Mark Hogan

@grlneric @SaladBarFan @buildhomez Combined with construction costs being so elevated and now oil prices spiking are going to make that worse

@grlneric @SaladBarFan @buildhomez I mean a big part of the problem is that single family homes are worth $4 million. With land basis like that it's nearly impossible to make stuff pencil out when you combine it with the difficulty of assembling parcels

Small single family homes are selling for $4 million in the Inner Sunset and there isn’t a single new unit of housing proposed for the neighborhood. Just so bleak man.

@JMGregorchuk @shawngorham JOHN

@shawngorham Shoot move to Moorpark!

IF it were up to my wife... We would live in a small town. She would drive a Jeep Cherokee Flip cell phone she rarely answered White Farmhouse with a wrap around porch No TV, No technology Land, Animals, Farmers Markets I think she is stuck in a 1990's Hallmark movie At the same time I want her to have an experience outside of city life

This is OC - Laguna Beach is some of the best real estate in the world... this is the competition for units... white and grey??? A hill I will die on - better rehabs = higher rents (in So Cal) For the same rehab costs better material selections could have been made For a little more these units could have been epic My wife has built an entire business around helping investors with rehab material selections

@clad_inc LOL this permit has been in for literally years

@markasaurus If it’s structural they are like 3-4 weeks behind.

Does anyone have a contact at the San Diego building dept? We have a pretty large project that has been held up in plan check by one reviewer forever and we cannot get a response

@clad_inc Reviewing with my team to see which one is outstanding we had two but I think one responded recently

@markasaurus Who is it? I’ll help if I can.

@rohindhar There is also just a lot of irrationality in the housing market , some people feel desperate and overpay etc

In a competitive bidding situation for a home in San Francisco, the price of the home gets set as bidders pull out and only one prevails Some bidders pull out because the price gets too high beyond what they can afford But other bidders (with larger budgets) pull out bc they feel they can get something better if they’re going to be spending so much money. So they stop bidding as well and the price gets set This second group stopping bidding even though they could afford to go higher is the mechanism by which the plentiful existence of “nicer” housing helps entry level housing prices stay in check In San Francisco, it’s usually this second group of buyers not bidding as aggressively as they could that sets the final price of a home But because there isn’t much expectation of future inventory of homes coming to market, folks are often bidding these days as if it’s the “last house on Earth” and prices are rising quickly

@shawngorham @moseskagan TBF his old Honda was probably in the shop again

@moseskagan he even made me drive him there, typical mobile home park owner

Baker bought us In N Out today Keith takes Baker to $45 cheeseburgers - we had lunch for 3 under $30 - I think I need to make friends with Keith rather than Baker

It's a lot of power to hand over to a mayor especially when you don't know who the future mayors will be

@mattbaran @TaupeAvenger Yeah I can get from my office in SF to San Jose on Caltrain in about the same time I can get to my house on Muni

@TaupeAvenger @markasaurus It takes me 15 min to get 10 miles to SF from home in Oakland. And then 45 minutes to get 5 miles across the city.

I feel like the Bay Area keeps studying this and never does anything. There absolutely should be a Geary Subway. There should probably be a 19th Ave elevated line

@credealjunkie And you used the previous owner's property tax basis. Kids have a good eye for stuff like that

@markasaurus It was the 8% rent growth

Kid’s dropping truth: My 11yr old: What’s that website do? Me: This is a spreadsheet, it helps me value properties. Her: How? Me: I tell it how much income and expenses the property has, and it tells me how much we should pay. Her: Wow that’s a lot lines, how do you keep track of everything? Me: It’s tricky but I’ve been doing this a long time, I have a lot of practice. And we use the same template for every new investment. Her: Yeah but what if there’s a mistake in the spreadsheet and you don’t notice and you pay too much? Me: Well, that’s a phenomenal question kid.

@Michaelfiore with the scale of what Home Depot is ordering there is no way to be as nimble

@markasaurus We (independents) have our own spring and summer trials that we attend as well. Similar process, but my advantage as a smaller grower is I can roll out new varieties of plants 2-3 years before Home Depot sees them. I love being first to market on a lot of these varieties.

