Tahoe's Workforce is Disappearing, As Many Can No Longer Afford to Live There (sfgate.com) 181
200 miles east of Silicon Valley, "A disproportionate number of people who purchased homes in Tahoe in 2020 are employees of some of the largest tech companies in the Bay Area," a real estate brokerage firm specializing in data analytics recently told Outside magazine.
Of the 2,280 new-home buyers Atlasa identified throughout the Tahoe region in 2020, roughly 30 percent worked at software companies. The top three employers were Google (54 buyers), Apple (46), and Facebook (34)... There is, however, one glaring issue with all this rapid, high-priced growth: the people who actually make a mountain town run — the ski instructors and patrollers, lift operators and shuttle drivers, housekeepers and snowcat mechanics, cooks and servers — can no longer afford to live there.
Just last year Sierra Sotheby's found more than 2,350 homes were sold across the Tahoe Basin, for a boggling $3.28 billion (up 86% from the $1.76 billion in 2019), according to the article, which calls the popular tele-working destination a "Zoom town."
Now the region's heading into its summer tourist season — but "with a shorthanded workforce, businesses are unraveling," like the restaurant that simply closed for a week because "We literally do not have enough cooks to operate..." The evidence is showing up in the ways businesses are cutting back during the peak of the busiest time of year, a time when small business owners in Tahoe typically are trying to make as much money as possible so they can survive the slower times of year...
While the hiring crisis spans far and wide across the nation, in Tahoe, the linchpin is housing. At Tahoe Dave's, Dave Wilderotter, the owner of Tahoe Dave's Skis and Boards, starts his employees at $20 an hour. Most of his employees make too much money to qualify for affordable housing. But they don't make enough money to pay Tahoe's rent prices, which have risen by 25% to 50% in the past year. Tahoe's workforce is disappearing because many of them cannot afford to live here any more... Making matters worse, Tahoe's already minimal long-term rental housing stock is getting eaten up by the very hot real estate market. Many landlords are selling homes they've been renting to local workers, leaving those tenants without many options...
"This isn't just tourism that's being hit," says Alex Mourelatos, a business owner on Tahoe's North Shore who also serves on multiple boards for the North Tahoe Public Utility District and nonprofit groups. "It's every service industry. Every industry across people, dentistry, legal, everything, Planned Urban Developments, all the special districts, firemen, teachers, all of them." The hiring crisis has even affected critical services like public transportation. Bus drivers are so hard to come by that the Tahoe Transportation District made the unprecedented decision to shut down an entire bus route down the East Shore.
The district had shuttles but no one to steer the wheel.
Of the 2,280 new-home buyers Atlasa identified throughout the Tahoe region in 2020, roughly 30 percent worked at software companies. The top three employers were Google (54 buyers), Apple (46), and Facebook (34)... There is, however, one glaring issue with all this rapid, high-priced growth: the people who actually make a mountain town run — the ski instructors and patrollers, lift operators and shuttle drivers, housekeepers and snowcat mechanics, cooks and servers — can no longer afford to live there.
Just last year Sierra Sotheby's found more than 2,350 homes were sold across the Tahoe Basin, for a boggling $3.28 billion (up 86% from the $1.76 billion in 2019), according to the article, which calls the popular tele-working destination a "Zoom town."
Now the region's heading into its summer tourist season — but "with a shorthanded workforce, businesses are unraveling," like the restaurant that simply closed for a week because "We literally do not have enough cooks to operate..." The evidence is showing up in the ways businesses are cutting back during the peak of the busiest time of year, a time when small business owners in Tahoe typically are trying to make as much money as possible so they can survive the slower times of year...
While the hiring crisis spans far and wide across the nation, in Tahoe, the linchpin is housing. At Tahoe Dave's, Dave Wilderotter, the owner of Tahoe Dave's Skis and Boards, starts his employees at $20 an hour. Most of his employees make too much money to qualify for affordable housing. But they don't make enough money to pay Tahoe's rent prices, which have risen by 25% to 50% in the past year. Tahoe's workforce is disappearing because many of them cannot afford to live here any more... Making matters worse, Tahoe's already minimal long-term rental housing stock is getting eaten up by the very hot real estate market. Many landlords are selling homes they've been renting to local workers, leaving those tenants without many options...
