Current Events > So housing just ain't ever gonna be affordable huh?

(+) Yeah! (+)

And there just aint anything we can do about it huh?

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You could make more money.

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Nope. Unless a bunch of people die or there are natural disasters, housing will get more expensive

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The only way I was able to do it is by moving from Austin, TX to San Antonio, TX. Then my savings and investments allowed me to put 3.5% down on a house.

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Build your own house out of balsa wood and dreams

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Blame Boomers, they decided to treat housing as a financial investment which in turn caused the housing market to even be a thing on the scale it is.

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Boomers hoarding multiple properties, corporate real estate preferring to keep places empty rather than lower prices, foreign investors who have absolutely no stake in human lives, wages that refuse to grow with cost of living - were all just fucked

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Not to mention properties getting scooped up like crazy by large corporations and the wealthy trying to get out of the dollar.

Im contacted daily about selling my house.

Its going to get worse.

Not when hedge funds and fucking Zillow buy up all the damn property

That's what happens when you commodify the things people need

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UghWhoCares posted...

Boomers hoarding multiple properties, corporate real estate preferring to keep places empty rather than lower prices, foreign investors who have absolutely no stake in human lives, wages that refuse to grow with cost of living - were all just fucked

Can't forget that in most of the country, there's no laws restricting how much rent can go up at a place each year. If they wanna triple it to get all the tenants to leave, then slap some paint on stuff and say they're an up and coming community for the tech community and they keep those triple rent prices? They're totally in the clear. And it works.

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Does it boil down to people popping out babies faster than we can build homes?

It really is quite easy to produce a baby if you think about it.

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Places need to build more a lot more homes and people need to become more comfortable with denser neighborhoods
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Cobra1010 posted...

Does it boil down to people popping out babies faster than we can build homes?

It really is quite easy to produce a baby if you think about it.

I can't see how. Aren't we in a birthing decline? It's really that there just aren't enough homes what's people want to live. So yes, homes aren't being built I guess, but it's not really tied to fertility
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It will when the rich people have forced workers out of every area they like to vacation in.

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Cobra1010 posted...

Does it boil down to people popping out babies faster than we can build homes?

It really is quite easy to produce a baby if you think about it.

We literally have a birthing decline

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Can't forget the zoning laws effectively banning everything except for single family homes.

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The only way I can imagine actually buying a decent house at this point is with the help of my parents' inheritence when they kick the bucket.

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Cobra1010 posted...

Does it boil down to people popping out babies faster than we can build homes?

No, there are far more homes than homeless people and people struggling to pay rent

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There are currently three ways to buy a house:

1) Be wealthy

2) Luck into a reasonably priced house being on the market and your offer getting accepted before some one with more money spots it

3) Save up for 45 years so you can do a down payment that's 80% of the list price, then offer 25% more than the list price

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Cobra1010 posted...

Does it boil down to people popping out babies faster than we can build homes?

It really is quite easy to produce a baby if you think about it.

We actually have too low of a birthrate.

The issues are
NinjaWarrior455 posted...

Can't forget the zoning laws effectively banning everything except for single family homes.

and

gunplagirl posted...

Blame Boomers, they decided to treat housing as a financial investment which in turn caused the housing market to even be a thing on the scale it is.

There's also the issue that our property tax system fucks things up. Improvements to a property raise the value which raises your tax burden which encourages people to let properties rot.
Replacing property tax with a land value tax would encourage better use of the land since your tax rate is the same if you have an empty lot doing nothing, an rotten and unusable building, a single family home or a 10 story apartment building.

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STVRs and foreign ownership of property needs to be banned.

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There are vast chunks of the country where housing is affordable. I'd be willing to bet upwards of 70 or 80%. The issue isn't that housing in general isn't affordable. It's that it isn't in a handful of places where demand far out strips supply.

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You need to reach the upper class and you will have great housing.

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s0nicfan posted...

There are vast chunks of the country where housing is affordable. I'd be willing to bet upwards of 70 or 80%. The issue isn't that housing in general isn't affordable. It's that it isn't in a handful of places where demand far out strips supply.

Having affordable housing in say a random town in Nebraska does nothing for the housing costs in the expensive areas. It also leads one to think that there actually is no issue, this is just how markets work when in reality there are a lot of things that are distorting the market.

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I remember hearing about them giving away loans to people who couldn't afford them during the Bush era. Sure would be nice if they be that way again. I could afford to repay a loan, but they never give me one at least not for a house.

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It used to be affordable until people decided they could make profit off of basic necessities and wages stagnated.


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Are you unaware that you can take out a mortgage, TC? You dont have to pay for a home in full. You can pay it off over the course of 30 years.

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uwnim posted...

