Economy The great housing market crash of 2022

I don't think most people would bike regardless given the choice. Where I live, people will literally drive across the street to go to 7-11.
I've done that myself, driven to one lot for a certain store and then drove across the street to the other lot for the other store. The reason isn't because people don't like biking and walking, its because our infrastructure is hostile to those outside of cars. Parking minimums mean that even if two stores are technically close enough to be within walking distance, you have to cross large parking lots and busy roads with cars driving at high speeds, which generate lots of noise and air pollution, to walk to the other store and hence most people would rather just drive that distance.

Cities that have built proper bike infrastructure like protected bike lanes and an expansive network that works as an alternate method of transportation unsurprisingly see bike use go up. If you build it they will come. And the thing is drivers benefit from this as well as more bike lanes mean more short trips are made by bike and not car which leads to less congestion for drivers.
I’ve only seen this video, didn’t know the channel but will check it out!

But that’s the thing right, people want different things. Not everybody want to live in suburbs or in low density area’s and not everybody wants to live in some giant tower in downtown NY. So you need to make different area’s for different needs. And I agree completely that they should move to mixed density instead of all these enormous suburbs (which are also badly maintained). You don’t want people driving everywhere to work or buy stuff.
Yeah exactly, we need more options and there are things that cities can do to help. Like I said earlier bike lanes are cheaper to build and maintain and some cities have seen large increases in cycle use after building dedicated bike networks with protected paths. Paris, Seville, and NYC have all seen big jumps in bike use over the last five to ten years because they've committed to building more bike infrastructure.

The sad irony is that in countries like The Netherlands, suburbs are actually seen as the best places to bike since the lower density means fewer cars and therefore less risk to cyclists. But in the US its the opposite way around due to our terrible urban planning.
Damn, this thread turned into if people prefer to bike in urban areas vs suburbs? Why I outta report every last whippersnapper for derailing. SMH
Urban planning has everything to do with housing prices as it determines how much and of what kind of housing the market can provide.
 
I've done that myself, driven to one lot for a certain store and then drove across the street to the other lot for the other store. The reason isn't because people don't like biking and walking, its because our infrastructure is hostile to those outside of cars. Parking minimums mean that even if two stores are technically close enough to be within walking distance, you have to cross large parking lots and busy roads with cars driving at high speeds, which generate lots of noise and air pollution, to walk to the other store and hence most people would rather just drive that distance.

I walk or run to the store all the time. Unless I'm buying a lot of groceries or something, I pretty much always prefer to walk or run, especially in the summer. I know that this is highly unusual because pretty much no one else does it. And my community is not hostile to pedestrians whatsoever. Quite the opposite.

When I say that people drive across the street to go to 7-11, I mean that they live across the street from 7-11 and would rather drive across the street than walk any distance at all.

People in big cities do walk much more, but that is mostly because of how inconvenient driving is (parking, traffic, etc.). Or because they don't have a vehicle.

edit: I should also say that this is particularly the case in winter. In winter I pretty much never see any adults walking outside... ever. Unless they are walking their dog.
 
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Subprime loans screwed the housing market back then. Nowadays lenders will even demand to look at your ass crack to determine if you are elegible to get a mortgage. Not saying that a crash is impossible but It’s different than before.
 
I walk or run everywhere I can really. I do it because I like to. And I know that this is highly unusual because pretty much no one else does it. My community is not hostile to pedestrians whatsoever. Quite the opposite.
When I mention hostile infrastructure, I'm not talking about people being aggressive to pedestrians. I mean infrastructure that prioritizes car traffic in a way that makes walking and cycling inconvenient, unpleasant, and dangerous. A good example are six lane roads with high speed limits. Even though there's a sidewalk and some crossings, the high velocity traffic creates lots of noise and air pollution, the high speeds make crossing dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists, and minimum parking requirements makes everything so spaced out that walking/biking becomes unpleasant, inconvenient, and dangerous even for short distances and hence most people drive.
When I say that people drive across the street to go to 7-11, I mean that they live across the street from 7-11 and would rather drive across the street than walk any distance at all.
Yes I know and again its partly because of the infrastructure which prioritizes cars. Even if the distance is technically short, the infrastructure in between will prioritize high speed car traffic which is hostile to cyclists and pedestrians and therefore your average person would rather drive

Most people aren't actually committed cyclists or enthusiastic drivers, most people will simply use the fastest, most convenient method of transportation. North American city planning had made it such that driving is pretty much the only option for the vast majority of Americans.
 