"This isn't just tourism that's being hit," says Alex Mourelatos, a business owner on Tahoe's North Shore who also serves on multiple boards for the North Tahoe Public Utility District and nonprofit groups. "It's every service industry. Every industry across people, dentistry, legal, everything, Planned Urban Developments, all the special districts, firemen, teachers, all of them." The hiring crisis has even affected critical services like public transportation. Bus drivers are so hard to come by that the Tahoe Transportation District made the unprecedented decision to shut down an entire bus route down the East Shore.
The district had shuttles but no one to steer the wheel.
Maybe the problem will fix itself (Score:2, Insightful)
Tim Apple wants all those people back in the office. And, if they decide they don't want to go, they'll need new jobs...
Re: (Score:2)
Tim Apple wants all those people back in the office.
It's not Apple employees that are hurting. It's the employees supporting local service businesses. Whether the Apple employees will stay in their new town when Starbucks and the local supermarkets have to close their doors due to labor shortages is another question.
I don't know how inflexible Tahoe's real estate market is. In the long term, investors should be able to increase the rental supply to meet the demand, motivated by the potential higher ROI. And markets will stabilize. San Francisco, on the othe
Re: (Score:2)
"labor shortages"
Perhaps you meant "free market failure" ?
Re: (Score:2)
It will completely change their neighborhood in ways that are unfavorable to how they currently live.
What ever happened to "the greatest good for the greatest number"?
Re: (Score:2)
What ever happened to "the greatest good for the greatest number"?
That was never an especially popular philosophy. A more relevant question is, why force low income housing in the most expensive location? If high prices mean there are fewer restaurants...boo hoo.
Re: (Score:2)
why force low income housing in the most expensive location?
Put the workers supporting those downtown businesses (restaurants, etc.) downtown. Near their employment. Put the Apple employees in Cupertino.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
High density housing destroys the character of San Francisco's residential neighborhoods. I don't blame people for fighting it.
One of the most populated areas in the world that in many areas has now become a shithole (and I mean that literally)...and here you are, an EX city dweller still worried about the precious character.
Try and go back and visit sometime soon. The smell might remind you of the real priorities.
Re: (Score:2)
But they won't be able to afford the jobs offered in Tahoe.
Nobody is going to make a pilgrimage to Tahoe so they can become a homeless minimum wage employee for the greater glory of the Subway.
Re: (Score:2)
You'll own nothing... AND you'll be happy!
Copy the Chinese model (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If you let me live rent free while paying me at least minimum wage and throw in high speed Internet, I think it would be a golden opportunity for many young people. They could work and live locally, go to online schooling while making enough money to cover food, phone bill and some party money or savings. With no rent or Internet costs, the rest isn't that bad.
Tahoe (Score:2)
Tahoe was super expensive for ages. But I guess compared to silicon valley it looked cheaper.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Prices can only outpace wages to a point, the higher wages are so far past the median wage it makes a mess of everything.
Re: We're in another massive real estate bubble (Score:2)
Exactly raising the minimum wage is good what is really needed is raising the median wage
Need to limit the highest paid employee to merely 500 times that of the lowest paid one and thing should start getting better.
Re: (Score:2)
Tech wages are too high? What? That's not what the anti-H1B people say.
It's not a bubble (Score:4, Insightful)
When whackadoodle lefties go on about late stage capitalism this is what they're talking about. But while said whackadoodles are right about what it is they're wrong about the results. You don't get a glorious Communist / socialist upraising. You get a brutal and violent dictatorship.
When people are faced with a crisis they turn to Strong Men. Guys like Augusto Pinochet, Kim Jon Un, Saddam Hussain and yes, Donald Trump. If you look at times in American history when civil rights advanced you'll find an economy that was doing pretty good by the standards of the day. If you look at when civil rights were (are) under assault you'll find a lot of folk living paycheck to paycheck if that.
