Does Philadelphia have a problem with its economy (taxes, jobs, economy, etc)?

[Docere]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

the low-quality housing available in Philadelphia...

Is that in Chestnut Hill?

[summersm343]

Originally Posted by Docere

Is that in Chestnut Hill?

Germantown.

Here are some homes for sale in Chestnut Hill though:
https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...hiladelphia_PA

Complete shitholes... can't even...

[dc_denizen]

^ indeed, no finance professional could possibly consider living there.

[summersm343]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

^ indeed, no finance professional could possibly consider living there.

Nope. Absolutely not. Nor these... barf! Disgusting...

http://www.mainlinephillyhomes.com/i....Price%20DESC/

[mja]

Originally Posted by 10023

I've been in 4 cities since this thread started. I'm in NYC right now. I do not have time to and am not going to reply to everything.

Dude, spare me with the lame excuse. You've been picking your spots and purposefully ignoring posts that you don't have an answer for this entire thread. His post was 2 posts later than and was in response to mine.

"Do I try to rebut the detailed 5 year analysis performed by the city's two major papers that proves me conclusively wrong, or do I just derisively respond to the irrelevant tangent about Notting Hill? Hmmm. Notting Hill it is!"

Originally Posted by 10023

Philly is and has always been a cheaper city with less affluence than NY or London. The quality of the housing stock reflects this. Sorry.

Sorry? Dude, that's exactly what I've (we've?) been trying to explain to you this entire time.

Originally Posted by 10023

That doesn't mean young professionals aren't moving into it, just that it's not as desirable as what exists in those other cities. The prices (the ultimate data on desirability) reflect this.

Ahem...several pages earlier in the thread:

Originally Posted by 10023

Because those young professionals would need to renovate that working class housing stock to make it livable (even for young professionals), and they're not going to do that if they're rentals.

In the UK it works, because the average house size for the whole country is about 1300 square feet. There are lots of working class "cottages" built for factory workers in London that are worth lots of money (like the Hillgate Village area near me).

But these South Philly neighborhoods need LOTS of investment to make them places that young professionals want to live.

So, you've finally looked at the incontrovertible evidence and have come around to our way of thinking, and agree that droves of young professionals are moving into South Philly. Fantastic!

Maybe you could just come right out and admit that you were wrong? Or would that just wound your ego a little too much?

[PhillyRising]

Originally Posted by bnk

A

The worst is when thousands of Philadelphia football fans threw snowballs packed with rocks, batteries, and rusted ball bearings at a football game and directed their throws and literally killed [ ie. murdered ] a dressed up Santa Claus before they tried to boo him off the field.

Seriously? Do you even know what year that happened? 1968. It took place during a Nor'easter and close to 60K still showed up to watch a pretty bad Eagles team.

It pales in comparison when out of control Chicago fans had Disco Demolition night at that old dump Comiskey...and there were a couple on the field attacks by Cubs fans last decade. Chicago fans have no room to talk about fan violence or violence in general.

[PhillyRising]

Originally Posted by 10023

I've been in 4 cities since this thread started. I'm in NYC right now. I do not have time to and am not going to reply to everything.

Philly is and has always been a cheaper city with less affluence than NY or London. The quality of the housing stock reflects this. Sorry.

That doesn't mean young professionals aren't moving into it, just that it's not as desirable as what exists in those other cities. The prices (the ultimate data on desirability) reflect this.

The prices in New York are being driven up by all the high end residential towers that are full of zombie apartments that get used a few times a year by their foreign owners.

At least new residences in Philadelphia are actually being occupied by their owners.

Why this thread is trying to compare Philly with New York or London is beyond me. I'm glad we are cheaper and less desirable. Means less douchebags ruining a good thing......

[JManc]

Originally Posted by PhillyRising

Seriously? Do you even know what year that happened? 1968. It took place during a Nor'easter and close to 60K still showed up to watch a pretty bad Eagles team.

It pales in comparison when out of control Chicago fans had Disco Demolition night at that old dump Comiskey...and there were a couple on the field attacks by Cubs fans last decade. Chicago fans have no room to talk about fan violence or violence in general.

5 billion years from now, long after the earth has been burnt to a crisp by the sun as it expanded into a red giant, future alien travelers will visit the ancient ruins of Philadelphia and wonder at its history as the place that booed Santa Claus.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by PhillyRising

The prices in New York are being driven up by all the high end residential towers that are full of zombie apartments that get used a few times a year by their foreign owners.

Housing prices in the NYC area have basically nothing to do with foreign ownership, which is a tiny % of the overall housing market.

I'm not sure what you mean by "zombie" apartments, but if you're referring to unoccupied apartments, there is no such thing. Most high end buildings require the unit serve as primary residence. The NYC housing market is very different from, say, Miami or Vancouver.

[dc_denizen]

philly doesn't (and can't) have to emulate New York.

as a great man once said, 'let me be me'.

[C.]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Housing prices in the NYC area have basically nothing to do with foreign ownership, which is a tiny % of the overall housing market.

I'm not sure what you mean by "zombie" apartments, but if you're referring to unoccupied apartments, there is no such thing. Most high end buildings require the unit serve as primary residence. The NYC housing market is very different from, say, Miami or Vancouver.

