(((Matthew Lewis))) cults & consequences

“but if we add more homes to my neighborhood, where will i park” “in a liberal, free-market democracy, Susan”

We're not ready. x.com/mateosfo/statu…

Under the very best-case scenario, insurance premiums will have to rise precipitously in fire zones. We're all in denial about it. We don't just need to upzone our cities, we need to MASSIVELY upzone them. We've known for years. x.com/mateosfo/statu…

I don't think the typical climate/housing knower has integrated implications of a blowout in California insurance, given state's history. For 50 years, California's housing policy has been: Displace workers from coastal cities to the valley/inland, and then Nevada/Arizona/Texas.

@LukeB0yce Ideally we'd have Ben Allen and Patrick Wolff in a top-2, the Republican seems to be cratering a bit. But a Kim-R runoff would give Kim the win.

@mateosfo I generally agree with your takes on insurance who is the best candidate?

This is perhaps the worst socialist policy idea I've ever seen and while it sucks they have a shot at getting it through, I'm grateful to David for helping raise its salience. Public insurance for homes would lead to instantaneous bankruptcy for the State of California.

@stri1029 @BlakeKellii What do you mean? Since the 1980s, California's official housing policy has been "displace everyone who can't make it." It's been wildly politically popular. And in spite of grand claims about wildfire recovery, it's working the same as it ever was. latimes.com/homeless-housi…

@mateosfo @BlakeKellii I just feel like a policy of "4 million people potentially being displaced oh well" is not really a tenable political solution. Granted neither is the current situation either.

@stri1029 @BlakeKellii And most California homeowners in fire zones don't even want to do defensible space, let alone full roof/gutter/siding replacements. Californians want to live in disaster zones, and they want their home values to go up, but then they want socialism when their homes burn.

@stri1029 @BlakeKellii Mitigations on individual homes do not prevent fires or save those homes, the insurers are empirically correct. Only mitigations at community/neighborhood scale can do that. Unless the insurance commissioner will mandate them, they won't happen.

... because if that were true, we'd never be in this situation. People who care about things take action to protect them. California homeowners seem to only care about cheap home insurance. And in the era of climate disasters, cheap insurance = cheap house.

... that a San Francisco socialist is currently in the running to be the next Insurance Commissioner, and wants to abolish private property insurance? Did you know that this would wipe you out? I struggle to believe claims that homeowners care about their property values ...

In housing discourse we are constantly barraged with claims that homeowners care about nothing more than their home value. Stipulating this may be true, we're sleepwalking through a catastrophic insurance crisis, and nobody even knows about the insurance commissioner race?

@stri1029 @BlakeKellii No, that's not right. California voters passed a law in 1989 that made it illegal for insurers to do anything without the insurance commissioner's approval. Yes, a lot of homeowners will have to get wiped out, but that's already well underway. x.com/mateosfo/statu…

@BlakeKellii @mateosfo Also insurance companies were originally largely unwilling to offer incentives for fireproofing homes until the insurance commissioner stepped in. Not saying this wouldn't eventually happen in an open market. But that's how it played out.

@SquirrelParty so, you don't want there to be any home loans in California? Where does the money come from

@mateosfo I would prefer to drop the insurance requirement for mortgages in California completely. Most California property value comes from land anyway, and I just went through hell trying to insure a few properties here. And then if a disaster does come like LA fires, they won't pay

@SchizoLLC As a low-risk homeowner, I'd never, ever buy insurance from an unadmitted carrier 🤷‍♂️

@mateosfo My fintech idea is a mortgage company that uses AI to get real fire risk and writes mortgages with embedded insurance that doesn’t have to follow California insurance law. Lots of alpha in helping low risk homeowners escape high insurance costs.

I'm not aware of a single instance where IZ mandates ushered in broad improvements in housing affordability, but I'm aware of loads of instances in which they crushed housing production. Blue cities/states need to take the evidence seriously and scrap these failed programs.

@2024dion I'd say you're describing metropolitan areas. City boundaries were not drawn randomly, they were drawn to keep people out -- specifically to limit population via legal restrictions on how many people could live inside the boundary.

City boundaries are drawn essentially randomly in the US. Useless as a point of comparison. By any standardized measure, the US has at least 50 cities of a million or more

@stri1029 one way to avoid forcing taxpayers from bailing out private homeowners is to allow the price of living in high risk areas be reflected in the cost of the homes in those areas. actually, that's not quite right. it's the only way

@mateosfo Baccera's plan is dumber, but the state does need to figure out how to spread the cost of wildfire risk for utility rate payers and homeowners. These aren't just rural homes. Risk is high in a bunch of urban areas as well. You could easily end up like Florida.

@LGray15 @maxdubler I say, no.

@LGray15 @maxdubler What Jane Kim is proposing is that the State of California should remove the price signal altogether, so that people who buy homes in extremely risky areas have no idea what they actually cost. She further proposes that that actual cost should be born by the state's taxpayers.

Single payer healthcare makes sense because the risk of getting sick is random; so price discrimination is unfair to unlucky people. Pricing risk to homes, OTOH, is good. If you choose to buy a house in a flood plain or fire risk zone, you *should* pay higher insurance premiums!