Economy The Western housing crisis

[SakurabasEar]

Good post.

Capitalism has truly fucked itself over here.

LOL @ people blaming things other than capitalism.

In this case id be hard pressed to disagree, though there are probably several factors under the umbrella of capitalism to blame if we're going to be specific.

I added the boomer couple at the end because boomers themselves own like 32% of the property here in America, biggest group next to banks, and are rapidly retiring away to other places. The median house cost in the beginning of the 60s was between 11,200 to 15,000. Which adjusted for inflation is 110,000 to 150,000 today. This years median house price is apprantly a whopping $436,800. More than double your great uncle bob probably paid for a house with say 3 bedrooms.

And these houses aren’t even extravagant, we're talking about mostly fairly normal suburban cookie cutter houses here, with 3 bedrooms. It's fucking crazy

I'm conservative, but to try and apply a "bootstraps" argument here would be stupid. Most normal people can't afford a 30,000 or 40,000 dollar down payment, most people don't even have a savings account at this point.

 

[Mr Holmes]

In this case id be hard pressed to disagree, though there are probably several factors under the umbrella of capitalism to blame if we're going to be specific.

I added the boomer couple at the end because boomers themselves own like 32% of the property here in America, biggest group next to banks, and are rapidly retiring away to other places. The median house cost in the beginning of the 60s was between 11,200 to 15,000. Which adjusted for inflation is 110,000 to 150,000 today. This years median house price is apprantly a whopping $436,800. More than double your great uncle bob probably paid for a house with say 3 bedrooms.

And these houses aren’t even extravagant, we're talking about mostly fairly normal suburban cookie cutter houses here, with 3 bedrooms. It's fucking crazy

I'm conservative, but to try and apply a "bootstraps" argument here would be stupid. Most normal people can't afford a 30,000 or 40,000 dollar down payment, most people don't even have a savings account at this point.

I agree with most of what you say. But you didn't account for houses being much smaller in the 60s.

But regardless, there should be regulation around how much investors and foreigners can buy up.

 

[58miles]

Leave the cities. There's loads of affordable housing in rural areas.

The problem is nobody wants to live in rural areas The fact is people would rather be homeless in NYC than live in a house in rural Mississippi.

 

[Deleted member 592570]

The problem is nobody wants to live in rural areas The fact is people would rather be homeless in NYC than live in a house in rural Mississippi.

Then that's not a housing problem, it's a stupidity problem.

 

[Fluffernutter]

In this case id be hard pressed to disagree, though there are probably several factors under the umbrella of capitalism to blame if we're going to be specific.

I added the boomer couple at the end because boomers themselves own like 32% of the property here in America, biggest group next to banks, and are rapidly retiring away to other places. The median house cost in the beginning of the 60s was between 11,200 to 15,000. Which adjusted for inflation is 110,000 to 150,000 today. This years median house price is apprantly a whopping $436,800. More than double your great uncle bob probably paid for a house with say 3 bedrooms.

And these houses aren’t even extravagant, we're talking about mostly fairly normal suburban cookie cutter houses here, with 3 bedrooms. It's fucking crazy

I'm conservative, but to try and apply a "bootstraps" argument here would be stupid. Most normal people can't afford a 30,000 or 40,000 dollar down payment, most people don't even have a savings account at this point.

...and student debt on top of all that.

 

[Fluffernutter]

Overall, the demonization of immigrants from Mexico is wrong. I wish Mexico wasn’t so corrupt that we could make them our biggest trade partner and get out of China. I wish more than anything we could establish a strong North American alliance.

Instead we promote bigotry and division because it sells.

Step 1: Incentivize skill based immigration to the point of out competing any other nation.
Step 2: Create a strong southern border stopping illegal immigration
Step 3: Allow for expedited unskilled immigration with increased components of assimilation.
Step 4: Pour money into Mexico to defeat the cartels
Step 5: Have Mexico be the buffer country to stop Central American chain migration.

Step 6: Increase the size of the consular sections of our embassies in Latin America.
Step 7: Consider establishing a visa specifically for our neighbors.

 

[SakurabasEar]

I agree with most of what you say. But you didn't account for houses being much smaller in the 60s.

But regardless, there should be regulation around how much investors and foreigners can buy up.

This is true, but If I dare say I don't think Millennials would even be that picky, if the two options weren't a large square foot house under a housing authority and then a rather small double wide commonly found in high crime areas. There seems to be no in between option, at least based on a lot of the searching that I've done in the past

 

[JudoThrowFiasco]

Issue is there isn't nearly enough contractors and labourers to meet the building demand. Even if governments opened up land and altered zoning laws, there's a major glut of skilled trades. Byproduct of schools pushing a saturation of useless liberal arts / social / humanities degrees. Immigration helps a bit, but there's no housing for them and unions are going to want them ticketed.

