<story><title>Alright, amigo, let&apos;s build some affordable housing</title><url>https://twitter.com/mu2myoc/status/1510262323176374278</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>zozbot234</author><text>Right, you don&amp;#x27;t &lt;i&gt;build&lt;/i&gt; affordable housing, and you don&amp;#x27;t even &lt;i&gt;reserve&lt;/i&gt; housing as &amp;quot;affordable&amp;quot; (that&amp;#x27;s gratuitously inviting corruption via basically giving away underpriced housing as a &amp;#x27;gift&amp;#x27; to cronies and associates).  You build as much new housing as &lt;i&gt;you&lt;/i&gt; can afford to, and let &lt;i&gt;older&lt;/i&gt; housing filter down to &amp;quot;affordable&amp;quot; levels.</text></item><item><author>gsk22</author><text>The thing I don&amp;#x27;t understand in conversations around affordable housing is why does it have to be new construction?&lt;p&gt;Of course new construction is going to be expensive and full of bureaucracy. Many US cities have large stocks of older housing in moderate condition -- sure, it&amp;#x27;d take some money to get them up to snuff, but nothing near what new construction would cost.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>opportune</author><text>I completely agree. The idea that X% of new housing has to be sold at under market rate makes no sense to me. It just artificially increases the cost of the market rate units. You would build more housing if it were all sold at market rate (since it’s more profitable to build, and then more will get built&amp;#x2F;developers will be more incentivized to build) and have lower market rate prices. It seems fairer for the “below market rate” housing to just be the not-new housing at the actual market rates.&lt;p&gt;For some reason California is obsessed with the idea that housing is too expensive, so we need to force new construction to subsidize middle-middle class housing via a lottery system, which keeps housing expensive</text></comment>
<story><title>Alright, amigo, let&apos;s build some affordable housing</title><url>https://twitter.com/mu2myoc/status/1510262323176374278</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>zozbot234</author><text>Right, you don&amp;#x27;t &lt;i&gt;build&lt;/i&gt; affordable housing, and you don&amp;#x27;t even &lt;i&gt;reserve&lt;/i&gt; housing as &amp;quot;affordable&amp;quot; (that&amp;#x27;s gratuitously inviting corruption via basically giving away underpriced housing as a &amp;#x27;gift&amp;#x27; to cronies and associates).  You build as much new housing as &lt;i&gt;you&lt;/i&gt; can afford to, and let &lt;i&gt;older&lt;/i&gt; housing filter down to &amp;quot;affordable&amp;quot; levels.</text></item><item><author>gsk22</author><text>The thing I don&amp;#x27;t understand in conversations around affordable housing is why does it have to be new construction?&lt;p&gt;Of course new construction is going to be expensive and full of bureaucracy. Many US cities have large stocks of older housing in moderate condition -- sure, it&amp;#x27;d take some money to get them up to snuff, but nothing near what new construction would cost.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wan23</author><text>There are two problems with this idea. The first is that the existing housing stock is already occupied, and the people who occupy it don&amp;#x27;t have much incentive to go anywhere. If we could build a massive amount of new, high quality housing then in theory the demand for the older homes might decrease but in many places we&amp;#x27;re in such a deep supply hole that the necessary amount of new construction just isn&amp;#x27;t going to happen given the political environment. The second problem is that filtering takes time, but people need homes today. There&amp;#x27;s an argument to be made that it&amp;#x27;s in the public interest to allow for at least some units to be made available that are affordable to someone on a teacher&amp;#x27;s salary. Also, building homes at any price point is a good idea.</text></comment>