HOUSINGNEWS REPORT
LOS ANGELES SPOTLIGHT
to Los Angeles County, the affordability index for San Francisco County was 91 in the fourth quarter of 2016. Affordability in Los Angeles County continued to track on par with historically normal levels despite the fact that median home prices in the county have risen 78 percent since bottoming out in Q1 2012 while average weekly wages tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics are flat compared to Q1 2012 — although average wages have risen on a year-over- year basis for 10 consecutive quarters ending in Q2 2016, the latest wage data is available. ‘Ham-Handed’ Government Efforts Thornberg argued that the biggest challenge to the Los Angeles market is supply artificially restricted by local government policies.
The emerging risk is local political, ham-handed efforts to handle the problems we want to solve. … They can work to expand supply or they can live in La La Land and … immediately assume it’s a bad capitalist out there screwing everything up.”
Christopher Thornberg Founding partner, Beacon Economics, Los Angeles
“The biggest problem we’re facing right now … is the fact that there seem to be a certain portion of the population that is pissed off that things are going well,” he said, referencing Measure S, a proposal rejected by Los Angeles voters in the March 7 election that would have placed a two-year moratorium on some types of high-density buildings, according to Curbed Los Angeles. “The emerging risk is local political, ham-handed efforts to handle the problems we want to solve.”
Thornberg said the easy solution to the restricted supply is “densification” of housing in a county with a “shocking amount of our housing in single family.” “You just build up the infrastructure to deal with it. That’s how adults deal with these sorts of things,” he said. “If you artificially restrict supply … you drive the prices up to a point where low-income people have to either leave the area
ATTOM Data Solutions • P19
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