I guess my point is, the window is closing on American Democracy. As
Because if you don't they're gonna go find somebody who'll listen to them and hand them rifles. And they're gonna show up at your door stop. They are legion, and yeah, you've got guns too, but the hoard will win in the end. Always does.
Re: (Score:2)
Nothing lasts forever. Empires on average lasted 250 years and the greatest hubris mankind commits every single time is thinking "This time it will be different".
Lessons will hopefully be learned and mistakes will hopefully not be repeated (fat chance). But yeah, turmoil awaits and we shouldnt expect this peace to last forever, nor should we want to.
A spring cleanup is necessary.
Re: (Score:3)
Empires can also last millennia. Many have.
See this reference (sort the table by Duration): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Even the Roman empire lasted over 400 years.
We have science and technology (Score:2)
Things change. Instead of looking to the past look to the future. Why would you bother hanging out on
Re: (Score:2)
I've already seen some proposals being floated by various legislators to limit or even prohibit the buying of residential property by investment firms. IMO these proposals should be given serious consideration, particularly in places where supply/demand can't function correctly due to factors such as drought, lack of buildable land (Tahoe), etc. Otherwise, there will eventually be a political revolt at the very least, and it won't be pretty.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah well there is two ways to earn money.
1. Hog and monopolize an existing limited resource (land, oil etc.)
2. Create and sell a product that provides a useful service or function (food, car, computer, search engine, social media, movies).
The first thrives on reducing access, the latter on innovation and cheaper mass distribution.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Easy peasy (Score:2)
There's a very simple answer to this problem. If you read history, you'll know that, traditionally, servants' quarters were provided in all the best houses. No need for a return to slavery after all; indentured servitude will suffice.
indentured servitude at min wage IRS income (Score:2)
indentured servitude at min wage will not cover IRS income of that free home.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Most of the really wealthy, liberal or conservative both, make use of undocumented workers. Even Trump.
Re:Easy peasy (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a very simple answer to this problem. If you read history, you'll know that, traditionally, servants' quarters were provided in all the best houses. No need for a return to slavery after all; indentured servitude will suffice.
Absolutely! New forms of it are emerging in Tahoe:
At the moment, Tahoe Dave’s has enough people for all the needed shifts. One of the biggest reasons Wilderotter has been able to fill his staff is because he provides housing to 30 to 40 employees. Wilderotter has been helping his employees find places to live for 15 or 20 years, but recently, he purchased a trailer park that he’s converting to a tiny home village for his staff.
Of course, that places a lot of pressure on the indentured serv-, er, employee, to keep that job at ALL costs... you'd be jobless and homeless in one fell swoop.
Re: (Score:2)
No need for a return to slavery after all; H1-B will suffice.
Fixed that for you.
Re: (Score:2)
They're past H1-B as an answer now. Even an H1-B needs to make enough money to pay the rent and buy food.
Resort work (Score:3)
I worked a seasonal resort once. The employer provided simple housing (dormitory) and a cafeteria. The professionals ran the restaurants, lodging, and other concessions. The dorms were full of young workers looking for a little money and a lot of fun.
Re: (Score:2)
The hostel at Squaw Valley ski resort (in Tahoe) was the only way to exist on minimum wage and work for the resort.
That was years ago, the hostel was shuttered and the resort drilled a well in the employee parking lot so that they can build a mega resort hotel expansion.
How are they going to run the resort? (the management crowd begins to chant "J-1 visas... South American labor... Peruvians! Argentinians!")
Where are the foreign laborers going to live? (the foreigners are rich kids with careers and free e
Look at Aspen (Score:2)
I used to visit Aspen to ski as a kid with my dad (we lived in Denver) and that was before it all got so crazy. The family could have bought real-estate there but didn't. Aw shucks I didn't inherit pre-WWI stock in Coca Cola either.
Anyway, today the billionaires are crowding out the millionaires. The local government has drastic laws in place to keep the "small town" of Aspen the way I remember it. I have only been back there once about a decade or so back and I think they have had some success at i
employer housing (Score:2)
As far a some
National ~Problem... (Score:2)
At it's heart, this seems to be a side-effect of the already huge and steadily-increasing wage gap in our society. Yes, we do still have the significant problem of the 1%, or perhaps even the 10%... but then we're also seeing the average income of "professional" workers steadily out-pace those of "service" workers.
