Where will inflation stop?

They're building nothing but condos out here in B.C.

Sure, you "own" the depreciating asset that is the building but you don't own the land. You also have the pleasure of paying a strata fee every month.

It's not very encouraging for people who want to get into the property market and it's driving the price of single detached homes through the roof.

No way in hell would I buy something that I don't own the land underneath it.

In reply to ShawnG :

To be fair, you don't really own the land underneath it either.

Stop paying your property taxes and the government will seize it. 

z31maniac said:

In reply to ShawnG :

To be fair, you don't really own the land underneath it either.

Stop paying your property taxes and the government will seize it. 

Those taxes pay to maintain services to the property I own. Why wouldn't I pay them?

Nice try though.

One potential change in housing are the changes and potential changes in China.  Their imperious all knowing leader Poo Bear seems to have discovered that they are a communist country and their wild differentiation between rich and poor doesn't really jive with that groove man. It's looking like they are considering someone storing their huge piles of money in another country (e.g. real estate) a not very commie thing to do (I think it is no longer allowed). Heck, owning any land ain't exactly Lenin approved. Other, rather extreme social "good commie" dictates seems to be being pushed also and likely more to come.

There are apparently two rather large Chinese owned apartment / condo buildings for sale in LA.  Maybe more to come? I know there is also a lot of Chinese investments in Canada also (which also has a huge housing affordability problem).

There is a pretty strong argument to be made that we're under-building at the national level, at least partially because of the 2008 financiapocalypse. Some geographies (California comes to mind) are also wrestling with NIMBY-ism that prevents greater density, generally under the guise of ecological or historical restrictions. 

Graph from here: https://www.businessinsider.com/us-underbuilding-housing-over-the-past-decade-2020-9?op=1

Keep in mind though, increase in housing price isn't included most inflation calculations.

Boost_Crazy said:

In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :

Zillow didn't panic. They realized that they screwed up and worked to correct their error as quickly as possible. They were using computer algorithms to predict the values of homes after a flip, and they were wrong. They twisted the "buy" knob too far to the right, and not only overpaid for the houses they bought, but but ended up buying way more houses than they planned to. Couple that with the high rates of labor and materials, and they put themselves in a buy high sell low situation. It just shows that there is more to flipping a house than just buying and selling it. It's funny, because I had wondered how companies that offered to buy houses avoided overpaying. It's not easy to flip a house with boots on the ground, doing it from afar sounds risky. 

https://gizmodo.com/zillow-quits-home-flipping-business-laying-off-25-of-1847985910

Now all of a sudden Zillow is shutting their flipping operation down completely and laying everybody off. Open Door is re-evaluating their business model as well. Maybe those algorithms didn't work as well as they thought they would. Or maybe housing values have reached their peak and the market is changing again. The frenzy here in Dallas is starting to slow. Houses are still selling but they aren't getting as many offers per house. Corporations are like lemmings. They follow each other off the cliff. This could be the beginning of the end.

In reply to CrustyRedXpress :

One thing that will be interesting to watch over the next decade is the ability to work from home for a lot more people.  Small rural towns that lost a lot of people due to lack of opportunity are trying very hard to attract these people- I've seen a few reports of small, empty, towns doing that.  These areas have lots of old homes that are not being fully utilized- but at the same time, many of those will need some updates- either for safety or efficiency.  

And most of the small towns will also have to find a way to add high speed and reliable internet to support the working from home group.

But seeing companies put the burden of a workplace onto the worker's shoulders looks quite appealing- my company has literally stopped a $1B update to our campus thanks to this.   This is one of those areas that if WFH is appealing, you are willing to sacrifice some for that.

In reply to ShawnG :

I honestly can't think of a service that property taxes pay for that I wouldn't rather do without. I would rather keep the $4k a year.

Why make me pay for what I don't want?

Toyman01 + Sized and said:

In reply to ShawnG :

I honestly can't think of a service that property taxes pay for that I wouldn't rather do without. I would rather keep the $4k a year.

Why make me pay for what I don't want?

Don't want public schools?

I don't want a reduction in services*, but I would rather the tax come from income, not property.

*I'm willing to pay more for better actually

In reply to Toyman01 + Sized and :

Without floundering.

Property taxes pay for schools.  Schools educate citizens.  Educated citizens are preferable to being surrounded by morons.  