Well riding in a Peloton(group of cyclists) does have benefits for racing in that it reduces drag but the main reason cyclists ride in groups is for safety


The difference is that you want to force your view on everyone else by making it illegal to build any housing that isn't a huge condo tower in the city center or a typical single family homes with setbacks and minimum housing requirements all around the outskirts. Whereas I want the market to be able to give people more options by cutting red tape that restricts what kind of housing can and can't be built.

And the irony is that my policy position would make it easier for working class and lower middle class families to buy single family homes since it would mean adding enough housing stock to reduce the overall price and therefore making housing in general, including single family homes, more affordable.

Then again part of the reason NIMBYs support these restrictive zoning laws seems to be because they want housing to be more expensive as that obviously adds to the value of their single family home. They got their single family home so now its in their interest to make such homes unaffordable for most other people. Kind of a twisted incentive if you ask me.

Great post, but I don't understand one part of it.

I own my own house in a suburb. I would love for everyone to own their own house, I just don't understand the part where you claim it's in my best interest to make other homes unaffordable.

If I sell my home for $600,000, a similar home to mine will be on the market for a similar price. Sure rising prices means more net worth, but I still have to live somewhere, and I'd never go back to renting. Basically I'd be trading like for like.

Making them unaffordable helps nobody.

Can you clarify, please?
 
When I mention hostile infrastructure, I'm not talking about people being aggressive to pedestrians. I mean infrastructure that prioritizes car traffic in a way that makes walking and cycling inconvenient, unpleasant, and dangerous. A good example are six lane roads with high speed limits. Even though there's a sidewalk and some crossings, the high velocity traffic creates lots of noise and air pollution, the high speeds make crossing dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists, and minimum parking requirements makes everything so spaced out that walking/biking becomes unpleasant, inconvenient, and dangerous even for short distances and hence most people drive.

Yes I know and again its partly because of the infrastructure which prioritizes cars. Even if the distance is technically short, the infrastructure in between will prioritize high speed car traffic which is hostile to cyclists and pedestrians and therefore your average person would rather drive

Most people aren't actually committed cyclists or enthusiastic drivers, most people will simply use the fastest, most convenient method of transportation. North American city planning had made it such that driving is pretty much the only option for the vast majority of Americans.

Well I live here and I am telling you that it is not the least bit dangerous to walk anywhere. I do it all the time and most roads don't have any real traffic whatsoever.

From my own observations, people avoid walking as a means of transportation like the plague unless they have no choice or driving is very inconvenient like downtown in a big city.

Part of it is that people are just lazy and impatient (and driving is pretty much always going to be faster than walking unless there is congested traffic) and part of it, I think, is that they specifically don't like walking alone.
 
Because individuals own their single family home and benefit off the investment. Multi family units are renting, a person pays a subscription fee to live there that's always going up. And they never get to pass down the wealth generated from the housing.

That's my biggest issue
Sounds like you're discussing co-ops vs. condos. In condos, they absolutely own the premises and get to pass down the wealth generated from the housing. Co-ops are less clear that way. The flip side of co-ops is that they're usually significantly cheaper than buying a house or condo. If the individual is disciplined enough, they invest that price difference and generate the wealth in an alternative fashion.

Personally, I think people overstate the importance of equity as it relates to their primary residence. I lean towards liquidity and equity is decidedly illiquid. In the co-op model, the co-op owner should be investing aggressively so that even though the co-op isn't appreciating in value at the same rate as the single family residence, their other investments would more than pick up the slack. Strictly on a percentage basis, I think the stock market has outperformed the real estate market over the last 30 years. Although over the last year or so, housing outperforms but that's besides the point. Invest the difference and the difference in asset appreciation disappears.
 
Damn, this thread turned into if people prefer to bike in urban areas vs suburbs? Why I outta report every last whippersnapper for derailing. SMH
Well that didn't fix anything lol. Now we have two mods derailing. Haha
 
Well that didn't fix anything lol. Now we have two mods derailing. Haha

I think it is safe to label The #blueAnon Derail Brigade - we'll delete your posts if they aren't in-line with #blueAnon Mass Psychosis and/or derail threads that create cognitive dissonance in those suffering from #blueAnon Mass Psychosis.

