121–130 of 180 posts
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Yes. Url changed from https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/g... . Submitters: please don't post those! It's important that readers see what domain a story is coming from.
dang, Why doesn't HN simply warn submitters to not use AMP urls or reject them outright?
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Right, flippers aren’t taking conventional housing loans on the properties they are flipping. They are getting short term lines of credit instead because they don’t expect to have the house for more than a few months.
I'm not sure what kind of flippers you are referring, but usually there are no loans. Cash purchases - 100% for the entire value of the property. Source: my parents are prof. flippers.
The article title needs punctuation.
We changed the title from "Housing hit unexpected slowdown Shares of Redfin drop 20%". Submitters: please don't rewrite titles like that. If an article title is neither misleading nor linkbait, the site guidelines ask you not to change it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Just today (in Austin) I saw a banner by the road outside a bank offering "100% financing" for homebuyers. If banks breathlessly pitching to lend buyers the entirety of a home's price is not a sign of an overheated debt-led housing market, I don't know what is.
Housing is only an 'investment' because of how expensive it inherently is. However, my opinion has been that housing /has been/ in a bubble since at least the mid 2000s (pre recession); and it didn't actually deflate (at least in the area I live in) /during/ that recession. It would really be nice if some way of fixing this bubble chasing nonsense happened. Maybe if healthcare and retirement were fully socialized thi…
Cars are expensive but aren't investments; they're depreciating assets. In Tokyo, housing is a depreciating asset too. In the US, housing is an appreciating investment because we've made that a political axiom, and because homeowners hold political power that let them fight any policy that would make housing cheaper.
Housing appreciates because land supply is limited in big cities. You can't manufacture more land
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Doesn’t Prop 13 incentivize buy and hold? That’s the only way to keep your low property tax basis. Or am I misunderstanding your comment?
The effect on the market is to make the market even less liquid than it would be since sales cost such huge benefits. Plus insulating existing homeowners from the rising market value of land is a tax on literally everyone that does NOT live there.
Though note that at age 55, you can move into a less-expensive home and keep your old property tax basis (if you meet certain restrictions). This provides somewhat of an escape valve that allows empty-nesters to downsize and new families to move in.
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Well, Prop 13 in California particularly incentivizes housing bubble chasing.
Doesn’t Prop 13 incentivize buy and hold? That’s the only way to keep your low property tax basis. Or am I misunderstanding your comment?
Anecdote, but my wife and I dropped out of the market recently and rented instead. The rent was 30-40% cheaper than a mortgage would have been on a similar place (including taxes, insurance, etc...). So we figured we would just put the after-tax difference into a 401k (because 401k is pre-tax, for every dollar we 'saved' in housing cost, we are putting ~1.4 dollars into 401k). I figure that building equity in a house…
My house in Seattle has been appreciating by about $100k/year over the past five years. In other words, I'm making $100k/year on a $50k investment. You wont find returns like that in a 401k. And my interest payments are less than rent would be. Last but not least, home appreciation is TAX FREE up to half a million bucks. By all means, max out the $20k or so you are allowed to put into a 401k, but don't fool yourself…
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Cars are expensive but aren't investments; they're depreciating assets. In Tokyo, housing is a depreciating asset too. In the US, housing is an appreciating investment because we've made that a political axiom, and because homeowners hold political power that let them fight any policy that would make housing cheaper.
Cars are a depreciating asset because you can always manufacture more of them Housing appreciates because land supply is limited in big cities. You can't manufacture more land
What we don't have enough of is density in the places where people actually want to be, and that's not a natural limit. You could make more density, if it weren't illegal in all of these desirable places.
And I just mentioned Tokyo, which actually does have serious land constraints but does zoning and transit well. (And where they are making more land.) Ordinary people can afford homes there and almost nobody is homeless.
"They're not making any more land" isn't a relevant thing about urbanism, it's just a cliche that a realtor says to convince you to buy.
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Cars are expensive but aren't investments; they're depreciating assets. In Tokyo, housing is a depreciating asset too. In the US, housing is an appreciating investment because we've made that a political axiom, and because homeowners hold political power that let them fight any policy that would make housing cheaper.
Cars are a depreciating asset because you can always manufacture more of them Housing appreciates because land supply is limited in big cities. You can't manufacture more land
A car depreciates because it has high long-term maintenance costs due to wear and tear. A 10 year-old car more expensive to maintain than a 2 year-old car. Almost everything in a car eventually needs to be replaced. The exception is at the high-end where some cars become collectors items after 30+ years and will then appreciate due to rarity (as per your original argument).
Houses properly built will literally last centuries. My old house in Baltimore is over 100 years old.