Not picking on Jake here, just pointing out a misconception that’s shared by a lot of folks. The plants you find at big box stores are not the same plants you’ll find at an independent garden center. Yes, you can find the same species often times, but they do not come from the same farms or wholesalers. At my garden center we have zero overlap of plant vendors with Lowe’s and Home Depot. Zero. That’s because we grow 90% of the annuals and perennials we sell in our own production facility. For the plants that we do purchase, we choose regional growers that only sell to independents like us. I included a picture from Bracy’s (large wholesale farm in Louisiana) and their commitment to never sell to box stores. This allows us to control the quality and selection of our plants much more than a box store can. Not to mention, we have a team of professionals that expertly care for our plants in the store. When you buy from us, you know you’re starting with a healthy plant and will have a higher success rate.

Let me get this straight. The federal government held a legal auction for the right to build offshore wind farms. A company won those auctions fair and square, paying nearly a billion dollars into the U.S. Treasury. The projects went through years of review. Courts repeatedly upheld their legality. Everything was above board. Then the Trump administration tried five separate times to kill other wind projects in federal court and lost every single time. Judges reviewed the administration’s supposed “national security” justification and weren’t persuaded.  So now they’ve landed on a new plan: pay the company nearly ONE BILLION DOLLARS of your tax money to just walk away. Because, and I am not making this up, the president thinks offshore wind turbines are ugly and claims without evidence that they “drive whales crazy.”  He’s been nursing this petty grudge since 2012, when he tried to block a wind farm visible from his golf course in Scotland. Fourteen years later, American taxpayers are footing the bill for it. This is stupid policy. It’s fiscally reckless, strategically blind, and driven entirely by a personal vendetta rather than any coherent vision for American energy or competitiveness. Meanwhile, China is racing ahead, building offshore wind at a staggering pace and positioning itself to dominate the global clean energy economy for decades to come. None of this is America First. nytimes.com/2026/03/17/cli…

Lots on our mind about if and when we'd move back to the US from Europe. I find most people with an opinion re EU v US income/tax/COL are very uninformed. Here's a simple breakdown of the reality... Say you earn $250K in Amsterdam vs Philly suburbs. In the Netherlands, between the ~50% marginal income tax rate and the wealth tax, you're paying a bit over 50% in blended effective tax. In the US, after adding up fed, state, FICA, local prop tax... you're a bit over 30%. 20pp difference... that's massive and what most people point to as the headline delta. But... family health insurance premiums are a huge consideration, whether you're self-employed or working a W2. Yes it's higher for self-employed, but W2 premiums have also skyrocketed. If we moved back to the US, our health insurance premiums would increase 650%.. with no material improvement in quality. This instantly erases more than half the tax savings between US and EU. Now add the fact we'd need probably 2 cars versus not owning any cars (we walk, bike, train, bus, zipcar). That's another $10K annual delta (at least). Now add education. Our kids are in an educational program today that costs us $0, but would cost $40-50K all-in back home in the US. This is what blows our COL out of the water if we were to move to the US... despite a massive tax savings. In the NL, these extra costs typical of American life are baked into the tax rate. Even if we sent our kids to a good public school, this would mean higher housing and property tax costs. But imagine you could find a great school without such additional costs... you're still ending up around the same net savings rate as if you stayed in Europe. Then you say, well, just make more money. Go for $500K or $1MM/year income to gain the tax leverage.. but even then it's not much. And sure... the US is where you want to be if you're pushing that level of income partially due to the culture. But putting aside how easily said that is than done, the real question becomes... why? What are you sacrificing for that level of productivity? Being "successful?" Being "elite?" Being "the man?" Who cares? Do your kids care? Your wife?

@jebank @agarwal People will make eye contact with me while blowing the stop signs as I walk my 2nd grader to school, it's insane

@agarwal by the way what's the best way to report dangerous driving in SF? Almost every day I see people blowing through stop signs right in front of our neighborhood elementary school

This person is blowing through stop signs and tailgating a Waymo. Sorry, man, the Waymo won’t go any faster no matter how obnoxiously you drive.

@TaupeAvenger The road would be buried through the park if I had my way

@markasaurus But I'm not dogmatic on any of this. it would warm my heart to do everything elevated, but I think that's a hard sell.