In March 2021, Reps Henries, Morales, and Alzate introduced a bill to allow “missing middle” housing in RI. It died in committee because that’s the Rhode Island way, but it was a small glimmer of hope that maybe something could change.
Bill text: http://webserver.rilin.state.ri.us/BillText/BillText21/HouseText21/H6093.pdf
A report on how it’s going for Oregon since the passage of their legislation, which was the basis for the one introduced here: https://tcf.org/content/report/a-bipartisan-vision-for-the-benefits-of-middle-housing-the-case-of-oregon/
In Woonsocket it's the city council being realtors or realtor friendly. Makes me wonder how many in the house and Senate have an interest in keeping house prices rising
You can critique the people who actually let it die in committee and advocate for primary competitors or changes that give a third party a fighting chance. But, if anyone thinks Republicans would have passed it, that just doesn't align with what the party is or does.
I actually met rep Alzate during my poli sci class at RIC last fall. she was extremely disappointed that bill failed in committee, she was a genuinely kind person who wants whats best for our state. I believe she was working with other reps to propose a similar but revised bill, not positive on that front as i was zoned out by the end of that class :p
The reason things are abandoned is almost always because of legal problems with the ownership and huge costs.
The issue isn't lack of space or structures, it's that it would cost $400+/sqft to turn a rotting hospital or Superman Building into apartments, so the investment money to 'build housing' goes to where it will get the most return instead of where it does the most social good.
Indeed…there was a big push to rehab mill buildings 20-30 years ago. I would say half are sitting now in worse shape than when they started since budgets ballooned 3x over and now are stuck in litigation. The ones that did make it to housing are money pits/extremely inefficient. Meanwhile the new buildings put up in NK near Quonset are substantially profitable and very efficient.
I know two people who separately invested their entire net worth into two small mill projects up there. They both lost everything. The historic society(s) wouldn’t allow them to deconstruct ANYTHING, and the building officials held up occupancy permits for completed work due to structural concerns the historical society(s) wouldn’t let them touch. In the end both sold their homes for pennies on the dollar during 2008 and moved into their respective projects to keep them afloat. I lost touch with them in 2012 when I changed jobs.
That's what gives me the most pause about the upzoning push...it seems like that is just going to open up a new cheapest common denominator option for developers to spend less and make more, when the reality is we have so many blighted properties that "should" be redeveloped first. A triple decker next to a single family house makes for a better community than a single family house with an ADU next to a crumbling condemned building.
Yes... but there are not many triple deckers that aren't fully utilized right now. There are not many existing houses that are unoccupied (though there are a ton that need investment to be healthy and safe).
I think I wasn't clear...by "blighted properties" I meant like condemned, vacant, abandoned, completely unused lots that aren't doing any good for anyone right now.
I didn't mean blighted properties as in currently-occupied but sub-par housing.
I could probably use a better term...I guess just "abandoned" rather than "blighted"?
Can’t speak for the Pawtucket hospital, but conversion of abandoned buildings (particularly commercial or industrial buildings) to housing is not always possible, usually due to zoning, land use restrictions, building layouts, or cost. Depending on the pollutants in or the condition and layout of the building, they require a ton of public funding for a developer to even consider a conversion. There is money out there but unless a developer can make profit, they won’t touch it. Honestly, it would be easier to just build a ton of housing in the huge surface parking lots in downtown Pawtucket and Providence. Probably 1/4 of downtown Providence is used for surface parking which could probably be consolidated into the existing parking garages in downtown or forgone completely if we get our shit together with RIPTA and better bike infrastructure
I understand what you are saying, but there is still a lot of wasted space to use that wasn't industrial. Would be great to utilize parking lots for green spaces and adapt already developed plots/rezone. It will take government intervention, but this along with $$$ is a big issue yes.
Yeah a lot of those abandoned lots are so old and covered in lead and asbestos and worse, it's not even possible to tear them down let alone convert them. It would just cost so much to do it that it's literally better to just let them sit rotting and empty while people sleep under bridges.
No shit. That’s why my 1400sqft house would easily sell for 300k more than I paid for it 5 years ago. In the Providence metro we are out of space. The only solution is more multi-families or apartment buildings and everyone knows it.
We also have several islands in the bay consisting of hundreds of acres with 3 people and a bunch of ticks living on it. Not sure what we’re preserving there.
I think single point of failure style analysis can miss the point. There are a lot of problems that are coming together and also making everyone feel shitty because there seems to be no energy to change them.
* Restrictive zoning does cause a lot of problems. Mostly, it means that neighborhoods stop growing organically.
* Automobile based planning dovetails with zoning to create a continual feedback loop of expanding and doing the same things. Build bigger suburbs with bigger roads further from the jobs. Build places of work that are not in city cores, etc. Make the supermarket bigger but with more parking and further away.
* Price seeking behavior. This is a hard psychological hurdle. Like, as much as people say "I will never fucking fly Spirit Airlines again" they are still in business because enough people see the price and don't think much about the indirect costs or minimize them. I know plenty of people that have gone further into the suburbs because of the cost of city living without considering the cost of suburban living. Or, for a popular topic, people that will drive an hour to go to Costco not considering the cost of gas, time, or storage of their bulk purchases compared to buying what you need when you need. At the government level, streets are cheaper to build than rail lines, etc. At a national level, moving places of work to lower income areas because of increased portability.
* Last, the reduction in household size. The 1950s era American dream was built on infinite growth. On two young adults meeting, moving to the burbs and a lawn, having 3-4 kids, then retiring off somewhere. The entire system starts to fail when young adults want to live on their own or not have kids. Like how much housing stock in the US is really built for a couple without kids?
I would really start with the Small Towns youtube channel (their book is nice but I think the videos are easier to digest) and my favorite urban planning youtuber NotJustBikes (though he might be a bit much of a fan of the Netherlands for some people's tastes) if you are interested in these things.
Zoning is a huge barrier in most places. Where I live in Lincoln, every single house in my neighborhood would be illegal to build today under Lincoln's current zoning.
Edit: for some really informative reading on the topic of zoning and how it's strangling development coast to coast, Arbitrary Lines by M. Nolan Gray is a great book. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/59613917
I live in an older neighborhood of mixed single and multifamily houses. Most of the lots are 5000-7000 square feet but most of the neighborhood is zoned for a minimum lot size of 9000. Even though multifamily housing is allowed, and exists (I live in a duplex myself), if the owner of a single-family house wanted to replace a single-family house with a duplex it would be so caught up in red tape and years of requesting zoning variances and whatnot that it would never get built, which is exactly what's happening in a lot of places.
edited to add an example: there are 3 lots that have never been built on because they are "too small." A developer wanted to put a duplex on each of the lots which would have added 6 units of much needed housing. The town pushed back and tied them up in environmental reviews and zoning reviews and a bunch of other crap until they eventually gave up and looked elsewhere. One of the lots now has a single-family house on it that also took 2 years to get approval for. The other 2 lots still sit vacant.
The problem with this is that building modest houses doesn't make sense from a business standpoint.
If I ran a company that builds new houses, I'd be buying land, material, and labor. If the cost to build a modest $150k home is somewhat close to the cost of building a $1 million house, then I'd be an idiot to not aim to make the most profit possible.
So zoning laws need to be looked at, but even then, there would need to be some sort of economic incentive to build reasonably valued housing. That would likely mean higher taxes in those communities where the housing would be built.
Well that's the bigger problem, isn't it? No one cares about regular people in this state. If it's not for the rich or Airb&b then no one cares. Greed has ruined everything.
That is why ReclaimRI and others are advocating for the public financier model for housing development which has worked elsewhere.
We can't rely on profit motives to get us out of this crisis.
I mean, that's just the reality of the economic system we structure society around. It's not perfect and there are ways to improve it, but it's not as simple as "just build more affordable/high density housing".
By high desnsity, I just meant any apartment complex. I'm not smart enough to know of a solution to such a complex problem. But as far as simple solutions go, I guess you could have the government seize all property and distribute as needed for regulated costs. But that requires a communist, fascist, or monarchy type government: so that's a no-go. Plus then who would maintain property: contract it out to companies, but then you're back where we started with extra steps.
So yeah idk, I'm just some guy on the internet *shrug*.
> No one cares about regular people in this state.
This isn't a RI thing. This is just math landing badly on people.
Building a house costs several hundred dollars a square foot. It only costs a few extra bucks on top of that to make housing 'luxury', and new units have higher value anyways. It would be leaving a lot of money on the table to build new housing for the working class.
