I live in San Francisco, where I can’t go a day without hearing how unaffordable it is to live here. Let me share three immediate solutions to a housing affordability crisis.
The media loves to excoriate the tech companies for pricing out poorer residents who’ve been here for decades. Ironically, the majority of techies themselves can’t afford to rent a $3,500 one bedroom apartment or buy a $1.7M median property by age 30 because they are relatively underpaid!
It is VERY bad form to buy a property with long term tenants, boot them out through an Ellis Act eviction, remodel, and then flip the property for a profit. It’s also terrible to buy a property with the intention of replacing long term tenants with yourself. Folks, please buy a place that does not displace existing tenants! It’s cruel to make people move out of homes when they’ve lived there for decades. There are plenty of other properties sitting underutilized or vacant to choose from.
Perhaps you also live in one of the many crowded cities in the world where rent and real estate prices have made living unbearably expensive. Your teachers, artists, writers/bloggers, musicians, and public servants are getting pushed out. Traffic has become unbearable. And your neighborhood is getting homogenized, much like it is at work. Let me offer three immediate solutions to the housing affordability crisis.
Three Immediate Solutions To A Housing Affordability Crisis
Rule #1: Don’t Disrupt, Maximize Existing Housing Utility
When I first moved to San Francisco in 2001, I went on Craigslist and rented a room in a crappy two bedroom, one bathroom, walk-up apartment in Chinatown for $1,850 total (Powell and Jackson St). The noise was unbearable, but the ad called so I filled it.
I wanted to live in Pac Heights, The Marina, Cow Hollow, Russian Hill, or Telegraph Hill for $2,500+, but that would have blown my budget to smithereens. I felt it was necessary to make some sacrifices in my 20s in order to maximize my savings to one day buy and get neutral inflation. If you think Chinatown is noisy and dirty today, it was much noisier and dirtier 15 years ago!
I bought my first condo in 2003 from a retired woman who wanted to move to Oakland for the warmer weather. The place was a humble 2/2 with 990 sqft that hadn’t been updated since 1970. It wasn’t my dream property, but it was what I could afford. No disruption here as two people moved in for her one departure.
In case you’re wondering, it felt just as expensive in 2001-2003 as it does now. Living in a studio with another guy for two years out of college in Manhattan, sharing a 2/1 near Chinatown for a year with a couple strangers in SF, and splitting a small 1 bedroom with my girlfriend for another year while saving and investing the majority of my income allowed me to come up with the downpayment. It wasn’t fun to constrict spending so much and share tight quarters, but it was worth it in the end.
Bought A House Next
In 2005, I bought a house in the north end of SF from a Texas-based oil retiree who was renting the property back to the previous sellers for one year. The Texan later decided he wanted a one story house as his knees were bad, so he sold it to me and never moved in.
Meanwhile, the rent-back tenants bought a new house down in the Peninsula. In order to help them settle their affairs, I was happy to let them continue renting back for two more months. No disruption. Waiting two months to move into my new home was not a big deal. Two people out, two people in.
For nine years this north end house was underutilized, housing only two people for most of the years. For a couple years, I rented out the downstairs bedroom to a middle school teacher for 50% below market rent because I’m very pro education. She made under $30,000 a year, but got to walk to the middle school where she worked, which was awesome! The house now houses five people, reducing the demand for housing by taking 2-3 people out of the rental market. No disruption.
In 2014, after renting out this north end house, I moved into a vacant fixer upper on the much cheaper western part of San Francisco in the Inner Sunset area. The original owner had moved up to Washington to be with her sisters before she passed away. For the past two years, I’ve spent money remodeling and doing some landscaping. Again, no disruption, only neighborhood improvement.
No Disruption + Increased Housing Utilization = Less Demand. Less Demand = Less Competition = Lower Prices. Lower Prices + Less People Who Get Disrupted = Happier People With More Disposable Income. Below is a clear illustration of how much better it is to maximize utilization of existing infrastructure and inventory.
Rule #2: Expand Your Search, Be Less Ignorant
After I’d purchased my western San Francisco property in 2014, a 29 yo fintech friend asked where he should buy because downtown was so expensive. I told him, “Why not look in the Sunset, Richmond, or Parkside districts out west where it’s 40% – 60% cheaper? I think there’s great opportunity to purchase a relatively undiscovered property there right now. It’s also much less crowded.”
He responded, “I don’t want to live in the Asian ghetto!”
Here my friend was, living in a studio in the Tenderloin district, the worst district in San Francisco where drug dealers and pimps proliferate, calling the western half of the city the “Asian ghetto.” He couldn’t afford to buy a two bedroom condo downtown, yet was turning his nose up on buying a beautiful house for a lower price out west. As a Chinese-American, I didn’t know whether to be insulted or amused. He had low emotional intelligence.
