…and why high-density housing is a good thing
The Biz Press
During the Housing panel, Richard Green, who is the chairman and director of USC's Lusk Center for Real Estate, posited several ideas about renters in a new economy that was focused less on home ownership, especially as it relates to the overall health of an economy. Here are some of his comments:
I hope if anything good that has come out of the catastrophe of the last couple of years that we get over with our obsession for home buying. The state with the highest homeownership in the country is West Virginia. Think of that being a robust place and economy. Here in California we have the second lowest. Hawaii has the lowest. In Europe, the country with the lowest homeownership rate is Switzerland, and we know how bad Switzerland has done. So, there is nothing wrong with renters.
Another thing is that we can call people homeowners, but if they have no equity in a house they are basically renters with an option to buy. They don't have any stake in a community because they don't have any equity in a community. I think we have to be a little nicer to renters.
Let me suggest two things in particular. First of all, we as a country, and subsequently here in California, we show hostility to apartment buildings and you will go planning commission meetings and people will fight tooth and nail against development of apartments on the grounds that they will cause surrounding property values to deteriorate.
I know of no compelling evidence that shows apartment buildings cause surrounding property values to deteriorate. Indeed if you look at the fiscal burden of the different housing types in a community, single-family houses actually place a higher burden on communities than apartments.