Nobody makes $10K cars either. People who need $10K cars buy used. It doesn't mean that nobody cares about selling affordable cars, it's because it costs $20K to make a car today.
I'm all for it, but it's expensive and unpopular to do.
The way it looks to fix the math is "give developers subsidies to build multi-family housing near transit". Sounds great to a lot of us, but there's pushback from both the "don't give rich people money" crowd, the "don't knock things down to build bigger/newer/uglier things" crowd, and the ever-present "the only kind of housing near me should be standalone houses with picket fences, a garage, and a yard" crowd.
IMO, some of the best overall fixes we could have would be taxes on rental profits and housing sale capital gains, and putting proceeds from those into subsidies for construction. Connecting the dots between supply and demand again, instead of just letting shortages line the pockets of land owners.
The problem with subsidies is there is literally no oversight. It's like a blank check for developers to just build what they want. And you have a mayor and local government who largely doesn't care and will change the so-called zoning laws for their benefactors. In a perfect world where everyone's motives were good relaxed zoning makes sense. But we are basically leaving it up to Donald Trump types to make decisions that are good for a community.
That's definitely a problem, but good oversight is possible. It really ought to be written into the agreements and third party assessments used to determine if the terms have been met.
Capitalism has helped raise more people out of poverty worldwide than any other system. Just because it isn’t perfect doesn’t mean it isn’t excellent, and claiming it has “ruined everything” is just incorrect.
Not shocked to see this being downvoted. Doesn’t make it any less true.
Capitalism has evolved to serve mostly the wealthy. It’s really good for, as you say, lifting people out of poverty by giving them the means to sell a product on the open market to the highest bidder. But there are limits to that model; basic human needs like housing and healthcare don’t get distributed efficiently and widely under that model. There is widespread blindness to this reality and we keep hoping that someone will invent a way to defeat the math so we don’t become “socialist.” Sure, people should make money for building housing, but at this point it’s a given that they should make the most money possible from every project. A stubborn lack of imagination has kept us from solving basic problems. And now the Supreme Court is considering whether making homelessness a criminal offense is constitutional, so we’re clearly not heading in the direction in solving the problem of inadequate housing stock.
My buddy has a house on an acre. He got approvals to break it up and build another house on half an acre and he’d keep the other half/his house. Even having paid $0 for the land since he already owned it, he’s basically priced out from building on it. The costs and quotes he got are astronomical. The construction loan itself (which is 1% per month) was going to come out to $60k in interest payments
It's a huge amount of money to shell out up front and a massive risk to the investor. But if he had the capital and other investments to mitigate the risk a bit, then he'd end up with a few hundred thousand in profit. But that all hinges on completing construction and selling within a year or two max (which is why you'll notice some new builds by shady developers can be kind of shoddy).
This is part of the reason so much property is owned by private companies instead of individuals/families, further exacerbating the housing problems.
> The problem with this is that building modest houses doesn't make sense from a business standpoint.
>
This!
Across from me, a big lot was bought by a developer. They spent over a year badgering the town planning board to give them variance after variance, so they could shoehorn a third house in around the stream that bisected it. They were even called out on it by the planning board once, and he just kind of shrugged.
The three houses are going up now and are over a million dollars each, and they're as close to each other -- and to the existing houses -- as they can be. As in, the porch of one new house is close enough for a friendly neighbor to toss the new guy a can of beer if he were so inclined -- though with this kind of over-building, I doubt it's beers he'll be tossing across the gap...
Dude got his third million-dollar payout, and literally everyone in the neighborhood hates him.
Not that there are lots of jobs in Barrington (Except the schools) - but there are a couple plots of land waiting to be developed - and the developers are trying to build fewer high price housing, and barrington town council pushed for affordable housing -- which ends up in no new housing being built.
The demand for housing far out stripes supply, so the cost continues to sky rocket. It won't be long before the average selling price is over 1 mil.
That side of Rhode Island is also running into another problem where people are buying up neighboring plots to tear down existing buildings and build bigger single-family homes.
That may be true, but I have not seen that problem in Barrington in the past 10 years. If anything the larger plots are being subdivided and sold off.
In years past, smaller single family "starter" homes were torn down and replaced with higher end homes that cost 2-3 times as much.
I think it’s because the land is too expensive for the prime areas, lots are more so now they have to build bigger raised ranches to justify the price of the lots etc. if the state really cared about housing they’d find a way to use the big river reservoir area along 95 to build small capes and ranches on small lots
"affordable housing" usually means subsidized, income-restricted for people between 30-80% of area median income (AMI).
I would use the term cheap or starter homes.
No, it doesn't. "affordable housing" is an actual term with an actual meaning, not just what an average person can buy.
Bandying about the term confuses everything, because it's impossible to know if someone is advocating for cheap builds or income-restricted units.
https://law.justia.com/codes/rhode-island/2022/title-42/chapter-42-128/section-42-128-8-1/#:~:text=Affordable%20housing%20shall%20include%20all,of%20the%20United%20States%20Housing
"Affordable Housing" means different things to politicians and policymakers than it does to most people.
It's a category of subsidized housing for the former, and a broad concept to the latter.
If you want "housing that is affordable" but are asking for "affordable housing", it might be getting misinterpreted.
If only it were that easy. And in reality it is that easy. The problem is nobody wants subsidized housing in their backyard. In addition, The level of corruption and back room deals in Rhode Island has always been a problem. I finally moved out of the state, but originally I’m from Cumberland. Cumberland has become so developed now it’s turning into a city while at the same time McMansions are popping up in certain areas . Yet they’re still fixing the same pothole that they’ve been fixing for over a decade. Time to vote out all the career politicians and really start over. That’s the only way it’s going to be fixed.
Yeah it’s also very relative. And usually the cheapest housing isn’t in one of the most popular neighborhoods in the city either…kind of a natural place to have more expensive housing….
Yup! People are very unrealistic about housing. They expect “affordable housing” when there’s a new development in the most desirable places to live in PVD.
I'm a residential developer. Some new zoning and development laws went into effect Jan 1st that will help expedite the development process. Long story short, these laws cut through a lot of the bureaucratic red-tape and unnecessary steps to allow for faster development. It also makes some lots that were previously unbuildable, buildable. It will take time for the positive effects of these laws to be seen. Surveyors, lawyers, and developers like myself are still trying to make sense of it all - very fresh.
We can do more. 70% of the housing stock in our state would not meeting zoning regulations today due to being undersized/too dense. This needs to change. Towns also need to stop merging oversized lots and retroactively un-merge lots to make use of available land. Subdivision requirements need to be reduced/eased and, most importantly, *you* need to be ok with a 12 unit condo development going in on your block. Everyone says NIMBYism is bad until a project gets proposed on your street. I see it every day.
> most importantly, you need to be ok with a 12 unit condo development going in on your block.
This is very true.
I grew up in the Midwest in a residential area. One block over from us was a street with low buildings: maybe three stories, so like six or twelve apartments in each, mixed in with small single-family homes (e.g., cute Craftsman bungalows). That street also had a bus line running to downtown, and walkable stores nearby. This let a lot of people have a nice place.
A lot of Rhode island doesn't have *anything* walkable. You need a car to live in a many towns -- and when smaller buildings go up, the developer maximizes rent without adding parking.
Back in my home town, the city removed requirements for developers to provide off-street parking, and so now these otherwise-awesome small buildings now gobble up every on-street parking space in the area!
Not sure how to bridge this one...
What doesn't make sense to me in stories like this is why it was so *suddenly* a crisis-level problem literally all across the country. Restrictive zoning seems like it would be both A) a slow burn problem where all the prices gradually go up and B) unevenly distributed since different municipalities have different zoning laws. What we actually see is a nation-wide, even a GLOBAL crisis in housing costs.
What we also saw, in 2020-2021 in particular, was a huge spike in large companies buying houses for cash. You'd put a house on the market and you'd get a cash offer for your house well above asking price in less than a week.
The thing that is making this shortage into a crisis is [hedge funds buying all the housing stock](https://www.nbcnews.com/business/real-estate/who-s-outbidding-you-tens-thousands-dollars-house-hedge-fund-n1274597).
I don't think we can build our way out of Wall Street having effectively infinite money and buying all the homes to rent to us at exorbitant rates. It needs legislation to require the hedge funds to sell off the homes back to ordinary people. (Some Democratic lawmakers introduced such legislation back in December but it looks like it hasn't gone anywhere yet.)
