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One reason the race for mayor of Los Angeles is the most depressing election of the year is that both candidates have proved they can waste significant taxpayer money while failing to check the rise in the city’s unsheltered homeless population. But this perfect failure of progressive social policy is even worse than it appears, because the manner in which the city collects taxes itself discourages construction. A 2022 tax increase sold to voters as a way to reduce homelessness is directly contributing to the shortage of homes. Jack Flemming reports for the Los Angeles Times on the city’s continuing housing shortage, which is somehow occurring simultaneously with a decline in the value of apartment buildings: In 2022, the average sale price per unit in new and existing multifamily buildings in L.A. County was $397,289, according to commercial real estate firm Kidder Mathews. In 2026, it’s down to $280,591. Supply and demand would normally suggest a rise in
property values and therefore an encouragement to build, but not in La La Land. Mr. Flemming writes: Construction has slowed across the board. According to Kidder Mathews, in the first half of the year, 2,376 new apartment units were completed in L.A. County — a nearly 9% drop compared with the same stretch last year. In addition, only 25,636 apartment units were under construction — about a 15% drop from last year. “We’ve been tracking an overall decline in construction for years now, and we expect that to continue,” said Darin Beebower, executive vice president at Kidder
Mathews. “Most developers I speak to are ‘pencils down.’ And they have been for a while.”
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