To a certain extent, this is by design [or, perhaps, the result of self-servin
...average salary at Goldman Sachs is $367,564 (Score:2)
I bet you that the median salary is much, much lower than that.
Re: (Score:2)
But if you want to see what happens to a country when this gets out of hand, look at nations like Saudi Arabia, or even Switzerland. The Kingdom has to import all their workers from places like the Philippines, because they simply can't get local people to work as cooks or cleaners or in any menial jobs. Or Switzerland, where the cost of living is, on average, 77% [numbeo.com] more expensive than the US.
That last is a rather meaningless point. Yes, cost of living is higher in Switzerland - I lived there for a dozen years. But average salary is also higher than in the US - your own data claims an average AFTER TAX salary of about 65000. And the cost of living (as well as salary) varies hugely depending on where in the country you live / work.
There is certainly a wage gap, but very few people live in poverty, and then usually by choice. It’s like the US - you won’t find thousands, hundreds, or p
Re: (Score:2)
“It’s like” was supposed to be “it’s not like” well, there’s a typo that changes the entire meaning of a post.
the peasants are revolting (Score:2)
It's happening everywhere.
The world's economy is becoming unhinged.
Driven by inequality and accelerated by the virus.
Watch out - the peasants are revolting.
The dispossessed and displaced,
climate malfunction,
society is breaking down.
We will have to be better people to survive.
So which is it? (Score:2, Interesting)
We have one group saying that the data is clear, vast numbers of people are leaving CA as it's too damned expensive.
We have another group insisting (usually fairly angrily) that California is doing better than ever, that no meaningful numbers are leaving.
One of them is right.
And the cleave-line seems to be political more than factual anyway.
Re: Great incentive to build new homes. (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Proposition 13 effectively does this. People buying property in the CA side near Tahoe get to pay much higher property taxes than those who have been there for years.
Libtards are retarded. (Score:2, Interesting)
What? Houses and rent are pricing people out of the market? What shall we do? Oh, I know, we'll do what we always do: raise taxes so these things can be even more unaffordable.
SMH. There's a reason why California is the most hated state [presscalifornia.com] in the union.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Libtards are retarded. (Score:3)
Then why haven't any of the Democrat Governors and Democrat legislatures reversed Prop 13?
Last I heard, California was swimming in tax revenue, to the point that Gov. Newsom is sending out refund checks because even California can't think of a better use for all that leftover tax revenue.
Re: (Score:3)
Then why haven't any of the Democrat Governors and Democrat legislatures reversed Prop 13?
Because they can't. There are too many older property owners and owners of business property who would have been benefiting from artificially low property taxes. This creates an incentive to buy and hold and creates an increasing disparity between longstanding property owners and people looking to buy. New buyers have to pony up huge amounts of cash to wrest these properties from entrenched older owners that can rent their homes out and make a fortune. So those property owners won't vote against their in
Re: (Score:2)
That map made me LOL. I can confirm that Michigan and Ohio hate each other. But Michigan also hates Illinois, with the proof found in the term FIPs.
Re: Great incentive to build new homes. (Score:4, Informative)
You can't easily build up a mountain or into the water though.
Why not? Seattle used to have quite a few houseboats. And lots of rural land in the Cascade foothills. Until the rich folks didn't want poor people living closer to the waterfront than them. And the city grabbed up the rural property for a private hunting/recreational reserve for the rich.
Re: (Score:2)
What we need is for everyone who can to work remotely so they don't have to live physically near their workplace.
Re: Great incentive to build new homes. (Score:5, Funny)
> What we need is for everyone who can to work remotely so they don't have to live physically near their workplace.
A ski instructor doesn't NEED to be with you on the hill. As long as you're vlogging or sending TikTok clips of your skiing, he can critique you on twitter from the comfort of his home... anywhere in the world. /s
Re: Great incentive to build new homes. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
What? You don't take a private jet to work?