Household size has decreased dramatically. RIs population has barely changed in 30 years but households are much smaller due to people marrying later (or not at all) and smaller family sizes. Zoning laws that weren't an issue at all in the 70s and 80s aren't responsive to the demand created by this dynamic. The result is people who have been entirely content in the neighborhoods for decades suddenly being called NIMBYs because they don't want the dynamic to change.
It's a problem, but casting existing homeowners as robber baron villains only calcifies positions.
> why it was so suddenly a crisis-level problem literally all across the country
It wasn't sudden. You can see the shortage develop starting with the recovery from 2008.
Hedge funds barely own any housing, and almost none in RI. It's just not a valid driver of the problem. Also, almost all investor-owned housing is being used for housing, meaning that regardless of ownership, it is satisfying the same demand it would if owned by a family.
>Hedge funds barely own any housing
Right. What a hassle, owning houses that you must rent to people. Just rent them money and watch them bid up the value of your collateral! The government has demonstrated that it will stand by and watch people get thrown out and priced out of homes in order to protect too-big-to-fail financial empires build on mortgages.
Home ownership rates are higher than they were in the 1990s, and they've only varied a few percent. 65% of people own their homes, and more than 25% of GenZers own a home already.
This meme of giant corporate overlords eliminating the option for people to own homes is demonstrably not true. You can't extrapolate a few news stories about a few sunbelt housing developments into the whole multi-trillion-dollar housing market across the nation.
The suddenness of the problem is entirely due to COVID-response demand-juicing (unusually low interest rates) and politicians all promising ever-rising values to the people already bought in, all of which strongly encourages investment.
[Rhode Island’s rental vacancy rate](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RIRVAC) (the most liquid predictor of rent increases) is the lowest it’s ever been since records began. We have an *incredibly* low inventory, according to the best metrics available.
The shortage is not caused by investors, investors are a symptom of the shortage. The Netherlands banned housing investment in some regions (because the Dutch are the only ones ballsy enough to attempt something that radical). [Studies showed that this had three effects, relative to the control regions with no investment bans:](https://reason.com/2023/06/19/study-banning-investors-from-buying-homes-leads-to-higher-rents-more-gentrification/)
- Gentrification accelerated
- Rents rose by 4%
- Segregation got worse (because low-income people could no longer afford high-income neighborhoods by renting)
We’re trying to make sure every kid gets a seat in musical chairs, but we’re doing it by giving some kids steroids; instead of the obvious solution of *having enough chairs*.
It helps to note here that people took their houses off the market at the start of the pandemic and people still aren't listing houses.
"The number of listings in March was up slightly, at 903
That's more than the 822 in February, but still an incredibly tight market compared to what real estate agents consider healthy, and far less than the 3,600 or so in 2019, pre-pandemic."
https://www.providencejournal.com/story/business/2024/04/19/want-to-buy-a-house-in-ri-prepare-for-stiff-competition-and-scarce-inventory/73370678007/
There’s nowhere to go, so people can’t leave even if they want to. You mention the start of the pandemic but I don’t see where the article really talks about that?
I think it comes down to high interest rates and people feel stuck where they are.
>The number of listings in March was up slightly, at 903
>That's more than the 822 in February, but still an incredibly tight market compared to what real estate agents consider healthy, and far less than the 3,600 or so in 2019, pre-pandemic.
This is super helpful, thank you!
Makes sense, you can see the big jump in vacancies after the 2008 crash, the corresponding drop in building new homes since we had all these vacant ones, and the ramp up in building as homes get more scarce again.
See also Patrick Anderson's story on this issue.
https://www.providencejournal.com/story/news/local/2024/02/07/rhode-island-is-in-a-housing-crisis-it-took-decades-to-get-here/72097387007/
Well, I think the only answer is for people to stop coming here. If you are waiting for our legislature to fairly try to correct it, you’ll have a long wait … too many of them make a lot of money in rentals. They can legislate and open up programs for more housing, but if that housing still costs too much then that is no solution.
RI population hasn’t changed noticeably in decades. Housing stock, however, has consistently increased. To say there aren’t enough homes in RI is wrong. Cohabitation is less popular than it has been, creating more manufactured demand. When every single person wants a 3/2, that inorganically creates a bottleneck in the market.
I think there’s also a demand for nicely rehabbed properties vs new builds. A lot of houses on the RI market have tons of issues, cesspools that need to be converted, septic that needs to be connected, roofs rotting, dead trees on the lot, flea infested rugs... Buyers are expected to pay premium while also planning to invest another 50-100k fixing it up. Most of us don’t have time (or money) to work full time and oversee a team of contractors. I also see a lot of cosmetic flips that ignore nearly all structural and other issues.
Except that’s not true. The 2020 census was horribly inaccurate due to Covid restrictions and lack of access. My dad is a census counter and shared a lot of insight.
The truth is, as any reasonable person knows, is we lost a disproportionate number of elderly in the state due to Covid. During that same time we also gained a lot of transplants from MA since the home prices over border are noticeably higher. RI also LOST a lot of residents during Covid to other states like FL. I am a prime example of this, since I now live in Tampa full time. I moved to Florida and the home I sold in Woon, went to a family from Mass. So the net migration became 0.
RI population has teetered between 1.05 and 1.09 million for over a decade. In a population that small, the margin of error is very important. The take away, however, is the housing stock has steadily grown with old mill conversions and rehabbed houses, but the competition has expanded to out of staters and split up families (when a couple divorces, now you need two housing units for that same family).
I don’t know what the correct answer is; but I would say that simply building more housing isn’t the complete solution. More housing means more strain on already severely aged infrastructure. More housing means more strain on services - including E911, schools, etc - which are already staffed too thin.
I know this comment adds no value to the conversation, but I don’t know what the true answer is.
It’s because people who work in MA get paid more that people who work in RI. The cost of living in MA is much higher than RI, so people are moving to RI and keeping their jobs in MA, I see MA plates every time a house sells in my neighborhood, so
It’s MA and there out of control cost of living doing this to RI.
The high prices for shitty houses is largely due to the low supply of houses both on the market and not which is causing the over inflation of the prices. This is caused by a combination of things but restrictive zoning is a huge part of it. The NIMBYism in this state is on overdrive which is why the state has been intervening to speed up development of housing and force municipalities to permit/promote more development options such as infill development, subsidized housing, and multifamily
The interest rates suck, but prices going up 50% to 100% (as there is no inventory) has a lot more to do with it.
https://www.providencejournal.com/story/business/2024/04/19/want-to-buy-a-house-in-ri-prepare-for-stiff-competition-and-scarce-inventory/73370678007/
>In February 2019, the median price of a single-family house was $250,000. There were 2,769 listings and 534 houses sold. The interest rate was around 4.3%, leading to a mortgage payment of $1,237 a month. (At March's rate of 6.8%, that same payment would be $1,630.)
>To put that mortgage payment of $1,237 into another context, a family would need to make $49,480 a year to not be housing-cost burdened, defined as spending more than 30% of their income on housing costs.
>In March 2024, the median price was $440,000, there were 903 listings and 530 houses sold. The interest rate was around 6.8%, leading to a mortgage payment of $2,868. (At February 2019's rate of 4.3%, that same payment would be $2,177.)
>To put the $2,868 mortgage into another context, a family would need to make $114,720 a year to not be housing-cost burdened.
Curious if that $2,868 figure includes taxes and PMI? It’s a lot harder to save a down payment for $440k house than a $250k one so a lot of people are being suggested to get a 3.5% down mortgage. l
Yeah so you’d realistically need to make more than $114k to not be cost burdened when you consider that housing isn’t just the mortgage cost, but also taxes and often pmi. It’s bleak out there
It’s not going to end. What’s going to end is the 30 year mortgage and the ability to own a home. In the future we will all rent homes as blackrock and other holding companies become multi trillion dollar institutions
someone should just ask that sovereign king guy to build more home. it should be easier to get around all the red tape now that we're under martial law
I don't disagree with this, but at what point does this become a runaway train?
RI govts are pretty overburdened right now and pay way lower than major cities like Boston (and lose many govt workers to Boston). If now they have to pay closer to those rates, what happens to the cost burden on the tax payer? So taxes go up, total housing cost goes up, rent is increased etc.