Having affordable housing in say a random town in Nebraska does nothing for the housing costs in the expensive areas. It also leads one to think that there actually is no issue, this is just how markets work when in reality there are a lot of things that are distorting the market.

Sure, but there's a difference between "there isn't any affordable housing" and "I can't afford to live in the most ideal place I'd like to live." And if people stopped trying to move into the same 3 cities, businesses would be further incentivized to build out in other places, which will drive down demand in those high-demand areas, which will bring down property values.

There ARE things that distort the market, but physical space isn't infinite, either, and trying to fit everyone who wants to live in a particular place into said place without inflating the value of that area is how you get things like section 8 housing, where people are forced into a lottery for the small chance of being given the opportunity to buy a place because for every one apartment there are 1000 people trying to move into it.

There's no magic bullet for making housing affordable in a place where the number of people who want to live there far exceeds the number of places available, and the more you drive down the value of property in that area, the more people are going to be added to that pool. You can try to address SOME of it with restrictions on things like second homes or foreign investors, but all you're doing is kicking the can down the road. The real, actual solution to affordable housing is to stop pretending like the middle 90% of the country doesn't exist and actually incentivize distributing the population across it, something more possible than ever thanks to the internet.

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s0nicfan posted...

And if people stopped trying to move into the same 3 cities, businesses would be further incentivized to build out in other places, which will drive down demand in those high-demand areas, which will bring down property values.

I get and agree with most of what you're saying, but you make it sound as if that's a direct thing people truly have action over. People won't move places without the jobs being there already. For high paying jobs at least.

But maybe you're talking about federal and state governments being the ones to create incentives for the businesses?
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The thing is....life in the middle of nowhere Arkansas or South Dakota or West Virginia or wherever objectively sucks. There's no economic opportunity there, no good colleges, the towns are greying and dying there, dealing with addiction issues there's no access to art, culture, public transportation, there's reduced access to healthcare, you're far away from everything else etc. People go where life is actually good or could get better.

Humanity has been increasingly urbanizing for hundreds of years now and it doesn't look like the trend is reversing. We have to figure out to have regular people be able to afford to live where people do in fact live.

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JustMyOpinion posted...

It's affordable if you want to live in the middle of nowhere.

This, my county is between Dallas and Desoto where all the people live, the only thing people are really crazy about here is high school football, we have a lot of land but rather than houses being built on it it's distribution centers and the like, Jobs are rather difficult to get as everyone gives them to the high school kids or to personal friends so a lot of people tend to hop the highways in the mornings to drive to Dallas, Waxahachie, Desoto or Oak Cliff for their jobs.

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emblem boy posted...

I get and agree with most of what you're saying, but you make it sound as if that's a direct thing people truly have action over. People won't move places without the jobs being there already. For high paying jobs at least.

But maybe you're talking about federal and state governments being the ones to create incentives for the businesses?

Primarily, yea. I believe my solution is the right one, but I also recognize that it won't happen in a vacuum. We need state/feds to incentivize businesses expanding outside of their safe zones which will bring high paying jobs with them. They kick start the process and then it snowballs from there.

Also WRT zell... these areas are stagnating specifically BECAUSE they're not being invested in. Your argument could be equally applied to cities. Rather than invest in poor parts filled with crime and drugs, we should just accept that "people go where life is actually good or could get better" and just let those areas crumble. Or maybe we just accept that Baltimore, Detroit, Camden is a lost cause and let them collapse for the same reason. My guess, though, is you wouldn't support just letting poor parts of cities rot, so you've already bought in to the idea that bad areas need support to improve them. You just haven't applied it across state lines yet.

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s0nicfan posted...

Sure, but there's a difference between "there isn't any affordable housing" and "I can't afford to live in the most ideal place I'd like to live." And if people stopped trying to move into the same 3 cities, businesses would be further incentivized to build out in other places, which will drive down demand in those high-demand areas, which will bring down property values.

There ARE things that distort the market, but physical space isn't infinite, either, and trying to fit everyone who wants to live in a particular place into said place without inflating the value of that area is how you get things like section 8 housing, where people are forced into a lottery for the small chance of being given the opportunity to buy a place because for every one apartment there are 1000 people trying to move into it.

There's no magic bullet for making housing affordable in a place where the number of people who want to live there far exceeds the number of places available, and the more you drive down the value of property in that area, the more people are going to be added to that pool. You can try to address SOME of it with restrictions on things like second homes or foreign investors, but all you're doing is kicking the can down the road. The real, actual solution to affordable housing is to stop pretending like the middle 90% of the country doesn't exist and actually incentivize distributing the population across it, something more possible than ever thanks to the internet.