Re: (Score:2)
How does it fix this? You find your dream house, you've got extra money, but no one is willing to do your gardening for you, no one to fix the roof, and your only restaurant nearby is McDonalds.
I don't think Tahoe is any special here, except more of the same old California hatred. I mean, how did Long Island and other rich enclaves solve this problem? I'd say maybe Tahoe is just so remote, but it's more easily accessible than Martha's Vineyard.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Great incentive to build new homes. (Score:4, Interesting)
I can understand why people would be angry when their cost of living suddenly skyrockets and they can't afford to live somewhere that they have lived for years. Anger is a totally justified response. However, it is important to be angry at the right people.
Having a high income, in-and-of-itself, is not morally wrong nor even rude. Wanting to live somewhere is also not morally wrong nor rude. Buying a house, which is for sale, is not morally wrong or rude. The wealthy people who have moved in, and therefore driven prices up, have done nothing wrong or rude.
The people who HAVE done something wrong or rude are the ones who have:
1) failed to zone for and build new houses, to meet demand (and hence get the price back down)
2) failed to raise wages to match the increase in cost of living
3) failed to raise prices for services that the wealthy will need, such as house cleaning etc, so they can afford to pay what it costs for people to live there.
These are the correct responses to sudden changes like this. Raging at people simply for wanting to be your neighbor is not a reasonable response.
Re: (Score:2)
Can only build new houses so fast, especially in places without much unoccupied flat land, around here half the building seems to involve tearing down affordable small houses and building something that can be sold for a couple of million. It is more profitable then developing new land as the city wants a percentage of affordable housing built. Then there is the labour and lumber shortages. Even gravel prices have gone sky high.
The wage problem is supply and demand. The economy has increasingly gone K shape
Re: (Score:2)
I take it you've never seen the Bay Area "move to a nice rural location and shut the door behind you" mode of operation, have you? The last thing the new owners of that $2M house want is cheap high-density housing next door. And believe me, they're more than capable of paying for the lawyers needed to stop it.
Re: (Score:2)
You can build the hated necessity though: High density housing. There's usually some community opposition, but they do work to cram a lot of housing into a small footprint.
Re: (Score:2)
Wrong thing to do for Tahoe. It's essentially wilderness, but with a high tourist attraction factor. The last thing you want in a wilderness area is high density housing. Imagine Vail CO with high rise condos :-)
Re: (Score:2)
Vail CO: https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.... [tripadvisor.com]
Re: (Score:2)
No affordable high-density housing means get used to getting your restaurant food cafeteria style, mowing your own lawn and forget anything but live-in nannies.
Re: (Score:2)
It's difficult to raise property taxes on "outsiders", such as through resetting the tax basis for a new sale, without also creating the new consequences that young people will be locked out of home ownership.
I think a leveling of wages across the nation would solve more problems than trying to target individual symptoms of a growing wage gap.
Re: (Score:2)
They could at least build denser housing in the areas where housing already exists.
Re: (Score:2)
A good idea would be to have property taxes explode if a house is not reasonably occupied for a certain portion of the year, to the point you pay several hundred extra at minimum. If your unoccupation tax goes up by $700/mo, it means people can say "I'll rent from you for $400/mo" and the owner will eat it with a smile. There are more unoccupied homes in the US than individual homeless people.
Re: (Score:2)
A market adjustment will occur. The people that bought are real short term thinkers and given a few years many will be selling at a loss looking for work. Remote work is a career dead end. Those properties will come back on the market as people lose jobs, find they can not get another and have to move to seek work effectively.
You need to work for a living, you buy where the jobs are not where the jobs aren't because once the idiotic boom is over, everyone will be trying to sell and buy where the jobs are an
That's precisely the opposite (Score:5, Informative)
The problem in Tahoe is the *lack* of rental properties.
You have proposed to ban providing what people need.
A lot of people don't want to buy there, they want to rent because they are only planning to be there for a season or for a couple years or whatever. The problem they are having is that people are buying to live there, rather than buying to rent out.