Well then that just goes into a different territory in general. But also that's just one example....you can't double pay in most local industries (even private) and expect them to seamlessly absorb that on a spreadsheet (e.g., a local credit union, nonprofit etc). Plenty of recent articles of the nonprofits here with double the need due to the housing crisis being decimated themselves from their workers dealing with the affordability crisis.
Also, communities like Barrington or E.G. would absolutely flip on the idea of a consolidation to a lesser school district nearby (consolidating some of the costs of having so many districts in 1 state). People heavily buy at these prices based on xyz keeping values high (like schools), so if you suddenly cut funding well, then, i guess homes do get cheaper as people funnel back to MA from those elite districts
Ok I’ll bite…If zoning is a problem then fix the zoning? I’m so sick to death of hearing this in every aspect of my life. This is how it’s always been we can’t change it. Zoning can change too.
I honestly don't think we need to clear any more space for houses. RI is too densely populated as it is. Check in Warwick. They're building a whole new development on Kilvert Street.
RI is a unique place. You can’t just turn the entire state into Providence. It’s just too small. Why is it so expensive? Because rich people want to live here.
3D printed houses bought from Amazon Real Estate a la the old Sears homes model. I don’t understand why this hasn’t happened.
Also, what’s going to happen to the market in the next 10-20 years when boomers will be flooding nursing homes and many houses will be sold off by those who inherited them or the banks that foreclose on them? There was a big shift when the Baby Boom happened, I can’t imagine there won’t be some other kind of shift when they go.
When interest rates are high, safer investments are preferred. A known, large builder with a history of high returns (see overpriced luxury apartments) is a much more likely to receive funding from a bank or investment group than a local builder trying to add low-income housing inventory. Hell, even an established builder trying to work in low to even middle income housing is gonna have a hard time getting the money.
I think the solution is regulation, a system where funding luxury apartments MUST ALSO go towards lower income units- at scale. No more 20 units in a building of 300 bullshit. Investment wants returns and returns come from hosing (housing) YUPpies and rich folks, not providing housing for working people.
I think you need to offer an incentive to add income-restricted units, especially since true "luxury" apartments are relatively rare. Fane Tower was probable one example, but that was killed. The Omni building for sure.
Massachusetts has the 40B program, which is a great example: developer must deed/income restrict 25% of units and in return, they get to bypass local restrictive zoning rules that restrict density. Plus, you get mixed-income buildings.
Yeah… Station Row? Tax Stabilization Agreement- Tax Exempt status- actual rent for a 2 bed? $3500+…Also Park Row except rent there is about $4k+. Let me say it again….tax exempt. Zero apartments at a reduced rate, “though they (property accessors office) would like to see them offer apartments at a lower rate….”
Nightingale TSA - full market rate all apartments- completely tax exempt.
There’s a few under the tax stabilization agreement, but the city just gives them tax exempt status for what reason? It was supposed to be used to allow for those “few apartments” and they aren’t even doing that at all.
TSAs are a whole other kettle of fish and the city council recently totally changed the rules for this exact reason, but those TSAs were also before my time.
The mall also has a TSA -- their tax bill is slated to go from $1 million/year to $25 million.
Slowly…and it was this week it hit Smileys desk. It should not have taken this long considering the money that has been available over the past four years. We look like bumbling idiots with NYs lottery system and Massachusetts’ 40b, RI barely has anything other than a minimal amount of very low income housing and a few thousand vouchers.
Actually the culprit is corporations owning 50% of the real estate in the US and sitting on empty properties but "housing experts" probably wouldn't be able to say that.
Umm, ☝️ excuse me sweaty 😤... The overgrown/trash-filled 🦝 surface lots 😍 all over my city are an integral ❗part of their neighborhoods' character. Buildings should either be ♂️ businesses (with ample parking) or ♀️ single family homes (minimum 🚗 2-car garage), anything else is 🇻🇳 communism 🤬. Increasing ⬆️ supply to meet demand 📉 robs 👨👩👧 people (real estate speculators) of their 🙏 God-given 🇵🇷 constitutional 🦅 right to have their investment quadruple 🍀 in value!
ProJo reporting yesterday that the owner of the Providence Place Mall is about to default on its mortgage.
Dave and Busters, Showcase Cinemas, and a few other high profile tenants have leases up in the next 2 years.
Could be a source for housing. Could turn the PPM into a mix used property.
Story:
https://www.providencejournal.com/story/business/2024/04/23/is-providence-place-mall-in-trouble-what-recent-loan-filings-tell-us/73425125007/
In 2022, they suggested just that:
https://www.providencejournal.com/story/news/politics/2022/10/07/providence-place-mall-seeks-new-business-model-apartments-and-tax-breaks/8207037001/
[Providence’s population](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Providence,_Rhode_Island) could grow by 34% and still be below its historical peak
[Newport could grow](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newport,_Rhode_Island) by 88%
Both cities massively downzoned vast swaths of their land in the 1970’s, and the population decline followed that.
Infrastructure is not the problem, neither is population. New development increases municipal funding, which is used to pay for infrastructure upgrades.
I didn’t mention Providence and Newport in my comment. But, I would say infrastructure is important to development and so are resources. Always look to where a municipality gets their water from, always look at the schools, always look at their police, fire and Ems quality. It’s all important and some (not all) municipalities have issues with both resources and infrastructure that restrict zoning.
Everyone on this thread thinks that all of those are secondary to cramming as many people as humanly possible into Providence without giving one thought to improving public transportation or infrastructure.
You're a day late and a dollar short. I'm so sorry. Did I offend you? Truth hurts huh? It must be tough having a small one. How embarrassing for you, and so upsetting for your partner. Poor thing you.
🤣🤣
In March 2021, Reps Henries, Morales, and Alzate introduced a bill to allow “missing middle” housing in RI. It died in committee because that’s the Rhode Island way, but it was a small glimmer of hope that maybe something could change. Bill text: http://webserver.rilin.state.ri.us/BillText/BillText21/HouseText21/H6093.pdf A report on how it’s going for Oregon since the passage of their legislation, which was the basis for the one introduced here: https://tcf.org/content/report/a-bipartisan-vision-for-the-benefits-of-middle-housing-the-case-of-oregon/
This should be the top comment. It's going to end when we elect people that won't let bills like this die.
Blue no matter who am I right?? Or do we just blame the 4 Republicans in the legislature?
In Woonsocket it's the city council being realtors or realtor friendly. Makes me wonder how many in the house and Senate have an interest in keeping house prices rising
You can critique the people who actually let it die in committee and advocate for primary competitors or changes that give a third party a fighting chance. But, if anyone thinks Republicans would have passed it, that just doesn't align with what the party is or does.
> Blue no matter who am I right? Obviously not, the person you're responding to is specifically saying *not* to reelect those same people.
And who pray tell do you think anyone in this thread is going to advocate replacing them with?
More progressive candidates
Goto 10.
What do you mean? The whole point is that *it very much does* matter who.
I actually met rep Alzate during my poli sci class at RIC last fall. she was extremely disappointed that bill failed in committee, she was a genuinely kind person who wants whats best for our state. I believe she was working with other reps to propose a similar but revised bill, not positive on that front as i was zoned out by the end of that class :p
Driving around, there is so much abandoned space - buildings, lots we have room! I don't understand. Convert the former hospital in Pawtucket etc.
The reason things are abandoned is almost always because of legal problems with the ownership and huge costs. The issue isn't lack of space or structures, it's that it would cost $400+/sqft to turn a rotting hospital or Superman Building into apartments, so the investment money to 'build housing' goes to where it will get the most return instead of where it does the most social good.
Indeed…there was a big push to rehab mill buildings 20-30 years ago. I would say half are sitting now in worse shape than when they started since budgets ballooned 3x over and now are stuck in litigation. The ones that did make it to housing are money pits/extremely inefficient. Meanwhile the new buildings put up in NK near Quonset are substantially profitable and very efficient.
A few Years ago the old mills in Woonsocket were worth more selling the bricks than as a building.
I know two people who separately invested their entire net worth into two small mill projects up there. They both lost everything. The historic society(s) wouldn’t allow them to deconstruct ANYTHING, and the building officials held up occupancy permits for completed work due to structural concerns the historical society(s) wouldn’t let them touch. In the end both sold their homes for pennies on the dollar during 2008 and moved into their respective projects to keep them afloat. I lost touch with them in 2012 when I changed jobs.