I realized long ago that almost every ignorant statement is due to a lack of education. My friend has never spent much time in the western half of San Francisco, where it’s peaceful, has fantastic ocean views, diverse food, diverse people, cheaper services, and the wonderful Golden Gate Park.
I myself didn’t realize there was a place called Golden Gate Heights, which has homes with panoramic ocean views, until I spent several weekends driving around the area looking at open houses once a large CD came due in early 2014. I’d often called the western area “the boondocks,” even though it was just three miles west of where I used to live.
Related: The Best Near-Term Buying Opportunity: Less Crowded Areas In Your City
Be Flexible Where You Live
Here’s a great example of my own ignorance, born out in a post called, “How Do People Afford To Live A Comfortable Life Making Less Than Six Figures In An Expensive City?” New Yorkers, who do live comfortable lives, pounced on my post and shared how they make things work.
I was familiar with only expensive Manhattan and ignorant about the other boroughs and lifestyles people lead. Heck, I lived in a downtown Manhattan studio with another dude back in 1999-2000 because it was so expensive! I’m glad others helped set me straight. If everybody wants to live in the most expensive area, of course there will be a housing affordability crisis in that area!
Rule #3: Earn Your Way In Over Time
Nobody deserves to live in the most expensive neighborhood. Demand is way too concentrated in the eastern and northern neighborhoods of San Francisco. Spend 15 – 20 more minutes commuting from western San Francisco and you’ll save 40% – 60% on rent or purchase price. It’s that simple. But whenever I reach out to a reporter or someone who writes about the high cost of living, they refuse to acknowledge the choice of commuting as a way to afford more.
They would rather profile the person getting pushed out of their home in the Mission (an important topic), or why it’s so expensive to live in the hottest neighborhoods, rather than profile the thousands of people who live in the Outer Sunset who are doing just fine. Solutions are much better than pontificating on the past or pointing fingers.
If Manhattan is too expensive, move to Queens. If the west ends of Vancouver and Chicago are too expensive, move east. If Santa Monica is unaffordable, move south. If you can’t afford Honolulu, move to Waianae. Eventually, those non-prime areas will rise in value too as population continues to grow.
The people who live in expensive neighborhoods were there before you. And if there are new buyers in your desired neighborhoods, they probably saved and earned enough money to afford it more than you. In this way, the housing affordability crisis is self-inflicted. Create new desirable neighborhoods instead.
Build Your Wealth Wisely
Regular Financial Samurai readers know how much I emphasize aggressively saving and investing over time to be able to achieve financial independence. When your time comes, take advantage. In the meantime, learn how to properly asset allocate your portfolio, build up multiple income streams, and start a website to give yourself more leverage. While you’re at it, read everything you can about real estate so you will be absolutely prepared when it comes time to make a move.
The same people complaining about the cost of living without being willing to move sound like the same people complaining about not getting ahead at work without putting in their dues. Nobody gets to go straight to the corner office after college, just like nobody gets to buy a mansion at the top of a hill without doing something amazing for a very long time.
We must earn what we deserve. This does NOT include those of you who think you deserve to live somewhere just because you have the money to buy a building and evict a tenant.
Focus On Immediate Solutions To A Housing Affordability Crisis
All this talk about building more affordable housing is great for the long run. Increasing public transportation routes is great too. But how does this help people NOW who have trouble affording a comfortable place to live? It doesn’t, unless you somehow win the housing lottery or the actual lottery.
I’m priced out of the northern SF neighborhoods so I moved west. Would I love to live in a 3,800 sqft Pacific Heights home for $6M with a view of Alcatraz and an outdoor blogging hot tub? You bet your buns of steel I would. Alas, I didn’t make enough money during the downturn to get in, and now I’m priced out. I accepted that fact and searched elsewhere.
Now, I live in a cozy ~1,900 sqft home in the western part of San Francisco that’s good enough. The commute into downtown is 15-20 minutes longer that in the past, but that’s the sacrifice I’m willing to make to save money. If I one day get priced out again due to opportunity cost, I’ll move once again.
For folks who believe expensive cities like San Francisco, New York, and LA are the greatest cities in America, you might be right. However, if you ever venture out of your bubble, you may also discover there are plenty of other great places to live that are overall, much cheaper.
Final Solution To A Housing Affordability Crisis
Pass a law that profits high income earners (e.g. $200,000+) from being able to live in rent controlled apartments. We all know that rent control artificially limits the supply of housing and causes rents to increase for the rest of us.
If you have a Google employee making $200,000 and living in a rent controlled apartment, he’s got to go. These type of people are creating the housing affordability crisis.
