Posted on 04/05/2024 7:17:34 AM PDT by eyeamok
(The Center Square) - California housing permitting collapsed 45% from 135,565 homes in 2022 to just 74,720 in 2023, according to the California Department of Housing and Community Development’s data at time of the story’s publication. Housing experts say rising interest rates are largely to blame for the phenomenon as rising construction costs and interest payments make fewer projects pencil out for developers.
(Excerpt) Read more at thecentersquare.com ...
In Los Angeles County it takes a Minimum of 1 year and $125K just to get your initial Permit, mine was Grading and is usually the first permit you get. By the time you comply with your initial Permit you will have spent at least another $200K, for me it was about $300K after all was said and done, $125K and 1 1/2 years just to get my initial Grading Permit and took 3 1/2 years to finally get my actual Building Permit. How does one create and Build Affordable homes with a minimum of $200K in GOVERNMENT FEES AND REGULATIONS and an average of 3 years in the permitting process???
Solar requirements. Who pays for it?
This is the Aussie plan.
Politicos make it impossible to reasonably buy a home by mandating that those who cannot pay must be given a loan — for “equity”.
This collapses the market eventually. This results in banks getting lots of used homes that they need to unload — on anyone.
In the meantime thru inflation (etc — price controls) the market is jumped up in actual homes — putting prices much too high.
Then, politicos buy rental properties, a few for each one.
So, you end up in a pricey rental market.
It is not that you will own nothing and eat bugs. The goal is that you will own nothing and THEY could not care less.
I wasn’t required to put any solar in my new house because of when I applied for the permits that took over 3 years.
How? You don’t, as you know. These days I’m just back to land speculation. No infrastructure.
.........lol, I’ve been developing, building, rehabbing, brokering, consulting, investing and managing real estate in and around Austin for over 40 years.
I Thought it was difficult to permit here but your story makes me feel better. We can usually get it done in less than a year.
If it makes you feel better, at least momentarily, I once developed and 3/4 built a 128 unit Apt complex without a permit. It’s a long story but when I was about 3/4 done with the project the building inspector brought a permit out to the job and handed it to me.
How? You don’t, as you know. These days I’m just back to land speculation. No infrastructure.
*****************
Lol, you crack me up. Nothing bothers you.
Plus, you always seem like you’re ahead of every economic curveball.
The biggest problem with not enough housing and not enough so called “affordable” housing is government, state and local, they just need to get the hell out of the way.
Hey, FRiend! Always good to see you around.
Having a big one blow up in my face in ‘85 taught me a lot. Took almost a decade to recover from that one. It’s good to make your big mistakes when you are young enough to recover.
Major struggle just to hang on but made it through. We Boomers have had lucky ‘life timing’. A guy named George Mitchell helped my dad start his own business and advised him, which got passed along to me. Check him out, the most incredible, generous and smart man I’ve ever known. https://cgmf.org/blog-entry/50/The-Big-Story-George-P.-Mitchell-billionaire-Texas-oilman-developer-and-philanthropist-dead-at-94.html
Awesome, good old Texas was the last of the Wild West!
My wife and I are brokers in SoCal.
Some people can buy or sell or build without brokers. More power to them. But we are so litigious (the first RE contracts in Cal were 1 page. now the basic is 16 and there are numerous other forms and disclosures before you close escrow) and complicated my business is assured clients who can’t get through the morass on their own or don’t have time for it.
Three things stick out about Mitchell.(Besides your personal story.)
1) His father was willing to change his Greek surname to get ahead in a new country. Changed his name from Paraskevopoulos to Mitchell, which just happened to be the pay masters name.(lol)
2) He was married to one woman named Cynthia, and they produced 10 children.
3) Had the tenacity to stick with his business visions, regardless of naysayers, while conducting himself in an ethical manner.
Thanks, great story.
You are welcome. The “Power of One” is an incredible thing when unleashed.
I’ve built/sold or brokered a thousand homes in my career. I remember the 1 page contract (seventies) and a $17,000.00 VA home with a garage on a 12,000sf lot.
.......well, the City realized that giving me a permit was their only way out inasmuch as damages, CLEARLY caused by their absurd bureaucracy (I documented every breath they took for months), would have cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars which, back then, was serious money.
The inspector, when he handed me the permit, said to me...”will you PLEASE call for at least one inspection before you finish this project”? I said sure, smiled and walked off.
Years later, they thought they had me again. 3 jury trials later, ALL resulting in a “not guilty” verdict by a lefty Austin jury, they gave up.
But they made you suffer through 3 jury trials.
...you raise a good point. I sure as hell did “suffer”. Attorney’s fees alone were over $25,000.00. But, if I had lost, they planned on fining me to the max in their “Environmental Court”. The fines could have been in the 700k range.
They were just sooooo wrong even lefty Austin juries would not buy their bullshit.
Every American businessman, in my not so humble opinion, has a duty to start standing up and fighting these marxist assholes back no matter what it costs and EVERY TIME!
I’m about 40 miles west of Austin.
Cool. I love rural Texas and its people. Funny though, last trip down I asked a local how things were going. He said, “Purty good. The only problem is, if you want anything done, you have to call a 70 year-old!”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.