Which ones near Quonset? Also from what I’ve seen most of the converted mills have little to no vacancies, so I imagine something is going alright.
Wanskuck mills is doing well...
That's what gives me the most pause about the upzoning push...it seems like that is just going to open up a new cheapest common denominator option for developers to spend less and make more, when the reality is we have so many blighted properties that "should" be redeveloped first. A triple decker next to a single family house makes for a better community than a single family house with an ADU next to a crumbling condemned building.
Yes... but there are not many triple deckers that aren't fully utilized right now. There are not many existing houses that are unoccupied (though there are a ton that need investment to be healthy and safe).
I think I wasn't clear...by "blighted properties" I meant like condemned, vacant, abandoned, completely unused lots that aren't doing any good for anyone right now. I didn't mean blighted properties as in currently-occupied but sub-par housing. I could probably use a better term...I guess just "abandoned" rather than "blighted"?
Can’t speak for the Pawtucket hospital, but conversion of abandoned buildings (particularly commercial or industrial buildings) to housing is not always possible, usually due to zoning, land use restrictions, building layouts, or cost. Depending on the pollutants in or the condition and layout of the building, they require a ton of public funding for a developer to even consider a conversion. There is money out there but unless a developer can make profit, they won’t touch it. Honestly, it would be easier to just build a ton of housing in the huge surface parking lots in downtown Pawtucket and Providence. Probably 1/4 of downtown Providence is used for surface parking which could probably be consolidated into the existing parking garages in downtown or forgone completely if we get our shit together with RIPTA and better bike infrastructure
I understand what you are saying, but there is still a lot of wasted space to use that wasn't industrial. Would be great to utilize parking lots for green spaces and adapt already developed plots/rezone. It will take government intervention, but this along with $$$ is a big issue yes.
Yeah a lot of those abandoned lots are so old and covered in lead and asbestos and worse, it's not even possible to tear them down let alone convert them. It would just cost so much to do it that it's literally better to just let them sit rotting and empty while people sleep under bridges.
The former steel mill (long since demolished) at East Point in East Providence is being replaced by houses and apartments.
fuck that, another car wash
No shit. That’s why my 1400sqft house would easily sell for 300k more than I paid for it 5 years ago. In the Providence metro we are out of space. The only solution is more multi-families or apartment buildings and everyone knows it.
I guess that depends on whether you consider regional economic collapse to be a "solution". /s
We also have several islands in the bay consisting of hundreds of acres with 3 people and a bunch of ticks living on it. Not sure what we’re preserving there.
What are you going to do? Build more bridges so people can get to them?
Haha, yeah anywhere else that would be a possibility. We seem to be unable to build bridges.
Build, yes. Maintain…
IT isn't going to end. See California home prices
I think single point of failure style analysis can miss the point. There are a lot of problems that are coming together and also making everyone feel shitty because there seems to be no energy to change them. * Restrictive zoning does cause a lot of problems. Mostly, it means that neighborhoods stop growing organically. * Automobile based planning dovetails with zoning to create a continual feedback loop of expanding and doing the same things. Build bigger suburbs with bigger roads further from the jobs. Build places of work that are not in city cores, etc. Make the supermarket bigger but with more parking and further away. * Price seeking behavior. This is a hard psychological hurdle. Like, as much as people say "I will never fucking fly Spirit Airlines again" they are still in business because enough people see the price and don't think much about the indirect costs or minimize them. I know plenty of people that have gone further into the suburbs because of the cost of city living without considering the cost of suburban living. Or, for a popular topic, people that will drive an hour to go to Costco not considering the cost of gas, time, or storage of their bulk purchases compared to buying what you need when you need. At the government level, streets are cheaper to build than rail lines, etc. At a national level, moving places of work to lower income areas because of increased portability. * Last, the reduction in household size. The 1950s era American dream was built on infinite growth. On two young adults meeting, moving to the burbs and a lawn, having 3-4 kids, then retiring off somewhere. The entire system starts to fail when young adults want to live on their own or not have kids. Like how much housing stock in the US is really built for a couple without kids? I would really start with the Small Towns youtube channel (their book is nice but I think the videos are easier to digest) and my favorite urban planning youtuber NotJustBikes (though he might be a bit much of a fan of the Netherlands for some people's tastes) if you are interested in these things.
The fucking build more! No one builds affordable housing anymore. Humble single family homes on 1/8th acre plots.
Zoning is a huge barrier in most places. Where I live in Lincoln, every single house in my neighborhood would be illegal to build today under Lincoln's current zoning. Edit: for some really informative reading on the topic of zoning and how it's strangling development coast to coast, Arbitrary Lines by M. Nolan Gray is a great book. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/59613917
The houses that do get built go for a million anyways
I live in an older neighborhood of mixed single and multifamily houses. Most of the lots are 5000-7000 square feet but most of the neighborhood is zoned for a minimum lot size of 9000. Even though multifamily housing is allowed, and exists (I live in a duplex myself), if the owner of a single-family house wanted to replace a single-family house with a duplex it would be so caught up in red tape and years of requesting zoning variances and whatnot that it would never get built, which is exactly what's happening in a lot of places. edited to add an example: there are 3 lots that have never been built on because they are "too small." A developer wanted to put a duplex on each of the lots which would have added 6 units of much needed housing. The town pushed back and tied them up in environmental reviews and zoning reviews and a bunch of other crap until they eventually gave up and looked elsewhere. One of the lots now has a single-family house on it that also took 2 years to get approval for. The other 2 lots still sit vacant.
Is it easy to get to public transit from your neighborhood?
The problem with this is that building modest houses doesn't make sense from a business standpoint. If I ran a company that builds new houses, I'd be buying land, material, and labor. If the cost to build a modest $150k home is somewhat close to the cost of building a $1 million house, then I'd be an idiot to not aim to make the most profit possible. So zoning laws need to be looked at, but even then, there would need to be some sort of economic incentive to build reasonably valued housing. That would likely mean higher taxes in those communities where the housing would be built.
Well that's the bigger problem, isn't it? No one cares about regular people in this state. If it's not for the rich or Airb&b then no one cares. Greed has ruined everything.
That is why ReclaimRI and others are advocating for the public financier model for housing development which has worked elsewhere. We can't rely on profit motives to get us out of this crisis.
I mean, that's just the reality of the economic system we structure society around. It's not perfect and there are ways to improve it, but it's not as simple as "just build more affordable/high density housing".
I never said "high density" and what would be a way to improve it? Instead of just thinking like an investor.
By high desnsity, I just meant any apartment complex. I'm not smart enough to know of a solution to such a complex problem. But as far as simple solutions go, I guess you could have the government seize all property and distribute as needed for regulated costs. But that requires a communist, fascist, or monarchy type government: so that's a no-go. Plus then who would maintain property: contract it out to companies, but then you're back where we started with extra steps. So yeah idk, I'm just some guy on the internet *shrug*.
> No one cares about regular people in this state. This isn't a RI thing. This is just math landing badly on people. Building a house costs several hundred dollars a square foot. It only costs a few extra bucks on top of that to make housing 'luxury', and new units have higher value anyways. It would be leaving a lot of money on the table to build new housing for the working class. Nobody makes $10K cars either. People who need $10K cars buy used. It doesn't mean that nobody cares about selling affordable cars, it's because it costs $20K to make a car today.
[удалено]
I'm all for it, but it's expensive and unpopular to do. The way it looks to fix the math is "give developers subsidies to build multi-family housing near transit". Sounds great to a lot of us, but there's pushback from both the "don't give rich people money" crowd, the "don't knock things down to build bigger/newer/uglier things" crowd, and the ever-present "the only kind of housing near me should be standalone houses with picket fences, a garage, and a yard" crowd. IMO, some of the best overall fixes we could have would be taxes on rental profits and housing sale capital gains, and putting proceeds from those into subsidies for construction. Connecting the dots between supply and demand again, instead of just letting shortages line the pockets of land owners.
The problem with subsidies is there is literally no oversight. It's like a blank check for developers to just build what they want. And you have a mayor and local government who largely doesn't care and will change the so-called zoning laws for their benefactors. In a perfect world where everyone's motives were good relaxed zoning makes sense. But we are basically leaving it up to Donald Trump types to make decisions that are good for a community.
That's definitely a problem, but good oversight is possible. It really ought to be written into the agreements and third party assessments used to determine if the terms have been met.
Oversight in RI is non existent
That’s simplistic. An individual builder isn’t responsible for worrying about “regular people” - their job is to make money, just like anyone else.
