Quote:
Originally Posted by Suiram
It'll be interesting to see what happens with Fritz and the news in Evanston. If apartment property taxes skyrocket it'll significantly push up the OPEX on apartment projects. People are kidding themselves if they think it'll all be passed through to the tenants. More likely, apartments just wont be worth as much anymore and suddenly it'll be easier to build condos in that $400-$500k range as the apartment values will decline.
|
No, it will be passed through, it is always passed through. You even named the mechanism through which it will be passed through. Developers will simply build fewer apartments causing rents to soar. They might build more condos, but given the debt burden most Millenials and Gen X'ers have that's not going to help much.
At the end of the day there simply is no "I'd like to have my cake and eat it to", it doesn't work that way. If Chicago becomes a more expensive place to own property then it becomes a more expensive place to live. If condos have other hidden costs like lawsuits or higher end finishes like you mention and we start building more condos because apartments become less profitable. Then housing costs rise because
the housing costs more to build. There is no "now we are going to legislate cheaper housing" or "now we are going to pass the tax to end the entire pension crisis". You can't just legislate money or assets into existence.