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How Many Years of Life Does That House Cost?

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Re: How Many Years of Life Does That House Cost?

#151

Post by icedchai »

user5994461 wrote: post #131
icedchai wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Folks just need to try and live below their means. This may not be practical for everyone, obviously. I bought a town house condo right before I turned 25, worth roughly 2x my salary at the time. By age 31, I had paid it off entirely: a 15 year mortgage, done 8 years ahead of schedule. Could I have done better if I invested that money? Probably. But I like being debt free. I also invested a ton anyway.

Of course it's easy to buy when properties are only twice your salary and can be fully paid off in a couple of years. You were just lucky to leave when properties were cheap and interest were high.

Luck is part of it, but not all.

I know people who bought homes at similar times who have refinanced every 3 years and now owe way more than they started with. They don't care about debt. They continue to spend more than they make, year after year, live pay check to pay check despite their high salaries...

Re: How Many Years of Life Does That House Cost?

#153

Post by icantdrive55 »

vlunkr wrote: post #107
ianai wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this highlights how expensive living is and how little income is. If we're going to have a "free economy" without an end of life safety net (i.e. Social security) then it has to be possible to work a lifetime and retire on savings made. But most indicators show little to no saving for most people. It sure seems something is deeply wrong.

Maybe for SF. The article indicates that homes are quite affordable in much of the country.

Yea they are more affordable, but the jobs went overseas for most of us.

I've gotten so desperate, I was thinking about the whole living off the grid thing. A step above Homelessness?

The property taxes nixed that pretty quick, along with all the other restrictions and fees one needs to pay just to live with respect. We have people in jail for fishing without a licence. Crazy?

All this wouldn't bother me if America had a viable safety net.

We decided Globalism was fine. (Allowing China to live like we use too, and build up their defence. I just don't know?) We are now allowing technology to eliminate jobs.

We are going to have a group of wealthy people who live like kings, and the rest of us will be the beggars. In my world, we are already there.

The other night I saw something about the countries with the highest taxes, or countries that taxed their wealthiest citizens the most. I believe France, Switzerland, and Germany were near the front. Just happened to be the three countries I admire.

Don't get me wrong, I love America's system of checks, and balances, but this is not the best country for guys like myself anymore.

Sorry about going on, just in the gutter today. Don't feel well. Plus, I'm detoxing from a prescribed drug I was on for 10 years because my physician got cold feet.

(If any doctor prescribes an addictive medication--think twice before taking it. They change their minds for the wrong reasons, and they will drag you in for mandatory office visits. Visits that have no real purpose.)

Re: How Many Years of Life Does That House Cost?

#154

Post by Retric »

sbenitoj wrote: post #29
lpolovets wrote: post #18

I liked the visualization and data, but I don't think it makes sense to compare home prices to wages w/o considering alternatives to home ownership. Home prices don't exit in a vacuum. That is, if a home is 10x the median salary, you can't really say "well, if I didn't buy a home I could work 10 years less." That's because the alternative to buying is renting, which is also expensive. So sure, a mortgage in SF is $6k…

You also have to factor in the opportunity cost of what you could've done with that down payment (e.g. What would a $100k downpayment invested for 30 years in the stock market be worth vs how much is that worth in your home in 30 years?) The NYT has a buy vs rent calculator that helps make some of these decisions: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/buy-rent-cal...

The real opportunity cost is not living somewhere else. Run the math and SF is best avoided.

Re: How Many Years of Life Does That House Cost?

#155

Post by zaroth »

brightball wrote: post #74
zaroth wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the only way to drive down price is to either increase supply or decrease demand. So make cities shitier and denser. Is this a case where a small increase in supply would decrease the price significantly? I doubt it. So, is there some reason we (as a nation) need to double population density of our largest cities? With the huge advances we are likely to see in autonomous zero-emission delivery infrastructure and…

Because I keep seeing articles pop up over the last few years trying to convince me that suburbs are basically evil incarnate for some reason. It gets to the point where it feels like a political platform.

There's definitely a political platform here. Economic models claiming suburbs are beyond bankrupt and destined for failure. [1]

Apparently my property taxes can't even cover the cost of pavement and water mains, and yet we just built a new school, and are in the process of planning a $20 million library.

[1] - https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/9/the-real-reason...

Re: How Many Years of Life Does That House Cost?

#156

Post by geff82 »

I always wonder why it is an unknown fact for many that in Texas houses are still very affordable, even in metropolitan areas. I follow the market there closely, and you can get quality homes for the cheap. Is it that the high property taxes work their magic in that they hold the upfront purchase price low? It would have pros and cons - while keeping your house when retired gets more difficult, buying one when still young gets a lot easier.

Re: How Many Years of Life Does That House Cost?

#157

Post by quickthrower2 »

zaroth wrote: post #141
danans wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I suppose if your call center employees simply must be living in downtown S.F. the answer must be that we just need lax zoning and higher density! The call center employees living en masse in SF is a very far fetched claim that requires strong evidence here, along with the implication that they are what necessitates higher density. This framing is insensitive to both call center workers who likely could never a…

Hmm... I never said anything about "en masse". It was a reference to the Yelp/Eat24 call center employee controversy from last year. [1] In cases like these, I think it's very reasonable to question why those kinds of jobs should be the ones increasing demand in SF and, therefore, driving up prices for everyone else. If you think my framing is insensitive to call center employees, I think you may have misunderstood m…

> I think the property owners of SF are well within their rights to tell people who want to build affordable housing towers to get lost

Technically correct, first amendment and all. But really you are pro-NIMBY?

Re: How Many Years of Life Does That House Cost?

#159

Post by icu »

tw1010 wrote: post #114

You guys may have this or that problem in the US, but the fact that you have people like this author who put so much effort into communicating the problems and who care this much, that makes me envious of you all. You'd be really hard pressed to find a good number of people in my country who cared as much about the welfare of the rest of the people.

Sorry to hear that, just out of interest which country are you speaking about?

Re: How Many Years of Life Does That House Cost?

#160

Post by gedy »

geff82 wrote: post #156

I always wonder why it is an unknown fact for many that in Texas houses are still very affordable, even in metropolitan areas. I follow the market there closely, and you can get quality homes for the cheap. Is it that the high property taxes work their magic in that they hold the upfront purchase price low? It would have pros and cons - while keeping your house when retired gets more difficult, buying one when still…

They build a lot, and the flat cheap land goes forever..
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