Policy restricting housing is indeed another factor impeding housing. The price controls I'm referring to are rent controls (which applies to ~70% of apartments in SF, and the threat of reintroducing rent controls looms) and affordable housing mandates. The affordable housing mandates require that a certain percentage of units are rented at set prices.
Again, if housing isn't an investment opportunity, then why would anyone build new housing? Sometimes people get together and build co-ops. But those are rare, and it's only available to people with a lot of capital on-hand. Plus, it runs the risk of the project going over-budget.
Lots of businesses make less than stock market index returns. You can be a builder that doesn't want to beat the S&P and still support your family doing it. Not everything has to be about massive accumulation of wealth or "growth at all costs". Plenty of people are OK doing a day's work for a day's creature comforts and leaving it at that.
Sure you can deliberately invest in a way that doesn't generate the best returns. You can be a philanthropist and build housing for free! But the vast majority of people are indeed looking to maximize returns.
Correct. With one major exception (that is, a dozen or two of the couple-hundred units in Trinity Place on Market Street) SF's rent stabilization ordinance does not apply to buildings constructed after ~1979.
So, it would be good for GP (PP? family trees are hard) to consider the implications of the fact that ~70% of the rental apartments in SF were built BEFORE 1979.
Again, if housing isn't an investment opportunity, then why would anyone build new housing? Sometimes people get together and build co-ops. But those are rare, and it's only available to people with a lot of capital on-hand. Plus, it runs the risk of the project going over-budget.