We see these stories regularly now, but nothing is changing. Even if we had another housing crash and prices retreated by 10% or 20%, homes would still not be affordable for most. Hat tip to Richard!
For all of its claims of being an economic paradise, California is a failure when it comes to housing.
Not just low-income, affordable housing, but middle-income, working-class housing for teachers, firemen and long-time residents hoping to live anywhere near work.
“California has a housing crisis. We can’t provide housing to our citizens,” said Rita Brandin, with San Diego developer Newland Communities. “In Georgia, Texas and Florida, it can take a year and a half from concept to permits. In California, just the process from concept to approvals, is five years – that does not include the environmental lawsuits faced by 90 percent of projects.”
Numbers tell the story of California’s housing crisis.
* 75 percent of Southern Californians can’t afford to buy a home, according to the state realtors association.
* 16 of the 25 least affordable communities in the US are in California, according to 24/7 Wall Street.
* Officials this year declared a homeless emergency in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and Orange counties.
* 56 percent of state voters say they may have to move because of a lack of affordable housing. One in four say they will relocate out of state, according to University of California Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies.
* A median price home in the Golden State is $561,000, according to the realtors association. A household would need to earn $115,000 a year to reasonably afford a home at that price, assuming a 20 percent down payment. Yet, two thirds of Californians earns less $80,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
* The household income needed to afford a median-priced home in the Silicon Valley town of Palo Alto is $450,000.
* In San Francisco, a median priced home is $1.5 million, according to the Paragon Real Estate Group.
* Home prices in California are twice the national average, and 70 percent can’t afford to buy a home, according to state figures.
* Median household income in L.A. is $64,000. That’s half what is necessary to buy a home.
*1 in 10 residents are considering leaving because they can’t afford a place to live, according to a state legislative study, while US Census figures show 2 million residents, 25 and older, have already left the state since 2010.
* In 2016, 30 percent of California tenants put more than 50 percent of their income toward rent and utilities, according to the California Budget & Policy Center. Economists consider 30 percent the limit.
* California needs to double the number of homes built each year to keep prices from rising faster than the national average, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office.
“The biggest tragedy of California is we have stopped building houses for the middle class,” said Borre Winkle with the Building Industry Association of San Diego. “Think of California’s housing market as a martini class. We’re building some affordable housing at the low end. Absolutely nothing in the middle and the top end is high-income housing, which subsidizes low-income housing. So that is a broken system.”
In 2016, the cities of Houston and Dallas built more homes, 63,000, than the entire Golden State, which built 50,000, according to US Census Bureau figures.
“Supply and demands works,” said USC real estate professor Richard Green. “People want to be here and we’re not accommodating them with new housing and so the cost of the housing goes up.”
Read full article here (blaming building fees and NIMBYs):
Remember when the new-home tracts had waiting lists?
Earlier this year, we saw a new-home tract in Clairemont with 200 people on their list! But not every tract is hot, and it appears to be a sign of the times.
This article adds the numbers. We need to build at least three times as many homes as we’ve been building to keep up with the growth – and no telling what that would do to prices, if anything:
SAN DIEGO (CNS) – As the homeless population grows and rents balloon in San Diego, city officials Thursday announced a series of proposals to help alleviate the housing shortage over the next 10 years.
Numerous changes to city codes and procedures are required to meet the housing demand, according to a report presented to the City Council’s Smart Growth and Land Use Committee.
Some of those changes include rezoning areas around transit hubs to increase density, converting unused industrial zones into residential areas and encouraging smaller unit sizes. Making use of vacant lots and easing some onerous parking requirements are also among the ideas identified in the report.
“This is an exciting step because it gives the city goals for the future, and it gives the city goals to be measured by,” San Diego Housing Commission President Richard Gentry said.
To meet the housing need in San Diego, as many as 220,000 new housing units will need to be built by 2028, the report said. The top annual production rate within the last 5 years has been of 6,400 units. Even with the solutions identified in the report, San Diego would have to bolster its production rate.
“To meet the projected needs for the city for the next 10 years, we will need to produce between 17,000 and 24,000 housing units per year — a dawning task but a worthy goal to be set,” Gentry said.
After the presentation, City Councilwoman Georgette Gomez worried that more units may not necessarily fix the housing crisis facing the region.
“I would love to work with the housing commission to look at the affordability of housing,” Gomez said. “I’m not a firm believer that just creating units is going to get to the actual issues that are in front of us.”
According to a staff report, the annual rate of housing construction has been well under half that of population growth over the past decade, creating a warped supply-and-demand situation that has prompted costs to skyrocket. The result is that half of San Diegans can’t find rental units they can afford and 60 percent can’t afford to purchase a home, according to the report.
“What we are doing is driving our kids and grandkids right out of town,” Councilman Scott Sherman said.
The report identified the communities of Skyline-Paradise Hills, Linda Vista, Otay Mesa, Clairemont Mesa and Navajo as the areas with the largest housing growth potential. As many as 74,000 units could be built all together in those five communities.
If all the suggestions in the report are carried out, that 10-year housing goal could be met or exceeded. Then hope later one is to keep that same production rate through 2028 to keep up with the expected population growth.
What could really boost the market further would be if we had more new or newer single-story homes for sale. Baby-boomers would be much more likely to ditch the older two-story family estates and glide into a ready-set single story home – if there was just an easy exit.
If you wanted a new house under $500,000, how about Las Vegas? The home above is in Summerlin, and I’ve been there. It is a great alternative for those who don’t mind the heat!
Or if you insist on San Diego County, but might go to the outskirts?
Here are one-story new-home options for you locally:
Plus, this is the Pardee tract they sold off to Toll:
True, in order to downsize, most sellers need to leave town, but at least there are some new-home options to consider nearby.
The folks at the 55-and-over Auberge near Santaluz just wrapped up sales of their brand-new one-story homes, and it would be a good place to look for resales. Here is a tour of the Plan 3 model, which one of my buyers purchased:
