The White House kicked off a multiagency push on Friday to help finance real-estate developers convert more office buildings in big cities emptied by the pandemic into affordable housing, taking aim at the nation’s housing crisis.
The initiative looks to harness an existing $35 billion in low-cost loans already available through the Transportation Department to fund housing developments near transit hubs, folding it into the Biden administration’s clean energy push.
It also opens up additional funding sources and tax incentives, offering a new guidebook to 20 different federal programs that can be tapped by developers and offers technical assistance in what can end up being tricky and expensive conversions.
A third peg of the program will see the federal government draw up a public list of buildings it owns that could be made available for sale to help bolster development.
Next up, your employer charging you $900 a month for your cubicle and bed.
I don’t think the businesses currently owning these have any interest in running a residential apartment company. The idea is likely that companies that have large empty office buildings would sell them to companies that would refit them as residential, and then likely sell them again to companies that already have expertise in running large residential management companies.
Weird how we’re using tax dollars for someone else’s investments, lol.*
I guess it would make sense if the buildings were publicly owned, but instead they’re going to be owned by someone who charges as much rent as possible while expending as few resources as possible to do it.
*not weird at all. The one time democrats and republicans unite on anything is when we’re funneling money to the ruling class.
I know you don’t intend it this way, but that’s an oddly conservative (Republican) response.
You’re saying we shouldn’t use tax money, and that the free market will eventually figure out that these buildings would be more profitable as residences and pay for it themselves. You may not be wrong, but it may take 20 to 25 years for that to happen. You further state the idea you don’t want to help people get affordable housing using your tax dollars.
What is your alternative to making housing available to all the people that who would be housed by this?
It won’t take 20 to 25 years for landlords to find other uses for their buildings. That’s a lot of wasted profit, which is why they’re pressuring the government to give them handouts to do it now.
I’m fine with tax dollars going to cheap housing. I’m not fine with landlords maximizing profit off of the rent charged to tenants when tax dollars were used to renovate the building.
I think a fair alternative would be to have a significant tax on any profits these buildings make as a result of government handouts. There should also be rent caps so they don’t just charge ‘what the market will bear,’ which is maximizing profit off of government handouts and people who can’t afford real estate.
This is a good balance between landlords maintaining their egregious paydays and paying back the government handouts they rely on.
I mean, every time I bring up this possibility, experts on this site tell me how office high rises don’t have enough plumbing or electricity and would need a major refit and that blowing up the building and rebuilding from the ground up might be less expensive than the refit.
That’s correct. Now imagine the U.S. government’s perfect corporation-boosting answer to that: give billions away to developers to just go ahead and do it anyway. Anyone opposed to it gets painted as anti-housing, most people’s attention span isn’t long enough to read the details of why it’s like lighting money on fire, and as long as corporations get richer the parties in power are guaranteed another few years in charge.
I knew there was a catch
rebuilding from the ground up might be less expensive than the refit.
I’ve heard something similar, but I’m wondering if that isn’t the full story. What if it would be cheaper to tear down office skyscrapers and rebuild them as residential…but it would take an extra 10 years to do that. Their statement would be truthful, but missing the larger goal of making affordable housing in desirable locations available faster.
It’s a major redo to get plumbing, stove/dryer outlets, and individual heating control to each unit, but it’s not blow up the building difficult. Conversions are a big decision, but not difficult. (You also usually lack a balcony, which is a not so small loss for tenants.)
No balcony is pretty common in new apartment/townhouse builds now.
Wait, we’re giving handouts to landlords so they can charge us rent?
What the fuck is wrong with america, lol.
The real estate industry currently out lobbies the oil industry by a factor of 10 right now. That’s what’s wrong with america.
How many people do you know who say "I don’t care about politics.'?
If everyone who paid taxes voted we wouldn’t have these problems.
Middle management in absolute shambles at this news
I wonder if Amazon will allow the push for coming back into the office because of this. I doubt it. They’ll just take the money and run.
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It should be illegal to force people to relocate like that. It’s not the military. The only option is to do it or quit, and employers know that it’s going to cause lots of people to quit so they end up not having to fire them and pay unemployment benefits or severance. It’s a scummy loophole that needs to be plugged with new worker protection laws.
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