Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: affordable housing

[Brian Bartholomew (bartholomew.brian]

 Ann Zabaldo <zabaldo [at] earthlink.net> writes:

> trying to fit the square peg of affordable housing into the round
> hole of zoning, income and tax regulations

Perhaps the upcoming affordability conference can have a session which
analyzes the outcomes legislation itself has created?

R Philip Dowds <rphilipdowds [at] me.com> writes:

> We do NOT have an "affordable housing" problem. What we have is a
> serious income inequality problem. [...] with the progressive tax
> structure that served America so well in the '50's and '60's, the
> affordable housing problem would pretty much solve itself.

I believe American prosperity in the '50's and '60's was unusual, and
not correct to use as proof that the wealth redistribution policies of
those times achieved their goals. I believe that prosperity was
because soldiers had destroyed the factories of competitors, leaving
America with the only intact heavy industry. If you want to repeat
the '50's and '60's, first you have to repeat the '40's. I fervently
hope that won't occur.

Sharon Villines <sharon [at] sharonvillines.com> writes:

> [a house] is still a huge investment for most households and builds
> wealth for them.

Houses are not investments, any more than your daily driver automobile
is. Buying a house does not build wealth, any more than buying your
daily driver automobile does. A house is not even a good savings plan
because it costs too high a percentage of savings for the maintenance,
just like your daily driver automobile. Yes, the numeric value of
your predicted resale price has increased more than 300% in the last
20 years -- but the currency you're measuring it in has been inflated.
What actually happened is your house is worth less because it's older
and more worn out, while the banking authorities printed more
currency, making each currency unit worth less.

Yes, reducing violence by organized drug criminals can be done by
changing the demographics of the neighborhood with development. But,
it's much simpler to make the criminal enterprise unprofitable by
legislatively repealing their price supports, the drug war. We know
drive-by shootings by mobsters fighting over liquor distribution
territories ended when alcohol prohibition was repealed. The nifty
part is you can stop the violence without having to do the very hard
thing of reforming the morals and values of mobsters.

House transactions are so lossy it is hard to monetize any
improvements you have made by gentrifying a neighborhood. If people
want to save money each month so they are able to move across the
country for a new job, they should put that money into a savings
account, not a mortgage.

> Of course there is still the problem of banks not willing to
> mortgage a small unit because it won't be good for resales. Not true
> but bankers are conservative.

Repeal the requirements to get a state license to open a bank, and
then any group of coho residents can organize to make coho loans which
are currently not being offered. Same solution for redlining due to
bigotry, automobile insurance for shared cars, or any other service
which doesn't serve coho but whose competition that would is banned by
legislation creating a partial monopoly.

Brian