Simple as, innit? It is OK though, we're on SoyDog after all, so is expected.
 
I feel as though onerous zoning regulations are the real reason for the housing crisis. People with capital are of course well poised to take advantage of this situation by being able to put down the capital for a mortgage only to rent the house itself but if there was sufficient stock that wouldn't matter much would it?

Cities need to end single family zoning and get rid of set backs and mandatory parking minimums to allow for more efficient land use and incentivize developers to build high and medium density housing in mixed use developments across the city and suburbs.
Doesn't address the problem. Most of the new housing going up is not affordable housing and it's not going to be affordable because people are constantly talking about housing in the context of major downtown areas where the demand for housing is always going to outpace the supply. And where the supply of land is not going to change.

People could build plenty of affordable housing and it wouldn't matter because within a decade or 2, demand would push those prices up. Monied buyers would price out the lower incomed owners because they want to live there. Or really monied buyers would acquire multiple houses and combine them into larger structures, shrinking the supply.

The demand pressure on land hasn't changed in thousands of years. Proximity to desirable locations will drive up prices and the only solution is to move further away from those locations. You can build up if you want but building up isn't the same as building affordable. And if I can build up and sell my housing for $500k/per, I'm not going to sell for $100k. So how is any city going to exhaust the number of monied buyers who will pay higher prices before they can finally have enough excess supply for the low income buyers to get some?
 
Great post, but I don't understand one part of it.

I own my own house in a suburb. I would love for everyone to own their own house, I just don't understand the part where you claim it's in my best interest to make other homes unaffordable.

If I sell my home for $600,000, a similar home to mine will be on the market for a similar price. Sure rising prices means more net worth, but I still have to live somewhere, and I'd never go back to renting. Basically I'd be trading like for like.

Making them unaffordable helps nobody.

Can you clarify, please?
Because you wouldn't be selling your house to buy another house nearby. For people who view their house as some kind of savings account, they're selling their house and buying a new house somewhere else where it's cheaper. Sell the expensive Manhattan townhouse and buy a bungalow in Florida and live on the difference.
 
Because you wouldn't be selling your house to buy another house nearby. For people who view their house as some kind of savings account, they're selling their house and buying a new house somewhere else where it's cheaper. Sell the expensive Manhattan townhouse and buy a bungalow in Florida and live on the difference.

Thats how I see it. Downsizing later in life is pretty much the norm, or renting a condo and then not having to worry about repairs or yard work when up on age but can still live independently. The cash difference from sale either augments retirement income, or becomes something to pass down to kids.
 
Doesn't address the problem. Most of the new housing going up is not affordable housing and it's not going to be affordable because people are constantly talking about housing in the context of major downtown areas where the demand for housing is always going to outpace the supply. And where the supply of land is not going to change.

There should be a bill to repurpose business real estate in cities to be affordable housing/dorms, etc. Since big corps are moving their employees to be more remote working. Seems like something like that could work, especially at the state level. Give tax breaks to corporations/commercial realestate who comply with giving up the building and/or the corporations that push to work remotely to free up space.


But yea, public housing is a mess. Lots of major counties have like 3 year wait lists for section 8/asssistance, or simply have closed waitlists due to lack of available housing. A lot of these people don't want to leave the urban areas also for whatever reasons, their medicaid health centers are also in limited supply and need to be in urban hubs, among other resources.
 
Well I live here and I am telling you that it is not the least bit dangerous to walk anywhere. I do it all the time and most roads don't have any real traffic whatsoever.

From my own observations, people avoid walking as a means of transportation like the plague unless they have no choice or driving is very inconvenient like downtown in a big city.

Part of it is that people are just lazy and impatient (and driving is pretty much always going to be faster than walking unless there is congested traffic) and part of it, I think, is that they specifically don't like walking alone.
You can say that but the US has one of the highest rates of pedestrian fatalities among the developed world and its actually gotten worse over the last few years, not to mention that MVC are the 2nd leading cause of death for minors and the leading cause of death for those aged 25-34. Clearly there's a problem here that could be addressed with investment in alternative modes of transport.
Great post, but I don't understand one part of it.