Of course the long term solution to a housing shortage is to build more housing. Specifically, they have a lack of more affordable housing options, such as apartments. So the solution would be to allow and encourage people to build apartments and smaller homes.
Currently in Tahoe one of the fees for building a house is $8,800. In total, permits and fees cost about $30,000 at the low end. Which means it makes no sense to build a 1,200 SQ ft house. You may as well build a 3,300 sq ft house since the fees are about the same. Surprise surprise, they've ended up with a shortage of reasonably-sized homes.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't be daft, builders have one main interest, making money. Why build a small million dollar house and only make $300,000 profit when you can build a larger more profitable $2 million house and make $600,000 profit.
Not sure of the profit margins but it used to be about a third.
The only way to get small affordable housing built is to force it through zoning, community planning and/or small lots. Encourage subdividing lots to 33ftx33ft and limit height and builders will settle for less profit if it is there
Re: (Score:3)
Most commonly, the regulations require a MINIMUM lot size, and there are significant flat fees, so the local government is strongly *discouraging* builders from building smaller homes.
They do that because they figure big houses = wealthy people = less need for government services and more sales tax money.
We'd have a lot more affordable housing of the local government just stopped preventing or discouraging it. A duplex or two houses is more profitable than a single house. Except when the charges $30,000 pe
Re: (Score:3)
Well, if the town is strongly discouraging building cheaper housing, things are broken. Though your figures are for such inexpensive homes that I can't imagine what the problem is. Hmm, looking, the median home price seems to be closer to $800,000 (729k-835k), still fairly cheap for a popular resort area, so the fees are about 4% of an average house. Another article gives what sounds realistic, $1.5 million for a condo and $2 million for a single family home, with prices going up from there, lake front prop
Re: (Score:2)
This. Skyrocketing housing shortages around the world are generally the result of what are basically engineered shortages of low-end housing, especially in North America where boomers looking to boost their property values quietly choked off the supply of low-end housing in favor of more luxurious homes that would boost their property values by voting on local zoning laws. The fix is for millennials and zoomers to zerg-rush those zoning decisions and vote for more high-density housing everywhere possible.
Re: (Score:2)
> But doing that requires voters who aren't completely obsessed with property rights.
+30 rubles.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Homes are supposed to be homes for people, not get rich quick schemes.
Unlike cars or other necessary commodities, we've only been treating a home like an investment for a century or three now.
Not quite how you're going to convince the real estate business that they shouldn't exist. Good luck. It'll be bloody getting Greed to simply walk away from that.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, homes are an investment. But they're supposed to be an investment for the people who live in them,
Not even for the people who live in them - that's what caused housing prices to go plaid in the last few decades, boomers using their own houses as an investment, choking off the supply of low-end/high-density housing through local zoning laws because they thought that putting nothing but big expensive houses around their big expensive house would increase their property values. They were correct on that point, but not for the reasons they thought...houses should be affordable and stay affordable. A never-e
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Err, when the price is going up 8% a month, they become short term investments or somewhere to park money out of reach of the Chinese etc government.
Re: (Score:2)
My neighbor's condo was bought by some really old chinese folk that we only met once (total happenstance I was around that day) and his rent hasn't gone up once in several years. They are just happy to have someone that pays on time and fixes everything himself (old carpenter guy). Probably a nice spot to park their money and it's already gone up I imagine.
I don't really think it should be allowed though. If you can't or aren't even going to live in a home, then you really shouldn't be buying it or even all
Re: (Score:3)
Err, when the price is going up 8% a month, they become short term investments or somewhere to park money out of reach of the Chinese etc government.
When the price of any damn thing is going up by 8% a month, you've got much bigger problems to worry about.
And since the collective corporate world did FUCK ALL to prevent 2008 from happening again, expect it to be worse.
Re: (Score:2)
You don't convince the business it shouldn't exist. You use governmental action to force it not to.
Re: Canada just banned them from buying homes (Score:2)
There are many Canadians like me that wish the government would enact legislation banning foreign purchases of existing homes because of investors.
Perhaps you'd support Florida reciprocating snd banning the sale of existing hones to Canadians?
https://www.jacksonville.com/s... [jacksonville.com]
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
When all the old shit has sold, real estate can do the really new estate.
