​Portland the scrappy fighter for housing unaffordability

Portland: Still the Model for Unaffordability | The Antiplanner

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"It’s clear that Metro believes you can’t have new homes without a government plan that takes years to write and years more to implement. Only government can finance the infrastructure–roads, water, sewer–needed to support new homes. Only government can fix such “blighted” areas as vacant farmland or a former warehouse district. Actually, the only thing impeding development is government planners getting in the way.

Metro has known that the region would be growing ever since it wrote its first regional housing assessments in the late 1980s. Yet another Metro article reveals that the region has produced fewer new homes than new households in every year but one since 2008. The total shortfall has been more than 30,000 homes. Why haven’t regional and local planners been able to keep up with the demand for housing?

The contrast with Houston is stark. There, private developers do all the planning. Private developers finance all the local infrastructure. Private developers had a huge inventory of build able lots for the 132,000 people who moved into the region each year. Despite growing three times faster than Portland, the Federal Housing Finance Agency says that Houston-area housing prices grew by just 4 percent over the last year."

Those who already own homes are giddy with excitement that housing is rising at 13% per year, that will last until the bottom finally falls out of the market, and the high cost of living, and unaffordable housing finally strangle further immigration. But that is a ways in the future, and the current crop of homeowners, mostly Boomers, want their home prices to rise. Damn their kids need for housing, the Boomers have not saved enough for retirement, and with retirement just around the corner are depending upon high home prices to bail them out. 

​They don't realize that this all becomes a golden handcuff situation as prices rise. Stepping down requires they use much of their equity to buy the new smaller home, and the property taxes will likely be higher on the new than the old because of the states arcane property tax rules. In the end, they will get little by such a move, and so are unlikely to do so. Instead they remain in the large 4 bed, 3 bath home will into their 80s, or even 90s. 

Once this finally blows, it will likely be a mess with lots of old people stuck with older homes in need of deep repair, upgrade, and maintenance, but without the assets necessary. It is difficult to see this from where we are today, but it is coming. Inexorably rising housing prices, eventually will price nearly everyone out of the market. Unless the state can find the new tech industry to constantly inject wealthy young people into the system, it will fail. 

Luckily the Urban Planners, the Transportation Planners, and the other bureaucrats are busy streamlining was to make housing more unaffordable, and transportation slower, and more congested, all while spending millions, no billions on housing, and transportation options which carry less than 3% of the total daily trips in the metro area. No, really, Portlandia's total public transportation system of bus, light rail, streetcar, commuter rail, tram, and more only carries about 2.3-2.5% of total daily metro area trips. Pathetic. I would wager skateboards carry more.