I own my own house in a suburb. I would love for everyone to own their own house, I just don't understand the part where you claim it's in my best interest to make other homes unaffordable.

If I sell my home for $600,000, a similar home to mine will be on the market for a similar price. Sure rising prices means more net worth, but I still have to live somewhere, and I'd never go back to renting. Basically I'd be trading like for like.

Making them unaffordable helps nobody.

Can you clarify, please?
Well if you're already living in the home you plan to retire and pass down or you want to sell your current house upon retirement to move to an area with a lower cost of living then it benefits you to have your home price go up as much as possible. Some people do that, get homes in suburbs around cities and work in the city but upon retirement move to some sleepy town where the $600k they get from selling their half acre single family home can buy them a multi acre plot in a rural area. You can also tap into the added value of your house with home equity loans.

But in general I agree with you, very high housing costs are generally bad even for those people who perceive short term benefits from it.
Doesn't address the problem. Most of the new housing going up is not affordable housing and it's not going to be affordable because people are constantly talking about housing in the context of major downtown areas where the demand for housing is always going to outpace the supply. And where the supply of land is not going to change.

People could build plenty of affordable housing and it wouldn't matter because within a decade or 2, demand would push those prices up. Monied buyers would price out the lower incomed owners because they want to live there. Or really monied buyers would acquire multiple houses and combine them into larger structures, shrinking the supply.

The demand pressure on land hasn't changed in thousands of years. Proximity do desirable locations will drive up prices and the only solution is to move further away from those locations. You can build up if you want but building up isn't the same as building affordable. And if I can build up and sell my housing for $500k/per, I'm not going to sell for $100k. So how is any city going to exhaust the number of monied buyers who will pay higher prices before they can finally have enough excess to supply for the low income buyers to get some?
Of course major downtown areas are always going to be more expensive than outlying areas, nowhere did I say otherwise. Naturally cities need suburbs but the question is how should those suburbs be zoned? Exclusively zoning the suburbs for residential single family zoning means that developers are only allowed to build low density housing which doesn't add enough stock to reduce home prices enough to make them affordable for working and lower middle class families. These homes, due to being out of reach for the average American, end up being bought up by those monied buyers.

Additionally, single family suburbs don't create dense enough tax bases to cover the cost of maintaining them and it leads to sprawling cities that entrench car dependence which in and of itself has negative externalities(noise/air pollution, traffic fatalities, ) which end up being subsidized by the more dense metro areas. This is partly why we have crumbling infrastructure.

So cities could add more stock by reforming zoning laws to allow for, and possibly incentivizing via tax breaks, the development of medium and/or high density housing in suburbs as well as building high density, market rate public housing themselves.
 
When I mention hostile infrastructure, I'm not talking about people being aggressive to pedestrians. I mean infrastructure that prioritizes car traffic in a way that makes walking and cycling inconvenient, unpleasant, and dangerous. A good example are six lane roads with high speed limits. Even though there's a sidewalk and some crossings, the high velocity traffic creates lots of noise and air pollution, the high speeds make crossing dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists, and minimum parking requirements makes everything so spaced out that walking/biking becomes unpleasant, inconvenient, and dangerous even for short distances and hence most people drive.

Yes I know and again its partly because of the infrastructure which prioritizes cars. Even if the distance is technically short, the infrastructure in between will prioritize high speed car traffic which is hostile to cyclists and pedestrians and therefore your average person would rather drive

Most people aren't actually committed cyclists or enthusiastic drivers, most people will simply use the fastest, most convenient method of transportation. North American city planning had made it such that driving is pretty much the only option for the vast majority of Americans.
This station has some good videos breaking down these very problems.
 
You can say that but the US has one of the highest rates of pedestrian fatalities among the developed world and its actually gotten worse over the last few years, not to mention that MVC are the 2nd leading cause of death for minors and the leading cause of death for those aged 25-34. Clearly there's a problem here that could be addressed with investment in alternative modes of transport.

Well if you're already living in the home you plan to retire and pass down or you want to sell your current house upon retirement to move to an area with a lower cost of living then it benefits you to have your home price go up as much as possible. Some people do that, get homes in suburbs around cities and work in the city but upon retirement move to some sleepy town where the $600k they get from selling their half acre single family home can buy them a multi acre plot in a rural area. You can also tap into the added value of your house with home equity loans.

