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lightningbolt1987 t1_jdszvqj wrote

Reply to comment by Marrsvolta in Ban on College Students Living Together- March 29th 5:30PM by Due-Pickle8392

It only drives up housing costs in that you can squeeE more rent out of each unit so the cost of the building goes up. In other words: more people crammed into one space makes BUYING more expensive but not renting. Wannabe east siders are griping that they can’t compete on the housing market with investors renting to students.

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Marrsvolta t1_jdviezy wrote

Care to explain further? I don't know if it's your phrasing but I have no idea what you are trying to say.

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lightningbolt1987 t1_jdvkeiy wrote

One of the reasons east siders are pushing for this policy is that currently, individual families are having trouble competing with slumlord investors when trying to buy single family houses in college hill and fox point.

Normally, in suburbia, single family houses are priced based on the single family housing market (ie how much a family is willing to pay for a single family house). In the parts of Providence near Brown, however, rent is high enough now where the the economic gain from renting a shingle family house to a lot of students has surpassed the single family housing market. So if the market for single family homes in this part of Providence is, say, $800,000, but renting to 8 students allows for a 10% return to investors if they pay $1 million, then the highest value of the house ($1 million) is based on its investment potential, not the single family housing market.

This means people who are trying to buy houses to live in them can’t compete with investors, and the whole neighborhood turns into a student ghetto at the expense of being a family neighborhood. This is the logic.

All that said: I’m still against this policy. If College Hill residents want fewer students and more home owners then they should just make their neighborhood more appealing to home owners. Plus, non-single family housing neighborhoods already face this challenge of investment being the basis of cost, why should fancy college hill be protected? In fact, why is there still single-family zoning at all in Providence?

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