GameboyRMH said:In reply to Steve_Jones :
Again, same guy. I was still pissed with most of the same issues. Although I must admit I didn't move because I had hope in where I was going so much as I lost hope in where I was. Maybe that'll happen again.
This is really sad.
In reply to bobzilla :
Again, moving is not a solution to the actual problem, it's a temporary workaround, an escape from the problem for the individuals who can afford it. You can't move away from median home prices constantly pulling away from median incomes for decades. Here's an example of what happens when you try to solve the problem by running from it and hoping it will chase somebody else while you find a good hiding spot:
Solutions? Well it's a complicated multifaceted problem but two major components that can be clearly identified are on the finance side (common issue when things start selling for whatever people can finance) and the supply side. Super-low mortgage rates, super long mortgages and dirt-cheap loans for real estate investors are definitely a factor. A lack of high-density low-end housing and too much high-end housing being built instead are also problems. I think companies asking people to commute when it's been proven unnecessary is a new contributing factor.
Duke said:GameboyRMH said:I think it's a bit silly to live a life being chased around the planet, being excluded from whole regions due to irrationally exploding home prices. There has to be a better solution than turning humanity into a nomadic species fleeing an insane housing market.
EXCEPT YOU"RE NOT DOING THAT.
If you have affordability challenges where you are, you find a place where your income potential and buying potential match up, and you move there.
ONCE.
Say you move to Terre Haute to take advantage of that sweet spot, and buy a house you can afford. Awesome.
Then, 200,000 other people get the same idea, and Terre Haute is suddenly not the sweet spot any more, because values have gone up.
So the VALUE of your house has suddenly gone up, but the COST of your house has not. You will not suddenly become unable to afford the house you could afford before the influx. You may no longer be able to afford a different house in the same area, true. But you will not be thrown out of your current house.
You're not being chased by anything. And, lo and behold, you have now built wealth by having an affordable house in a thriving area.
I generally agree with what you are saying but its not always true because of property taxes. Plenty of people are chased out of a home because of balooning valuations that comes with large tax bills. Abolish property taxes.
In reply to GameboyRMH :
Moving is not a solution, and its not intended to be.
It's a choice. Among many choices available to every individual.
Another choice is to stay in an area you can't afford and bitch about it on the internet.
There are lots more choices and options. Make whatever choices you desire and pursue them. No one else is gonna do it for you.
In reply to GameboyRMH :
So they should only build party approved houses packed together like sardines so everyone is packed in tight. Got it.
berkeley that is all I have to say to that. berkeley that all to hell. You wanna live in your dorm style housing good for you. I'm not a college kid and I don't want to be packed on top of people.
In reply to Opti :
I won't argue about property taxes. We own our place, no mortgage but I have to pay the state yearly for the privilege of living in my property. That I paid for.
In reply to bobzilla :
That's fine, not every house needs to be a dense apartment, but some should, more than today, and that can peacefully coexist with any country home or McMansion you may like to live in, which should become much cheaper as a result. Lots of people would be happy with those little apartments but are being forced into detached homes which is making things more expensive for everyone.
I like to use a car analogy. You like a Toyota Tundra but we need more Chevy Sparks. Right now there aren't enough cars out there and too many of them are Tundras. The people who would do fine with a Spark and don't want to pay more than that are being forced into Tundras and that's making things worse and more expensive for everyone.
In reply to GameboyRMH :
First of all, compensation has very little to do with contribution. Compensation, the fraction of a company's profit paid to workers, is determined primarily by worker power. A company that existed in Victorian England (say, a bakery for example) would pay their workers very little not because their contributions were small, but because their power was small. That same company in the '60s US, with their workers making the same "contributions," would pay their workers handsomely because the workers' power was great in that place and time. It's especially interesting that this exact scenario would've happened in the real world even though any 1960s bakery would've had far more automation than an 1860s one.
Second, you see young low experienced people succeeding every day due to the selection bias caused by your work environment. That would be like me implying that most people are comfortable with command-line interfaces and programming because I've seen a lot of that at work.
Third, it's not just people stacking boxes who are having trouble affording housing, it's educated professionals who put in just as much work as those fresh-faced kids you see, but weren't seen by you. As a rough guess, to comfortably afford housing in most average-cost regions of the first world, you'd need a top-20% income if you're a member of generation Y or Z. And that leads on to the last point:
It is a problem if the lower 80% of the population by income can't afford housing even if they have ordinary low-end jobs. They're not failing to make an effort, their job is effort and a job that doesn't allow an adult to support themselves should not exist. It should either pay more or be automated so that people aren't wasting their time volunteering for a business' profit. That situation can't sustain a healthy society.
Boost_Crazy said:The background level is simply inflation.
The background level is not inflation, if it were, the blue line in this graph would just be flat:
Sorry, I'm a couple pages behind. You guys have been busy!
Compensation is directly related to the VALUE of contribution, not quantity. We as a society have decided what values we place on different forms of labor. Someone who works 8 hrs. as a brain surgeon does not make the same as someone who worked 8 hours stacking boxes. If they did, we probably wouldn't have many brain surgeons. This isn't Victorian England. We have a little more freedom and opportunity. The flip side of that is that we have more responsibility for our own success and failure. It sounds like you would prefer that someone else had that responsibility.
Now, we don't have to agree on what society values different forms of labor. You think professional athletes or actors are overpaid? Don't support them with your dollars. Company ABC pays their VP too much? Don't buy their products. Company XYZ is made in in the USA and takes care of their employees? Buy from them, even if they are more expensive. You get to vote with your dollars.
The background level for housing pricing increases IS inflation. Without other market forces, they would follow inflation. And we wouldn't be calling it background level. But market forces do exist and are much more influential. Hence inflation = background level.