Earn twice! Get new cheap but sound homes done in a responsible way.
When you know people need housing in a certain place, it is a small goldmine really, and great economic incentive for the local area.
It's the second time I hear of this luxuery poblem on slashdot.
That's great, just convince a contractor to do it, get the city council to rezone it, get the contractor and city council to agree on terms and you're all set! BTW, the city council consists of those NIMBY elitists who bought all the mansions, they're well-educated and versed in using the environment as an excuse to avoid all new developments.
Easy, right? Good luck!
Re: (Score:2)
There is already plenty of incentive to build.
But zoning and other regulations severely restrict any new construction.
Re: (Score:3)
The other problem is that when builders do build, they want to build the more profitable luxury condos and McMansions, not affordable housing. That's how you end up with empty luxury condos and nobody to man the local stores and restaurants.
Of course, soon after, the area goes bust and you find out that banks would rather let a property rot than sell it for "under" market value.
Re: Great incentive to build new homes. (Score:2)
The profit on a $200,000 house is $20,000 the profit on a 400,000 is $80 grand. (Not really numbers but the percentages aren't to far off)
Yes a bigger house is bigger but the costs do not scale asuch as purchase price does.
As was often said on this old house the money is in the details. A if high end firnihihs and detail can tal on big bucks to identically sized homes
Re: (Score:2)
Such regulations exist for a reason though - just not a very good one. Rather self-serving. It's to prevent property values from falling. In developers start putting up big apartment blocks, it tends to attract the type of person who can only afford to live in an apartment rather than a house. And the people who own property in the area start seeing their net work fall.
Re:The obvious solution is slavery. (Score:5, Insightful)
Slaves? Are you insane? I have to feed and shelter slaves, that's WAY more expensive than the wages.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Hard for small businesses, but how about paying more ?
Many service businesses have very small profit margins.
So, where will the money for the higher wages come from? They could raise prices, but if higher prices magically meant higher profits rather than fewer customers, the prices would already be higher.
If ski lifts charge higher prices, skiers will go elsewhere. There are several alternatives to Tahoe.
Re: (Score:2)
The (legal) alternative is to board up the shop and write it off as a total loss. Others might try to have a fire and claim insurance. How profitable do you suppose those options are?
Re: (Score:2)
The (legal) alternative is to board up the shop and write it off as a total loss.
Few restaurants and other small businesses own their premises. Most rent.
So the alternative to staying in business is to stop paying rent.
Re: (Score:2)
And again, how profitable do you suppose that would be? I'm guessing with the coming glut of used restaurant equipment they won't get much for that.
Re: (Score:3)
Many service businesses have very small profit margins.
So, where will the money for the higher wages come from? They could raise prices, but if higher prices magically meant higher profits rather than fewer customers, the prices would already be higher.
Let the free market decide? If all the local businesses shut down there'll be no services and less demand to live there.
Re: (Score:2)
California residential property taxes are decoupled from current market value. They do still go up every year, but the increase is set by law and not dependent on whether it is a boom town or not.
Re: (Score:2)
This drove a lot of Silicon Valley at some points in time. Most businesses in the valley lease instead of buying property. When huge companies started building instead it was kind of a surprise; some of those companies did fold quickly, and a new mega company then gets their building. But the mega companies are still just a fraction of the work force, most places are still leased and the owners have very tiny real estate taxes comparable to other locations. Where real estate hurts is with the employees
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
This has nothing to do with capitalism.
This is statism caused by fiat currency that is manipulated by socialists at the Federal Reserve level.
Stop blaming capitalism when it's what you socialists and commies want.
Re: (Score:2)
they didn't say existing _property owners_ can't afford to live there. They said _service workers_ can't afford to live there. There's likely some intersection between those groups but probably the majority of service workers are renters.
Re: (Score:2)
Tax on land puts a curb on land speculation and tends to incentivize most efficient land use (standard georgism).
If you workforce can't afford to live there anymore, you either get heavily subsidized public transport or rise in wages.
But at least it isn't being driven by land speculation.