I live in Los Angeles and am lucky enough to rent on a street that is single family houses. It is illegal to build a duplex here, or a structure above 2 stories, even though each house must be 2500 sqft still.
People who are pro-market forces (such as myself) believe strongly that if you were allowed to build apartment buildings in neighborhoods like this that enough capital absolutely would be raised to raise supply. After all, you could take the current house I rent now and put in two walls for under 50k and start renting it out as a duplex two families but that is currently illegal. Hard to blame the market forces for this.
Though as a maximalist on this I'm still upset this is the best compromise we can get since the lot of this house is definitely big enough for more than just 2/4 units.
The house I live in is rented which means it actually wouldnt be eligible since the owner must live in the house for 3 years after turning it into a duplex.
Maybe this will incentivize owners of houses like this to sell to people who are willing to divide it in two? I hope so! But not sure.
I agree. I lived in Houston and their are a lot of infill Townhomes. I think LA would be great for townhomes vs high rises or those terrible downtown DaVinci Apartments between the 101 and 110.
Ha, did not know about the three year ownership requirement, classic CA NIMBYism. Still progress.
People who are pro-market forces (such as myself) believe strongly that if you were allowed to build apartment buildings in neighborhoods like this that enough capital absolutely would be raised to raise supply. After all, you could take the current house I rent now and put in two walls for under 50k and start renting it out as a duplex two families but that is currently illegal. Hard to blame the market forces for this.