In reply to Boost_Crazy :
I'm saying that housing prices have increased well beyond the inflation which is affecting everything else, which is what the graph shows. It is closely interrelated with inflation but it is not just inflation, it vastly exceeds it.
I do avoid some companies with terrible pay structures (such as Amazon), and one reason I like Lenovo computers apart from their hardware quality is that their CEO has done stuff like this:
In reply to GameboyRMH :
What's normal? Are all the people who currently own homes supposed to sell their houses at some set "normal" level? Are builders supposed to build new housing for what it costs them and work for free? Are the tax payers supposed to subsidize new home owners to make pricing "normal"?
In reply to bobzilla :
Technically those aren't for the privilege of living in your property, they're to pay for the services the town gives you.
In reply to GameboyRMH :
This graph doesn't say much directly about the availability or affordability of housing though. It only shows what percentage of people own the home they live in. If house prices quadroupled tomorrow it would continue to hold steady for years, maybe decades. Notice the remarkably sharp (relative to the rest of the data) 3% boom & bust around the pandemic.
Thank you, you found the graph I previously posted. Which backs up that I said the percentage of investor owned homes has changed little in the last 50 years. There is nothing remarkable about the graph, other than it is only showing 8% of the overall scale to amplify slight variations. It has stayed within a 6 point range over 50 years. If anything, it shows the opposite of "investors buying up all of the houses." The housing bubble of the mid 2000's had a higher homeowner percentage, not a higher investor percentage. Homeowners were driving up prices, which is at odds with the popular "investors are pricing people out of the market" statement. Same for the 2020 spike you mentioned. It wasn't the investors. They were selling and reducing their share of the market.
In reply to docwyte :
Normal is hard to pin down but I'd say somewhere in the ballpark of '60s to mid-'80s values. They've been clean into the "E36 M3 hitting the fan" range since the turn of the millennium. From a supply perspective I think we've seen a miniature version of the same problem with cars during the pandemic, and as you can see prices are going back to normal without any price controls or subsidies or a command economy. Improving supply and fixing the finance side could go a long way.
In reply to GameboyRMH :
In reply to Boost_Crazy :
I'm saying that housing prices have increased well beyond the inflation which is affecting everything else, which is what the graph shows. It is closely interrelated with inflation but it is not just inflation, it vastly exceeds it.
I do avoid some companies with terrible pay structures (such as Amazon), and one reason I like Lenovo computers apart from their hardware quality is that their CEO has done stuff like this:
Yes, I agree other market forces are much more important to housing prices than inflation, which is why I called it the background level. To me background level means less important, not a primary factor? Or am I missing something?
Good for you on supporting good companies. I'm working to do the same. It's not always easy, as cheaper offering can be tempting. Same for local businesses.
Just as people can say "move to places with cheaper housing" - I can say "move to places with cheaper property taxes."
Why don't people move to rural areas with cheap property taxes? The same reason people don't leave areas with expensive housing.
In reply to docwyte :
I don't live in a town and do not get "services". I can't even get a paved road or high speed internet. Well and septic. What again am I getting for my money?
In reply to pheller :
I did move to rural for cheaper property taxes. Tax grab and annexation is driving up property values. I put my money where my mouth is, and it allowed me to be able to retire at 55 (8 years from now), have a house with no mortgage and no car payments nor any other form of debt.
what's your excuse?
docwyte said:In reply to GameboyRMH :
What's normal? Are all the people who currently own homes supposed to sell their houses at some set "normal" level? Are builders supposed to build new housing for what it costs them and work for free? Are the tax payers supposed to subsidize new home owners to make pricing "normal"?
The answer is yes in his mind.
In reply to GameboyRMH :
Car prices are not "pre pandemic levels". Did you miss the entire thread about car prices and the average car price over $40k?
In reply to bobzilla :
Irritated?
bobzilla said:In reply to GameboyRMH :
Car prices are not "pre pandemic levels". Did you miss the entire thread about car prices and the average car price over $40k?
Certainly not, but they're well on the way down from the heights of slightly used cars going for more than brand new ones, within less than a year of the peak, just by addressing the supply issue:
Been following this thread since the beginning and just wanted to share my experience. As many others have mentioned location/desirability is everything. All those "insane" prices are afforded by those that have more money. I'm in the San Antonio Texas area and we really wanted to live on 5 acres. The only affordable acreage was about 3 communities outside of San Antonio on 281 (if you're familiar). In 2017 we paid 132k for 5 acres, the person we bought from paid 33k for this property in 1994. Today 5 acres goes for 320k+ without water or septic. Urban sprawl, moving just outside of the hot spot usually nets real gains in wealth as the area expands and more people decide they want to be out of the city and into a place with more freedom and less traffic. We didn't start building until 2022 and didn't move until March of this year, we absolutely love it. Yes that time was spent saving money to be able to afford the house we wanted to build. I agree with everyone that believes it's all about choices, sacrifices, competition, and raising yourself on the wealth scale.
Inflation only looks like inflation when you fail to buy. Once you are an owner, it's called growth.
I lived in my house for nearly 20 years. Simple place, sleepy town, easy to afford. But after 20 years of living there, it had almost zero appreciation. I sold it for a little less than I had in it.
Moved to a very desirable area. The purchase price really hurt. I got much less house than I wanted for my money. But a friend said "look at the bright side. You are now back on the appreciation curve".
He was right. I sold it 2 years later for a $200,000 gain.
In reply to OHSCrifle :
Tired of the fruitless whining because someone else has something others don't. The "must be nice " and "I don't have that so no one should" attitudes chap my ass a bit.
In reply to GameboyRMH :
So now you believe supply and demand are a thing. I wish I could keep up with your mind changes.
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