California housing crisis 2017
My personal view and opinion on the crisis in California housing.
Personally, just to keep things pretty simple it’s a well-known fact that here in San Diego County, a huge percentage of the new homes building cost (I believe in the 40% range) is comprised of city and state building and construction fees. So, why do we need a special councils always investigating our problem when it’s quite obvious that our own city and state have created most of these problems by their onerous imposition of government fees.
California housing crisis
This is true not only for the individual homebuilder, but also the large corporate tract builders as well. Naturally, to stay in business all these cost are included in the final selling prices.
Did you know that in 2014, California ranked a miserable 49th in homeownership rates among states? Also California finished dead last in overall affordability, with prices in Los Angeles County rising 6.5 percent over the last year, according to data from CoreLogic. As a result, Californian homeowners spend the highest amount of their annual income—25.4 percent—on housing!
Naturally, compounding the problem of housing in California is the never-ending and costly maze of city and state requirements that are necessary before even starting any development. So, it should come as no surprise that there’s been a startling lack of new housing construction in California.. Recent studies found that, between 2005 and 2015, housing permits were filed for only 21.5 units of housing for every 100 new residents of the state. This has led to increased rental housing prices and more cases of home and room sharing.
It would seem that California’s solution to the crisis is not the obvious reduction of fees and streamlining permanent processes, but, to drive the narrative that living in the major cities and especially in tiny and cramped apartments and houses is the correct thing to do, not only to mitigate the housing shortage but to ‘protect the environment’ as well.
The California major news sources are always publishing articles on the advantages of living in the inner-city, raising a family in under 600 ft.² or less, and naturally substituting environmentally damaging motor vehicles for bicycles.
This sounds pretty disingenuous when you consider the real lifestyles of our California politicians, elites and media.
 More info – NY Times article
California housing crisis