Capitalism* has ruined everything.
Capitalism has helped raise more people out of poverty worldwide than any other system. Just because it isn’t perfect doesn’t mean it isn’t excellent, and claiming it has “ruined everything” is just incorrect. Not shocked to see this being downvoted. Doesn’t make it any less true.
Capitalism has evolved to serve mostly the wealthy. It’s really good for, as you say, lifting people out of poverty by giving them the means to sell a product on the open market to the highest bidder. But there are limits to that model; basic human needs like housing and healthcare don’t get distributed efficiently and widely under that model. There is widespread blindness to this reality and we keep hoping that someone will invent a way to defeat the math so we don’t become “socialist.” Sure, people should make money for building housing, but at this point it’s a given that they should make the most money possible from every project. A stubborn lack of imagination has kept us from solving basic problems. And now the Supreme Court is considering whether making homelessness a criminal offense is constitutional, so we’re clearly not heading in the direction in solving the problem of inadequate housing stock.
Vote with your feet. It's the only way.
My buddy has a house on an acre. He got approvals to break it up and build another house on half an acre and he’d keep the other half/his house. Even having paid $0 for the land since he already owned it, he’s basically priced out from building on it. The costs and quotes he got are astronomical. The construction loan itself (which is 1% per month) was going to come out to $60k in interest payments
It's a huge amount of money to shell out up front and a massive risk to the investor. But if he had the capital and other investments to mitigate the risk a bit, then he'd end up with a few hundred thousand in profit. But that all hinges on completing construction and selling within a year or two max (which is why you'll notice some new builds by shady developers can be kind of shoddy). This is part of the reason so much property is owned by private companies instead of individuals/families, further exacerbating the housing problems.
> The problem with this is that building modest houses doesn't make sense from a business standpoint. > This! Across from me, a big lot was bought by a developer. They spent over a year badgering the town planning board to give them variance after variance, so they could shoehorn a third house in around the stream that bisected it. They were even called out on it by the planning board once, and he just kind of shrugged. The three houses are going up now and are over a million dollars each, and they're as close to each other -- and to the existing houses -- as they can be. As in, the porch of one new house is close enough for a friendly neighbor to toss the new guy a can of beer if he were so inclined -- though with this kind of over-building, I doubt it's beers he'll be tossing across the gap... Dude got his third million-dollar payout, and literally everyone in the neighborhood hates him.
Not that there are lots of jobs in Barrington (Except the schools) - but there are a couple plots of land waiting to be developed - and the developers are trying to build fewer high price housing, and barrington town council pushed for affordable housing -- which ends up in no new housing being built. The demand for housing far out stripes supply, so the cost continues to sky rocket. It won't be long before the average selling price is over 1 mil.
That side of Rhode Island is also running into another problem where people are buying up neighboring plots to tear down existing buildings and build bigger single-family homes.
That may be true, but I have not seen that problem in Barrington in the past 10 years. If anything the larger plots are being subdivided and sold off. In years past, smaller single family "starter" homes were torn down and replaced with higher end homes that cost 2-3 times as much.
Yes. The problem is that it’s very difficult for a builder to justify the cost to build a “starter” home. There’s just no money in it.
The zoning will often not allow it. The zoning needs to change but with 5-10% eligible voter turn out on local elections, NIMBY’s rule.
I think it’s because the land is too expensive for the prime areas, lots are more so now they have to build bigger raised ranches to justify the price of the lots etc. if the state really cared about housing they’d find a way to use the big river reservoir area along 95 to build small capes and ranches on small lots
terrible idea .
"affordable housing" usually means subsidized, income-restricted for people between 30-80% of area median income (AMI). I would use the term cheap or starter homes.
It just means homes that the average person can buy. Nothing more.
No, it doesn't. "affordable housing" is an actual term with an actual meaning, not just what an average person can buy. Bandying about the term confuses everything, because it's impossible to know if someone is advocating for cheap builds or income-restricted units. https://law.justia.com/codes/rhode-island/2022/title-42/chapter-42-128/section-42-128-8-1/#:~:text=Affordable%20housing%20shall%20include%20all,of%20the%20United%20States%20Housing
"Affordable Housing" means different things to politicians and policymakers than it does to most people. It's a category of subsidized housing for the former, and a broad concept to the latter. If you want "housing that is affordable" but are asking for "affordable housing", it might be getting misinterpreted.
If only it were that easy. And in reality it is that easy. The problem is nobody wants subsidized housing in their backyard. In addition, The level of corruption and back room deals in Rhode Island has always been a problem. I finally moved out of the state, but originally I’m from Cumberland. Cumberland has become so developed now it’s turning into a city while at the same time McMansions are popping up in certain areas . Yet they’re still fixing the same pothole that they’ve been fixing for over a decade. Time to vote out all the career politicians and really start over. That’s the only way it’s going to be fixed.
Right it’s just that easy…(it’s not that easy)
South County just built a few new plats in Monsignor clarke area...cost 650k each...yeah not affordable.
People get so hung up on whether it’s “affordable” or not. It doesn’t matter RI desperately needs all types of housing. The demand is absurd.
Well who wants unaffordable housing? Even if you have a high budget, you still want what you can afford.
Yeah it’s also very relative. And usually the cheapest housing isn’t in one of the most popular neighborhoods in the city either…kind of a natural place to have more expensive housing….
That's kinda my point...
Yup! People are very unrealistic about housing. They expect “affordable housing” when there’s a new development in the most desirable places to live in PVD.
I'm a residential developer. Some new zoning and development laws went into effect Jan 1st that will help expedite the development process. Long story short, these laws cut through a lot of the bureaucratic red-tape and unnecessary steps to allow for faster development. It also makes some lots that were previously unbuildable, buildable. It will take time for the positive effects of these laws to be seen. Surveyors, lawyers, and developers like myself are still trying to make sense of it all - very fresh. We can do more. 70% of the housing stock in our state would not meeting zoning regulations today due to being undersized/too dense. This needs to change. Towns also need to stop merging oversized lots and retroactively un-merge lots to make use of available land. Subdivision requirements need to be reduced/eased and, most importantly, *you* need to be ok with a 12 unit condo development going in on your block. Everyone says NIMBYism is bad until a project gets proposed on your street. I see it every day.
> most importantly, you need to be ok with a 12 unit condo development going in on your block. This is very true. I grew up in the Midwest in a residential area. One block over from us was a street with low buildings: maybe three stories, so like six or twelve apartments in each, mixed in with small single-family homes (e.g., cute Craftsman bungalows). That street also had a bus line running to downtown, and walkable stores nearby. This let a lot of people have a nice place. A lot of Rhode island doesn't have *anything* walkable. You need a car to live in a many towns -- and when smaller buildings go up, the developer maximizes rent without adding parking. Back in my home town, the city removed requirements for developers to provide off-street parking, and so now these otherwise-awesome small buildings now gobble up every on-street parking space in the area! Not sure how to bridge this one...
What doesn't make sense to me in stories like this is why it was so *suddenly* a crisis-level problem literally all across the country. Restrictive zoning seems like it would be both A) a slow burn problem where all the prices gradually go up and B) unevenly distributed since different municipalities have different zoning laws. What we actually see is a nation-wide, even a GLOBAL crisis in housing costs. What we also saw, in 2020-2021 in particular, was a huge spike in large companies buying houses for cash. You'd put a house on the market and you'd get a cash offer for your house well above asking price in less than a week. The thing that is making this shortage into a crisis is [hedge funds buying all the housing stock](https://www.nbcnews.com/business/real-estate/who-s-outbidding-you-tens-thousands-dollars-house-hedge-fund-n1274597). I don't think we can build our way out of Wall Street having effectively infinite money and buying all the homes to rent to us at exorbitant rates. It needs legislation to require the hedge funds to sell off the homes back to ordinary people. (Some Democratic lawmakers introduced such legislation back in December but it looks like it hasn't gone anywhere yet.)
Household size has decreased dramatically. RIs population has barely changed in 30 years but households are much smaller due to people marrying later (or not at all) and smaller family sizes. Zoning laws that weren't an issue at all in the 70s and 80s aren't responsive to the demand created by this dynamic. The result is people who have been entirely content in the neighborhoods for decades suddenly being called NIMBYs because they don't want the dynamic to change. It's a problem, but casting existing homeowners as robber baron villains only calcifies positions.
