house

[Bruce @uptownbpackb]

@bobbyfijan If every head wind is against you, rent control, regulations, concessions like IZ, obstacles to evictions, moratoriums ect, why would you want to build now?

[Bruce @uptownbpackb]

@CheyCab Barbette’s in uptown

[Bruce @uptownbpackb]

@lydiakauppi Glad to see you and Nate present this! Superstars!!!!!

[Moses Kagan @moseskagan]

What every voter and apparently, the NY Times Editorial Board, should know about housing policy:

1. Rents reflect the balance of supply of apartments and demand for those apartments in a given area. That’s it; there’s no magic. If you want lower rents, you can hope for a recession that destroys jobs and, therefore, demand. Or you can add supply.

2. There is no amount of money that any big city government could feasibly spend that would add materially to supply. This is because, depending on the location, new apartments cost $250,000-1,000,000 to develop… building even a few hundred of those starts to stress any city budget, and many big cities need tens or hundreds of thousands.

3. On the other hand, investors (including pension funds and endowments, insurance companies, rich families, etc.) can collectively **easily** provide enough capital to build as much housing as we need **so long as they are confident they can get a reasonable return**.

To get those investors to fund the creation of the housing our society needs, we must do two things:

1. Dramatically reduce the time & complexity associated with securing governmental permission to develop housing. This means reviewing and simplifying the overlapping regulations that constrain housing production: zoning codes, building codes, parking, ADA, etc. But it also means changing the cultures within the relevant governmental agencies from “default no” to “how can we help you?”.

2. Provide certainty around on-going regulation of apartment operations.

The way investors get a return from building rentals is as follows: They hire managers to lease the apartments, collect the rents, pay operating expenses and any mortgage payments, and then send the investors the cashflow that remains.

But governments all over the country have been restricting the manner in which apartment buildings can be operated in all kinds of ways.

For example: Cities have been making it harder to screen tenants, while also making it much harder to evict tenants who don’t pay. You can see why both of those measures are politically popular. After all, who doesn’t want people to get second chances? And who wants anyone to get evicted? But, as a manager, the combination of those two regulations makes it much harder to predict, with any certainty, that the rent will get paid… and that makes it very difficult to get investors to provide capital to create more housing.

Another example: Rent control. Again, I understand why renters love rent control and why politicians want to give it to them. But, if, as has been the case in NY, LA and San Francisco, city governments hold annual rent increases below the rate of growth in the operating expenses of the buildings, the cashflow payable to the investors shrinks… making them much less likely to invest capital in building more apartments.

In conclusion: For ~every other good or service in the economy, we allow the market to function, and the result is that we have a surplus of choice at all price points (think of food or clothes or cars), which is spectacular for the consumer. If we want a surplus of choice at all price points in housing, we need to get comfortable with the idea of allowing the market to provide it.

And that means allowing investors to build rental apartments *and* allowing them to operate those apartments in a manner consistent with making a reasonable profit.

Remember: Every developer of rentals is either a landlord-in-waiting or hoping to sell to one.

[Bruce @uptownbpackb]

@orenbj @moseskagan Minneapolis did an exhaustive research project a couple years ago on housing and found returns averaged approx 7.1%

[Bruce @uptownbpackb]

@lydiakauppi Unfortunately, that map doesn’t tell anything as there isn’t any reference to what it shows - source?