Keep fighting the good fight, Crawford. I'm always amazed when someone from outside of town spews such unfounded information as fact. The NYC housing market is tight do the incredible demand from high-income people moving here, as evident by recent Census and Bureau of Labor Statistics data, along with the limited amount of new supply being added to the market due to zoning and other regulatory/physical restrictions. Economics 101 dictates that prices have to rise.

[UrbanRevival]

I don't understand the denial about out-of-towners purchasing real estate in places like New York, California and Florida. It's very much a documented trend and one easily verified by a simple Google search.

Here's a July article written up in the New York Times about this very topic, so this isn't exactly an obscure rumor:

When the (Empty) Apartment Next Door Is Owned by an Oligarch

Across an entire city, those costs outweigh the benefits of foreign investment, according to two finance professors, Jack Favilukis of the University of British Columbia and Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh of New York University. They modeled what happens when a market like New York City is shocked by an inflow of absentee out-of-town buyers.

Data they obtained from CoreLogic shows that the share of home purchases made by out-of-town buyers has increased steadily since 2004 in both metropolitan New York and Manhattan. More than one in 10 purchases in Manhattan now includes such a buyer (the “out-of-town” definition here doesn’t distinguish between domestic investors and Russian oligarchs, but the effects are the same in the modeling, and the authors think of the problem as one of foreign money).

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/21/u...-oligarch.html

Now, you may contest the effect that this has on the city, but what is the purpose of denying it?

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by UrbanRevival

I don't understand the denial about out-of-towners purchasing real estate in places like New York, California and Florida.

We were talking about NYC, not "New York, California and Florida".

NYC does not have a significant proportion of units purchased by foreign entities.

High end buildings tend to require primary ownership, so it would make no sense unless you plan on making NYC your primary home.

[UrbanRevival]

Originally Posted by Crawford

We were talking about NYC, not "New York, California and Florida".

NYC does not have a significant proportion of units purchased by foreign entities.

High end buildings tend to require primary ownership, so it would make no sense unless you plan on making NYC your primary home.

The article I've cited very clearly states:

"Data they obtained from CoreLogic shows that the share of home purchases made by out-of-town buyers has increased steadily since 2004 in both metropolitan New York and Manhattan. More than one in 10 purchases in Manhattan now includes such a buyer (the “out-of-town” definition here doesn’t distinguish between domestic investors and Russian oligarchs, but the effects are the same in the modeling, and the authors think of the problem as one of foreign money)."

Also, "tend to require primary ownership" is not the same as "always" require primary ownership. There's also very little capacity to enforce such a thing.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by UrbanRevival

The article I've cited very clearly states:

"Data they obtained from CoreLogic shows that the share of home purchases made by out-of-town buyers has increased steadily since 2004 in both metropolitan New York and Manhattan. More than one in 10 purchases in Manhattan now includes such a buyer (the “out-of-town” definition here doesn’t distinguish between domestic investors and Russian oligarchs, but the effects are the same in the modeling, and the authors think of the problem as one of foreign money)."

Also, "tend to require primary ownership" is not the same as "always" require primary ownership. There's also very little capacity to enforce such a thing.

Did you actually read the quote?

It states that 10% of current Manhattan condo purchases are by non-city residents, per Corelogic. That's an absolutely tiny %. Again, A. Manhattan only (not NYC) and B. Non-city resident (not foreign resident).

It probably means around 2-3% of Manhattan units are condos held by non-city residents (because the vast majority of Manhattan units are co-ops or rentals), and Manhattan is the extreme outlier of non-local ownership.

So, using your own quote, and putting aside the fact that Corelogic does not compile this data (it would be the NYC HVS, a US Census publication), and putting aside the fact that a non-city resident could be an American buyer, it's quite clear that NYC housing prices are not heavily influenced by foreign ownership, if even Manhattan housing prices have no such characteristics.

[C.]

It's important to distinguish how many units are vacant vs who is buying them. An out of tower buying a condo and renting it out is a good thing as it increases the rental housing stock. That's likely the case with the 1 out of 10. The article doesn't state that 1 out of 10 units are sitting vacant as second, third or forth home for some wealthy foreigner as some here imply.

Am international REIT buying a unit for rental income purposes is going to be included in this 1 in 10 calculation. That happens all the time. In Jersey City, there is an Australian REIT buying up a lot of abandoned single-family homes and converting them into 2 and 3-unit buildings for rental purposes. I could not be happier with this foreign investment as it's taking a blighted property off the market, fixing it up, and providing badly needed housing.

Yet, some on here would think that's a bad thing because they're a foreign buyer.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Crawford

We were talking about NYC, not "New York, California and Florida".

NYC does not have a significant proportion of units purchased by foreign entities.

High end buildings tend to require primary ownership, so it would make no sense unless you plan on making NYC your primary home.

My understand with New York is that foreign buyers tend to go after entire buildings as investment opportunities rather than individual residential units.

[10023]

Originally Posted by JManc

My understand with New York is that foreign buyers tend to go after entire buildings as investment opportunities rather than individual residential units.

There are fewer foreign absentee owners in NYC and the US in general, compared to somewhere like London, because spending a certain number of days in the country subjects one to US taxation.

[dc_denizen]

I think we are on safer ground agreeing that foreign money can never have any appreciable effect on real estate prices in any city in North Ameria, lest anyone get offended.