But in general I agree with you, very high housing costs are generally bad even for those people who perceive short term benefits from it.

Of course major downtown areas are always going to be more expensive than outlying areas, nowhere did I say otherwise. Naturally cities need suburbs but the question is how should those suburbs be zoned? Exclusively zoning the suburbs for residential single family zoning means that developers are only allowed to build low density housing which doesn't add enough stock to reduce home prices enough to make them affordable for working and lower middle class families. These homes, due to being out of reach for the average American, end up being bought up by those monied buyers.

Additionally, single family suburbs don't create dense enough tax bases to cover the cost of maintaining them and it leads to sprawling cities that entrench car dependence which in and of itself has negative externalities(noise/air pollution, traffic fatalities, ) which end up being subsidized by the more dense metro areas. This is partly why we have crumbling infrastructure.

So cities could add more stock by reforming zoning laws to allow for, and possibly incentivizing via tax breaks, the development of medium and/or high density housing in suburbs as well as building high density, market rate public housing themselves.

I'm only aware of one pedestrian who was hit by a vehicle here and it was apparently a suicide. He jumped in front of the vehicle.

But yeah, I used to live in Houston and I'm well aware of how dangerous it is to be a pedestrian there. Pretty much impossible actually.
 
I've done that myself, driven to one lot for a certain store and then drove across the street to the other lot for the other store. The reason isn't because people don't like biking and walking, its because our infrastructure is hostile to those outside of cars. Parking minimums mean that even if two stores are technically close enough to be within walking distance, you have to cross large parking lots and busy roads with cars driving at high speeds, which generate lots of noise and air pollution, to walk to the other store and hence most people would rather just drive that distance.

Cities that have built proper bike infrastructure like protected bike lanes and an expansive network that works as an alternate method of transportation unsurprisingly see bike use go up. If you build it they will come. And the thing is drivers benefit from this as well as more bike lanes mean more short trips are made by bike and not car which leads to less congestion for drivers.

Yeah exactly, we need more options and there are things that cities can do to help. Like I said earlier bike lanes are cheaper to build and maintain and some cities have seen large increases in cycle use after building dedicated bike networks with protected paths. Paris, Seville, and NYC have all seen big jumps in bike use over the last five to ten years because they've committed to building more bike infrastructure.

The sad irony is that in countries like The Netherlands, suburbs are actually seen as the best places to bike since the lower density means fewer cars and therefore less risk to cyclists. But in the US its the opposite way around due to our terrible urban planning.

Urban planning has everything to do with housing prices as it determines how much and of what kind of housing the market can provide.
blame the car companies
 
Of course major downtown areas are always going to be more expensive than outlying areas, nowhere did I say otherwise. Naturally cities need suburbs but the question is how should those suburbs be zoned? Exclusively zoning the suburbs for residential single family zoning means that developers are only allowed to build low density housing which doesn't add enough stock to reduce home prices enough to make them affordable for working and lower middle class families. These homes, due to being out of reach for the average American, end up being bought up by those monied buyers.

Additionally, single family suburbs don't create dense enough tax bases to cover the cost of maintaining them and it leads to sprawling cities that entrench car dependence which in and of itself has negative externalities(noise/air pollution, traffic fatalities, ) which end up being subsidized by the more dense metro areas. This is partly why we have crumbling infrastructure.

So cities could add more stock by reforming zoning laws to allow for, and possibly incentivizing via tax breaks, the development of medium and/or high density housing in suburbs as well as building high density, market rate public housing themselves.
Developers petition for zoning that makes the most economic sense for the developer. They're not stuck with the original zoning, especially when developing a massive tract of land.

You can certainly demand that developers build multifamily or mixed use dwellings out in the burbs...and watch no one take you up on that. Because people move to the suburbs precisely because they don't want the multi-family or mixed use experience. They want the single family home on the fenced in plot of land. The mini-kingdom. And they are willing to pay for that. If they have to share the premises with strangers or businesses, they might as well live in an urban center.

And if I'm the developer, I'm building what will sell for the most money. The economics of the city are not my concern.
 
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