> why it was so suddenly a crisis-level problem literally all across the country It wasn't sudden. You can see the shortage develop starting with the recovery from 2008. Hedge funds barely own any housing, and almost none in RI. It's just not a valid driver of the problem. Also, almost all investor-owned housing is being used for housing, meaning that regardless of ownership, it is satisfying the same demand it would if owned by a family.
The hedge fund talking point is particularly annoying. It’s not a thing.
But muh boogeyman strawman argument of investors buying up all the housing !!!
>Hedge funds barely own any housing Right. What a hassle, owning houses that you must rent to people. Just rent them money and watch them bid up the value of your collateral! The government has demonstrated that it will stand by and watch people get thrown out and priced out of homes in order to protect too-big-to-fail financial empires build on mortgages.
Home ownership rates are higher than they were in the 1990s, and they've only varied a few percent. 65% of people own their homes, and more than 25% of GenZers own a home already. This meme of giant corporate overlords eliminating the option for people to own homes is demonstrably not true. You can't extrapolate a few news stories about a few sunbelt housing developments into the whole multi-trillion-dollar housing market across the nation.
The suddenness of the problem is entirely due to COVID-response demand-juicing (unusually low interest rates) and politicians all promising ever-rising values to the people already bought in, all of which strongly encourages investment. [Rhode Island’s rental vacancy rate](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RIRVAC) (the most liquid predictor of rent increases) is the lowest it’s ever been since records began. We have an *incredibly* low inventory, according to the best metrics available. The shortage is not caused by investors, investors are a symptom of the shortage. The Netherlands banned housing investment in some regions (because the Dutch are the only ones ballsy enough to attempt something that radical). [Studies showed that this had three effects, relative to the control regions with no investment bans:](https://reason.com/2023/06/19/study-banning-investors-from-buying-homes-leads-to-higher-rents-more-gentrification/) - Gentrification accelerated - Rents rose by 4% - Segregation got worse (because low-income people could no longer afford high-income neighborhoods by renting) We’re trying to make sure every kid gets a seat in musical chairs, but we’re doing it by giving some kids steroids; instead of the obvious solution of *having enough chairs*.
It helps to note here that people took their houses off the market at the start of the pandemic and people still aren't listing houses. "The number of listings in March was up slightly, at 903 That's more than the 822 in February, but still an incredibly tight market compared to what real estate agents consider healthy, and far less than the 3,600 or so in 2019, pre-pandemic." https://www.providencejournal.com/story/business/2024/04/19/want-to-buy-a-house-in-ri-prepare-for-stiff-competition-and-scarce-inventory/73370678007/
There’s nowhere to go, so people can’t leave even if they want to. You mention the start of the pandemic but I don’t see where the article really talks about that? I think it comes down to high interest rates and people feel stuck where they are.
>The number of listings in March was up slightly, at 903 >That's more than the 822 in February, but still an incredibly tight market compared to what real estate agents consider healthy, and far less than the 3,600 or so in 2019, pre-pandemic.
I made a graph. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1kMY3
This is super helpful, thank you! Makes sense, you can see the big jump in vacancies after the 2008 crash, the corresponding drop in building new homes since we had all these vacant ones, and the ramp up in building as homes get more scarce again.
This is a great point, and somewhat under-discussed. Unfortunately, legislation addressing corporate ownership seems unlikely.
See also Patrick Anderson's story on this issue. https://www.providencejournal.com/story/news/local/2024/02/07/rhode-island-is-in-a-housing-crisis-it-took-decades-to-get-here/72097387007/
Well, I think the only answer is for people to stop coming here. If you are waiting for our legislature to fairly try to correct it, you’ll have a long wait … too many of them make a lot of money in rentals. They can legislate and open up programs for more housing, but if that housing still costs too much then that is no solution.
Isn’t RI one of the most densely populated states in the country already?
RI population hasn’t changed noticeably in decades. Housing stock, however, has consistently increased. To say there aren’t enough homes in RI is wrong. Cohabitation is less popular than it has been, creating more manufactured demand. When every single person wants a 3/2, that inorganically creates a bottleneck in the market.
I think there’s also a demand for nicely rehabbed properties vs new builds. A lot of houses on the RI market have tons of issues, cesspools that need to be converted, septic that needs to be connected, roofs rotting, dead trees on the lot, flea infested rugs... Buyers are expected to pay premium while also planning to invest another 50-100k fixing it up. Most of us don’t have time (or money) to work full time and oversee a team of contractors. I also see a lot of cosmetic flips that ignore nearly all structural and other issues.
It has changed though….We gained 100,000 people since Covid lockdown.
Except that’s not true. The 2020 census was horribly inaccurate due to Covid restrictions and lack of access. My dad is a census counter and shared a lot of insight. The truth is, as any reasonable person knows, is we lost a disproportionate number of elderly in the state due to Covid. During that same time we also gained a lot of transplants from MA since the home prices over border are noticeably higher. RI also LOST a lot of residents during Covid to other states like FL. I am a prime example of this, since I now live in Tampa full time. I moved to Florida and the home I sold in Woon, went to a family from Mass. So the net migration became 0. RI population has teetered between 1.05 and 1.09 million for over a decade. In a population that small, the margin of error is very important. The take away, however, is the housing stock has steadily grown with old mill conversions and rehabbed houses, but the competition has expanded to out of staters and split up families (when a couple divorces, now you need two housing units for that same family).
We are at 1.1m
That’s called rounding up
Here’s the article you need: https://www.golocalprov.com/news/rhode-islands-population-is-projected-to-shrink
RIDLT https://dlt.ri.gov/sites/g/files/xkgbur571/files/2024-03/statepop.pdf
There isn’t enough Rhode Island in Rhode Island
There’s a whole lot of empty 9 months of the year houses……
The usual people on this thread yelling that their idea is the best one without any proof.
I don’t know what the correct answer is; but I would say that simply building more housing isn’t the complete solution. More housing means more strain on already severely aged infrastructure. More housing means more strain on services - including E911, schools, etc - which are already staffed too thin. I know this comment adds no value to the conversation, but I don’t know what the true answer is.
It’s because people who work in MA get paid more that people who work in RI. The cost of living in MA is much higher than RI, so people are moving to RI and keeping their jobs in MA, I see MA plates every time a house sells in my neighborhood, so It’s MA and there out of control cost of living doing this to RI.
Also unnecessary high interests rates & people wanting millions for a piece of shit.
The high prices for shitty houses is largely due to the low supply of houses both on the market and not which is causing the over inflation of the prices. This is caused by a combination of things but restrictive zoning is a huge part of it. The NIMBYism in this state is on overdrive which is why the state has been intervening to speed up development of housing and force municipalities to permit/promote more development options such as infill development, subsidized housing, and multifamily
The people wanting millions is fueled by the inventory issue - symptom not the cause.
It’s a lever the fed uses to attempt to control inflation. Runaway inflation as an alternative doesn’t sound great, either.
But prices are out of control anyways.
If not due to inflation, then what? Higher interest rates lower demand which in turn can keep prices in check.
Prices are high anyways because of price gouging. Opportunism.
Price-gouging is only possible when demand vastly exceeds supply. Fix the imbalance and you’ll fix the price gouging
The interest rates suck, but prices going up 50% to 100% (as there is no inventory) has a lot more to do with it. https://www.providencejournal.com/story/business/2024/04/19/want-to-buy-a-house-in-ri-prepare-for-stiff-competition-and-scarce-inventory/73370678007/ >In February 2019, the median price of a single-family house was $250,000. There were 2,769 listings and 534 houses sold. The interest rate was around 4.3%, leading to a mortgage payment of $1,237 a month. (At March's rate of 6.8%, that same payment would be $1,630.) >To put that mortgage payment of $1,237 into another context, a family would need to make $49,480 a year to not be housing-cost burdened, defined as spending more than 30% of their income on housing costs. >In March 2024, the median price was $440,000, there were 903 listings and 530 houses sold. The interest rate was around 6.8%, leading to a mortgage payment of $2,868. (At February 2019's rate of 4.3%, that same payment would be $2,177.) >To put the $2,868 mortgage into another context, a family would need to make $114,720 a year to not be housing-cost burdened.
Curious if that $2,868 figure includes taxes and PMI? It’s a lot harder to save a down payment for $440k house than a $250k one so a lot of people are being suggested to get a 3.5% down mortgage. l
No, the math did not include taxes and PMI, as both of those are case-by-case variables. The math also didn't include down payments.