 

[Jack V Savage]

The problem is nobody wants to live in rural areas The fact is people would rather be homeless in NYC than live in a house in rural Mississippi.

True, but also, the good jobs are in places with good economies (duh).

 

[Fluffernutter]

The problem is nobody wants to live in rural areas The fact is people would rather be homeless in NYC than live in a house in rural Mississippi.

That's not necessarily true any longer.

Once people started working from home during Covid, people started to leave the cities, and even the suburbs. They started to move into rural areas a d zoom into work.

 

[58miles]

True, but also, the good jobs are in places with good economies (duh).

The is that there are far more opportunities in big cities even for a homeless person than in rural areas.

 

[Deleted member 592570]

That's not necessarily true any longer.

Once people started working from home during Covid, people started to leave the cities, and even the suburbs. They started to move into rural areas a d zoom into work.

That's when I sold up and moved. Realized I didn't need the hassle anymore.

 

[Deleted member 592570]

The is that there are far more opportunities in big cities even for a homeless person than in rural areas.

More opourtunities to be an employee. Smart people start their own business.

 

[Jack V Savage]

More opourtunities to be an employee. Smart people start their own business.

More opportunities to start a successful business also.

 

[58miles]

More opourtunities to be an employee. Smart people start their own business.

This also applies to people with their own businesses, millions more potential customers in NYC than in rural Mississippi.

 

[Deleted member 592570]

This also applies to people with their own businesses, millions more potential customers in NYC than in rural Mississippi.

I guess for brick and mortar. I run an online business.

 

[Yehudim]

@Jack V Savage do you have any thoughts or have you read anything about the pros and cons of companies like Blackrock buying houses?

 

[Jack V Savage]

@Jack V Savage do you have any thoughts or have you read anything about the pros and cons of companies like Blackrock buying houses?

The best piece I've read on the issue is this:

www.vox.com/platform/amp/22524829/wall-street-housing-market-blackrock-bubble

You might be reluctant because it's Vox, but give it a shot. Pretty even-handed piece that gets into a lot of the evidence.

My own take is that it's not really a big deal.

 

[EL CORINTHIAN]

The smart thing to do would be to aggressively build housing rather than reduce immigration. I don't see why we have to accept that we can't build more housing when that's clearly the central issue here.

Because you have no choice but to accept the reality you are dealt. This isn't a singular issue. Municipal governance is beholden to their local constituents who don't want radical rezoning to force feed a million condos to be built in within their communities. They also don't want to foot the bill to accomodate a bunch of refugees when their infrastructure is already exhausted. Meanwhile, the federal government are offloading hundreds of thousands of immigrants every year that centralize in the city centers with zero financial help for the shelter systems that operate at maximum capacity.

The smart thing to do in this particular instance is to re-align immigration to be more appropriate to our current building and infrastructure capacities.

 

[Islam Imamate]

In this case id be hard pressed to disagree, though there are probably several factors under the umbrella of capitalism to blame if we're going to be specific.

I added the boomer couple at the end because boomers themselves own like 32% of the property here in America, biggest group next to banks, and are rapidly retiring away to other places. The median house cost in the beginning of the 60s was between 11,200 to 15,000. Which adjusted for inflation is 110,000 to 150,000 today. This years median house price is apprantly a whopping $436,800. More than double your great uncle bob probably paid for a house with say 3 bedrooms.

And these houses aren’t even extravagant, we're talking about mostly fairly normal suburban cookie cutter houses here, with 3 bedrooms. It's fucking crazy

I'm conservative, but to try and apply a "bootstraps" argument here would be stupid. Most normal people can't afford a 30,000 or 40,000 dollar down payment, most people don't even have a savings account at this point.

The funny thing is that the typical capitalist argument that excessive regulation stifles industry is very true here, onerous zoning laws are needlessly constraining supply and cutting that red tape would do a lot to help. But the constituents who tend to vote for right leaning candidates are also among those that want to preserve the status quo in housing. To be fair its not just them, there's also hypocrisy among progressive homeowners on this issue. In fact there's a genre of Twitter post where people point out progressive lawn signs that are on the same lawn as a NIMBY one

Spoiler

Because you have no choice but to accept the reality you are dealt. This isn't a singular issue. Municipal governance is beholden to their local constituents who don't want radical rezoning to force feed a million condos to be built in within their communities. They also don't want to foot the bill to accomodate a bunch of refugees when their infrastructure is already exhausted. Meanwhile, the federal government are offloading hundreds of thousands of immigrants every year that centralize in the city centers with zero financial help for the shelter systems that operate at maximum capacity.

The smart thing to do in this particular instance is to re-align immigration to be more appropriate to our current building and infrastructure capacities.

Accepting the status quo of the housing shortage while cutting back on immigration is a recipe for stagnant growth. I know some people would accept stagnation if it meant less immigration and less accessible housing but I don't think its a good trade off at all.