Invest More Strategically In Real Estate
If you don’t have the downpayment to buy a property, don’t want to deal with the hassle of managing real estate, or don’t want to tie up your liquidity in physical real estate, take a look at Fundrise, one of the largest real estate crowdsourcing companies today.
Real estate is a key component of a diversified portfolio. Real estate crowdsourcing allows you to be more flexible in your real estate investments by investing beyond just where you live for the best returns possible. You might as well join institutional real estate investors and try to profit as well.
For example, cap rates are around 3% in San Francisco and New York City, but over 10% in the Midwest if you’re looking for strictly investing income returns. Sign up and take a look at all the residential and commercial investment opportunities around the country Fundrise has to offer. It’s free to look.
Shop Around For A Mortgage
Check the latest mortgage rates online through Credible. Credible has one of the largest networks of lenders that compete for your business. You can get free, no-obligation quotes in minutes. The more lenders compete for your business, the lower your rate. Mortgage rates continue to be near all-time lows. Take advantage.
My readings suggest that increasing your commute to work is not cost-effective for most Americans in larger cities. However, I believe this is pretty much a function of local transit – if you live in a city or region with good transit, say NYC metro, SF Bay Area, Portland – a longer commute can save you meaningful money, and increasingly, also time, as traffic congestion intensifies.
As a pessimistic poor person, I see inequality in places not even acknowledged by social justice warriors (SJWs). There is vast “living space inequality” in this country, with millions of large single-family houses occupied by empty nester singles and couples, while many other homes are overcrowded – currently I live in a 3BR/1BA house with 9 occupants, and people living in living room, garage, dining nook, and an RV on the property.
Great insight Sam. You’re right, there is a housing crisis and people can take more measured approaches and actions to help alleviate the problem. I don’t like living in Ohio but it makes sense because my investing dollars can go a lot further here than on one of the coasts. One day when my passive income really is enough to compete, I may be a neighbor. For now, I’ll keep saving money and living the midwestern life.
I solved my housing issues by renting a tiny 450 sq. ft. apartment that includes all my utilities and parking in a very nice part of town. Please see my new blog where I share my weekly networth, budget, and savings tips at gettingtoonemillion.wordpress.com.
Why live in something that costs $1,000 per square foot when you can go somewhere else for $100 a foot? Seriously, people could just leave and move to a cheap part of the USA and take a lower paying job and pay less taxes. Let’s say someone owes 400k on an SF property now valued around 900k, that equity could pay for a house and a 4 unit rental property in many parts of the USA. No mortgages, 4 rent checks a month, and all you had to do what give up your tiny overpriced pad in SF.
I’m making roughly the median wage and living in west la. I sure would love a map of good places to buy like the map you drew for SanFran. The reality is I can’t afford much. I’ve seen a lot of homes in my range purchased at foreclosure auctions for 400k cash and flipped for 550k. If I purchased those then that would wipe out my down payment and hand it over to flippers but I can only afford the 400. There is not enough supply for me and I’m not comfortable overbidding for something that has a history of boom and busts.
How much more appreciation in home prices can we see? Interest rate have been dropping since 1980. To see similar appreciation I would need negative 5 percent rates in ten years (highly unlikely).
People are not rational with borrowing money. Again we see 3 percent down with low rates. No one talks about the correlation with interest rates and home prices. People go to the bank to determine the most they can afford monthly. The lower the rate the more they can borrow. The way I see it is the interest is now built into the home price but you have no opportunity to pay off the loan quickly. There was an incentive to pay mortgages off faster when interest compromised a large portion of the payment. Today it’s all principal.
I would love to own but making the median doesn’t work well with my plan. I’ve saved quite a bit over four years since graduating making nothing but it hasn’t translated into a home purchase because of the appreciation that has largely negated my down payment. Every dollar I save it gets me one dollar toward my home. Every dollar Of income gets multiplied by 5-7 times. I’m seriously considering putting nothing down since buying in metro areas is literally a crap shoot if interest rates aren’t lowering or inflation isn’t running rampant.
I leave you with this link that breaks down incomes for San Fran area. I’d love to see your opinion on the next percentiles over median. You’ll see a lot of people really don’t make as much as you think…
https://statisticalatlas.com/neighborhood/California/San-Francisco/Western-Addition/Household-Income
Thanks for the article. Very interesting points. My city (Raleigh NC) is not unaffordable by any means, but it’s getting more and more difficult to find deals as far as investment properties go. Pretty much anyone I talk to who invests in this market laments the lack of deals but don’t really feel comfortable looking outside the city (and even then, they think Durham versus Garner/Knightdale/Fuquay/Holly Springs). So I’m starting to look on the periphery. There is one town to the east that is only 15 minutes from downtown Raleigh, getting lots and lots of development, etc but has won “most affordable town in NC” two years in a row now.
Am I going there tomorrow to look at property?
You bet your buns of steel I am.