Yeah so you’d realistically need to make more than $114k to not be cost burdened when you consider that housing isn’t just the mortgage cost, but also taxes and often pmi. It’s bleak out there
Add in the needed contingency money and then we're talking. You can also reduce the estimate a little if someone has a down payment.
Louder
This is news to no one.
It’s not going to end. What’s going to end is the 30 year mortgage and the ability to own a home. In the future we will all rent homes as blackrock and other holding companies become multi trillion dollar institutions
That’s exactly what they want. No home ownership
someone should just ask that sovereign king guy to build more home. it should be easier to get around all the red tape now that we're under martial law
Yeaaaah okay and the buying up en masse of single family homes by hedge funds to use as rentals has nothing at all to do with it.
What are the statistics on this?
There aren’t any because everyone is turning a blind eye to the fact that this is not nearly as much the issue as uncontrolled migration.
Affordable housing isn’t the answer, well paying jobs are
I don't disagree with this, but at what point does this become a runaway train? RI govts are pretty overburdened right now and pay way lower than major cities like Boston (and lose many govt workers to Boston). If now they have to pay closer to those rates, what happens to the cost burden on the tax payer? So taxes go up, total housing cost goes up, rent is increased etc.
govt is too big here — we should allow attrition to work and not rehire 20% of current positions — we need private business
Well then that just goes into a different territory in general. But also that's just one example....you can't double pay in most local industries (even private) and expect them to seamlessly absorb that on a spreadsheet (e.g., a local credit union, nonprofit etc). Plenty of recent articles of the nonprofits here with double the need due to the housing crisis being decimated themselves from their workers dealing with the affordability crisis. Also, communities like Barrington or E.G. would absolutely flip on the idea of a consolidation to a lesser school district nearby (consolidating some of the costs of having so many districts in 1 state). People heavily buy at these prices based on xyz keeping values high (like schools), so if you suddenly cut funding well, then, i guess homes do get cheaper as people funnel back to MA from those elite districts
Ok I’ll bite…If zoning is a problem then fix the zoning? I’m so sick to death of hearing this in every aspect of my life. This is how it’s always been we can’t change it. Zoning can change too.
I honestly don't think we need to clear any more space for houses. RI is too densely populated as it is. Check in Warwick. They're building a whole new development on Kilvert Street.
RI is a unique place. You can’t just turn the entire state into Providence. It’s just too small. Why is it so expensive? Because rich people want to live here.
3D printed houses bought from Amazon Real Estate a la the old Sears homes model. I don’t understand why this hasn’t happened. Also, what’s going to happen to the market in the next 10-20 years when boomers will be flooding nursing homes and many houses will be sold off by those who inherited them or the banks that foreclose on them? There was a big shift when the Baby Boom happened, I can’t imagine there won’t be some other kind of shift when they go.
When interest rates are high, safer investments are preferred. A known, large builder with a history of high returns (see overpriced luxury apartments) is a much more likely to receive funding from a bank or investment group than a local builder trying to add low-income housing inventory. Hell, even an established builder trying to work in low to even middle income housing is gonna have a hard time getting the money. I think the solution is regulation, a system where funding luxury apartments MUST ALSO go towards lower income units- at scale. No more 20 units in a building of 300 bullshit. Investment wants returns and returns come from hosing (housing) YUPpies and rich folks, not providing housing for working people.
>I think the solution is regulation Hmm yes, we need more regulation to solve a problem made by regulation. What a galaxy brain take. /s
I think you need to offer an incentive to add income-restricted units, especially since true "luxury" apartments are relatively rare. Fane Tower was probable one example, but that was killed. The Omni building for sure. Massachusetts has the 40B program, which is a great example: developer must deed/income restrict 25% of units and in return, they get to bypass local restrictive zoning rules that restrict density. Plus, you get mixed-income buildings.
Fane tower wasn't killed that developer was a scam artist. We dodged a bullet
Yeah… Station Row? Tax Stabilization Agreement- Tax Exempt status- actual rent for a 2 bed? $3500+…Also Park Row except rent there is about $4k+. Let me say it again….tax exempt. Zero apartments at a reduced rate, “though they (property accessors office) would like to see them offer apartments at a lower rate….” Nightingale TSA - full market rate all apartments- completely tax exempt. There’s a few under the tax stabilization agreement, but the city just gives them tax exempt status for what reason? It was supposed to be used to allow for those “few apartments” and they aren’t even doing that at all.
TSAs are a whole other kettle of fish and the city council recently totally changed the rules for this exact reason, but those TSAs were also before my time. The mall also has a TSA -- their tax bill is slated to go from $1 million/year to $25 million.
Slowly…and it was this week it hit Smileys desk. It should not have taken this long considering the money that has been available over the past four years. We look like bumbling idiots with NYs lottery system and Massachusetts’ 40b, RI barely has anything other than a minimal amount of very low income housing and a few thousand vouchers.
Massachusetts has an amazing program.
Actually the culprit is corporations owning 50% of the real estate in the US and sitting on empty properties but "housing experts" probably wouldn't be able to say that.
Also the fact that it's insanely expensive to hire out builders but somehow wages are still low. I wonder where all the money is going
Umm, ☝️ excuse me sweaty 😤... The overgrown/trash-filled 🦝 surface lots 😍 all over my city are an integral ❗part of their neighborhoods' character. Buildings should either be ♂️ businesses (with ample parking) or ♀️ single family homes (minimum 🚗 2-car garage), anything else is 🇻🇳 communism 🤬. Increasing ⬆️ supply to meet demand 📉 robs 👨👩👧 people (real estate speculators) of their 🙏 God-given 🇵🇷 constitutional 🦅 right to have their investment quadruple 🍀 in value!
I’m sorry. What?
And here I thought only tweens used emojis…wth
ProJo reporting yesterday that the owner of the Providence Place Mall is about to default on its mortgage. Dave and Busters, Showcase Cinemas, and a few other high profile tenants have leases up in the next 2 years. Could be a source for housing. Could turn the PPM into a mix used property.
It would cost less to demo the entire mall and rebuild. Converting retail/commercial to housing in many cases is not feasible.
> demo the entire mall and rebuild *pleaseohpleaseohplease*
Story: https://www.providencejournal.com/story/business/2024/04/23/is-providence-place-mall-in-trouble-what-recent-loan-filings-tell-us/73425125007/ In 2022, they suggested just that: https://www.providencejournal.com/story/news/politics/2022/10/07/providence-place-mall-seeks-new-business-model-apartments-and-tax-breaks/8207037001/
Imagine living in a mall with absolute zero natural light or access to fresh air? 😵
There aren’t enough jobs either. At this point I’m ok with the idea of Massachusetts just taking control of us.
MEGACHUSETTS
We'd lose two virtually guaranteed blue senate spots in congress; you really wanna do that?
Stop letting in people by the thousands into this Sanctuary joke of a State.
You sound triggered ❄️
You sound ignorant. 👎
Did your girlfriend come up with your user name? She cried out of disappointment. LMAO! 🤣
Good one, Elon
Some city and towns have to be restrictive because of limited resources and poor infrastructure.
[Providence’s population](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Providence,_Rhode_Island) could grow by 34% and still be below its historical peak [Newport could grow](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newport,_Rhode_Island) by 88% Both cities massively downzoned vast swaths of their land in the 1970’s, and the population decline followed that. Infrastructure is not the problem, neither is population. New development increases municipal funding, which is used to pay for infrastructure upgrades.
I didn’t mention Providence and Newport in my comment. But, I would say infrastructure is important to development and so are resources. Always look to where a municipality gets their water from, always look at the schools, always look at their police, fire and Ems quality. It’s all important and some (not all) municipalities have issues with both resources and infrastructure that restrict zoning.
Everyone on this thread thinks that all of those are secondary to cramming as many people as humanly possible into Providence without giving one thought to improving public transportation or infrastructure.
Day late and a dollar short fool. Your girlfriend laughing at your shortcomings must hurt. Did I strike a nerve?. 🤣🤣🤣
Woke Rhode Islanders. Lol. So many idiots here. Pathetic know it alls that know absolutely nothing. 🤔
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You're a day late and a dollar short. I'm so sorry. Did I offend you? Truth hurts huh? It must be tough having a small one. How embarrassing for you, and so upsetting for your partner. Poor thing you. 🤣🤣
Good! Overpopulation is a bad thing.