Condensing the population into fewer high density places reduces the infrastructure burden of the country. Suburban towns are an unsustainable money sink and there is plenty of room in most cities for increasing the amount of housing.

It would also be really hard to break the self feeding cycle that causes people and companies to cluster together without causing even more harm. Like the typical way for a town to attract a business is to throw money at a company and give tax breaks which just results in the town becoming poorer as a collective whole.

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tremain07 posted...

This, my county is between Dallas and Desoto where all the people live, the only thing people are really crazy about here is high school football, we have a lot of land but rather than houses being built on it it's distribution centers and the like, Jobs are rather difficult to get as everyone gives them to the high school kids or to personal friends so a lot of people tend to hop the highways in the mornings to drive to Dallas, Waxahachie, Desoto or Oak Cliff for their jobs.

sounds about right for a small town

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In general, pretty much nothing you need is going to get cheaper long term.

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s0nicfan posted...

Primarily, yea. I believe my solution is the right one, but I also recognize that it won't happen in a vacuum. We need state/feds to incentivize businesses expanding outside of their safe zones which will bring high paying jobs with them. They kick start the process and then it snowballs from there.

Needs to be a big incentive for some.

Like, my partner and I were considering moving to Tucson since we both got a job offer at one of the large companies out there. And like, it's cheap, so we thought maybe do it for a few years.

But after looking into the city some more and at other jobs in the area I felt weird about it. The city metro is big and quite large but there aren't many well paying jobs outside of the university and a couple large companies. And would I want to eventually settle down in a city where there are a limited number of companies that pay high. If I was ever wanting to leave the job, I'd essentially have to leave the city.
And Tucson isn't even a small city like some more midwest places

But this is me talking about higher paying jobs. If someone works in the service industry, there'll be plenty of options.

I guess my point in the above is that there is probably a difference in those who would take the initial risk in moving to a smaller city.
Compared to those who would prefer the place being more established
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UghWhoCares posted...

Boomers hoarding multiple properties, corporate real estate preferring to keep places empty rather than lower prices, foreign investors who have absolutely no stake in human lives, wages that refuse to grow with cost of living - were all just fucked

Honestly we should make it completely illegal to own residential properties for foreign companies and non residents.

I would go as far as to forcibly divest foreign companies and non residents.

Also greatly limit what domestic companies can purchase and own and forcibly divest those with abusive practices.

For individuals you get taxed more per property you own(with some exceptions or timed exemptions for inheriting property from close relations and such) unless you hit a certain level of services and/or your rent isn't too high.

Taxes on properties unoccupied when you have multiple properties are also much higher. Etc.

Taxes on a single personal/family use properties however mostly go away.

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That said I bought my first house by myself while bartending and serving tables. If buying seems impossibly out of reach you probably live somewhere that's too expensive for you.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb2lo5sOc6M

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UghWhoCares posted...

Boomers hoarding multiple properties, corporate real estate preferring to keep places empty rather than lower prices, foreign investors who have absolutely no stake in human lives, wages that refuse to grow with cost of living - were all just fucked

More of an issue of local governments bottlenecking the developement of more new homes than "hording boomers". At least in the areas that are super overpriced.

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There's plenty of affodable places to live still and aren't in the middle of nowhere with no jobs But you're have to do your own research on the matter, rather then looking at some random article or YouTube videos top 10 US citys to live in, within X state or some crap.

Also living in a suburban or rural area 15-30mins from the city isn't the end of the world either.


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I think this is as relatively simple solution to fix. Companies, government, and people need to start investing in smaller or mid sized cities.

Texas is a great example of this. You have so many smaller cities that you could easily invest in to bring people away from the more dense cities.

Instead of building your corporate HQ in Dallas/Fort Worth you could move it on 1 hour north to Wichita Falls where you could easily buy a 3 bedroom house for 100k or lower.

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I had a family back out on closing day because they decided they didn't like what the house appraised for. It was in need of a new roof and electrical updates and they wanted $15,000 more than what it appraised for.

if things were affordable the lower class might start getting designs on bettering their place in life, cant have that. we outlawed actual slavery but we need those wage slaves.

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We need different politicians in office to work on the housing issue

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FortuneCookie posted...

I had a family back out on closing day because they decided they didn't like what the house appraised for. It was in need of a new roof and electrical updates and they wanted $15,000 more than what it appraised for.

Appraisals seem to throw a wrench into purchases pretty often.

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UghWhoCares posted...

wages that refuse to grow with cost of living

currently dealing with that.

in a few month's see income go down. have about 7 years left before retirement that's when there's help in subsidies.

then social security runs out 3 years later.
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The housing market certainly does resemble a lot of pump and dumps I've seen on the stock market in the last year and a half or so.

People don't live in stocks though.

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