So I pay property taxes willingly for the good of society to at least slow our slide into Idiocracy.

In reply to mtn :

Public schools SUCK. Let me keep the money and pay for private schools.

In reply to ProDarwin :

Again, you want more and better services. I don't.

So why am I paying for services that you want? Why don't you pay for them yourself?

Regarding housing costs, it doesn't help that our zoning and planning laws suck and generally make it where only one type of neighborhood is built and if you don't want to live in some overly car dependent hell hole, you have to either live out in the boonies, rent an apartment/buy a condo in a dense urban environment or buy in an old neighborhood that was built per war basically. All of those come with obvious downsides.

In reply to Toyman01 + Sized and :

Perhaps a better solution would be to work toward improving public schools.  Again, it's for the good of society as a whole, not just those who can afford to flee to the isolation of private schools.

(Full disclosure, my two step daughters went to public school and got very good educations.  My two kids went to private schools (thanks ex-wife) and received MUCH worse educations.)

In reply to Toyman01 + Sized and :

Because we don't want a nation any dumber then it already is. We say pull yourself up by your bootstraps but let's take away the best way to do that. And it would especially hit lower socio-economic classes the ones who need the education the most.

In reply to KyAllroad :

Toyman01 + Sized and said:

In reply to ProDarwin :

Again, you want more and better services. I don't.

So why am I paying for services that you want? Why don't you pay for them yourself?

Because that's what living in a democratic society intended to provide basic human rights for all requires.  We all pay for things we don't benefit directly (or even indirectly) from through our taxes.  

I don't think anyone is arguing against public schools, but school boards need to be held accountable to the parents and other taxpayers that fund them.  Improve public schools and demonstrate their excellence.  Or do crazy E36 M3 and drive people to alternatives. 

https://time.com/5885106/school-reopening-coronavirus/

https://www.nheri.org/big-growth-in-homeschooling-indicated-this-school-year/

They keep voting where I live for bond issues so they can actually spend more money on public schools. It's a democracy so the majority rules. 

In reply to 1988RedT2 :

Where I live, school board members are elected.

Coincidentally, the drummer of my first band ran for the school board in Nov 2 elections. It took some digging, but I found the results and he didn't win.

My school taxes haven't gone up in 4 years. While that's nice for my wallet, part of me wonders how the school budget can account for inflation and contractual salary increases without an increase in income. At some 250+ years old, my township is pretty much as built up as it's going to get, so increases from new construction will be minimal. 

While I don't love paying taxes, I do get "something" out of them: Trash/recycling picked up. Roads repaired. Street lights. Etc.  My ex- has to pay for trash pickup where she lives and it's not that much less than I pay in annual TWP taxes.

Toyman01 + Sized and said:

In reply to mtn :

Public schools SUCK. Let me keep the money and pay for private schools.

In general, things that are under-funded suck. 

Toyman01 + Sized and said:

In reply to mtn :

Public schools SUCK. Let me keep the money and pay for private schools.

 

Maybe we should fund them so that we bring in excellent candidates to teach (and more importantly keep them) and so that teachers can do there job with out having to work multiple jobs and pay for school supplies out of their own pocket.

KyAllroad said:

In reply to Toyman01 + Sized and :

Perhaps a better solution would be to work toward improving public schools.  Again, it's for the good of society as a whole, not just those who can afford to flee to the isolation of private schools.

(Full disclosure, my two step daughters went to public school and got very good educations.  My two kids went to private schools (thanks ex-wife) and received MUCH worse educations.)

There have been countless politicians that have run on platforms to improve public education. In the 38 years I have had kids and grandkids in schools, public education has only gotten worse. They can spend hundreds of millions on modern buildings, fancy smart boards, and beautiful campuses, but they never seem to manage to improve anything. They just throw another coat of lipstick on the same crappy pig.

The government pretty much sucks at everything they do so I have zero faith in their ability to fix education. They can't manage to fix a pothole. My son and I are discussing how to pull his kids out of public schools to avoid the apathetic teachers and discipline problems that have become popular in his middle school. It's time to write it off as a bad deal and try something different. 

In reply to Toyman01 + Sized and :

Then ask if you can opt-out and do things yourself.

I like the fire department, police, garbage pickup, running water and a toilet that flushes.