Home Price-to-Income Ratios • Hacker News Board

Re: Home Price-to-Income Ratios

#161

Post by nextos » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 11:24 PM UTC

gowld wrote: post #93

nextos wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, in England being a tenant has been a terrible experience for me despite paying premium prices and trying to aim at high quality properties with reputable landlords and agents. I've spent 5 miserable years. So I can totally understand why people tend to buy. Most people I know currently letting are either low income or moving jobs and cities. You have very few rights (even in comparison to Wales or Scotland). So…

Why do you live in England and not Belgium? Is it because quality of life is so much better that it's worth the housing hassles?

Just getting stuck in hyperspecialized jobs, so I can't really choose location. But quality of life in Belgium and elsewhere in Western EU is IMHO much better than Southern England.

I really enjoyed, in particular, living in Ghent.

Re: Home Price-to-Income Ratios

#162

Post by dv_dt » Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 1:22 AM UTC

bradlys wrote: post #157

dv_dt wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think policies forcing people out of homes are bad. And if you look at history, people that get forced out of their homes arent going to a nice farm upstate - they go into declining and more precarious life with less stable housing and financial situations.

Strawman argument. People in $2m homes are not going to live a poor life with less stable housing when they sell. Even if it sold for 50% less. Give me a break.

not everyone lives in a $2M home... not even in CA

Re: Home Price-to-Income Ratios

#163

Post by sgc » Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 2:04 AM UTC

dv_dt wrote: post #154

sgc wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does change the ratios of who wants a home since it makes a better investment. IMO prop 13 should only apply to primary residence.

I fully agree that Prop 13 should only apply to primary residences! But I fundamentally think it's wishful & unexamined leaps of thinking that repealing all of prop 13 would somehow lower home prices. I think it's repeal would just cause unnecessary churn in where people live, increase the speed of gentrification, without holding back home prices at all.

I just think it's repeal would be absolutely cruel to people who lived and worked in California their whole lives, making much of what it is today, but can't afford to pay today's prices because their salaries were not what people now make here. So irrespective of what the effects would be, it smacks of flagrant injustice.

Re: Home Price-to-Income Ratios

#164

Post by zik » Sun, Feb 02, 2020, 10:09 PM UTC

mdasen wrote: post #87

zik wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's as simple as that. In Australia we've had a massive housing boom and consequently the market has been flooded with houses. Strangely this hasn't led to lower house prices. There's a large amount of housing which is purchased and is sitting empty, mostly investment properties which people bought with the intention of re-selling at a much higher price so they're not concerned about renting them out.…

That can happen for a time. Investors might sit on things hoping that it will appreciate in value. However, many times there's a myth of "empty houses" used to justify not building more. Some people have cited non-owner-occupied condos as "empty" when they're merely rented. When a large new property comes on the market, often the owners take time selling off units so as not to flood the market and drive down their in…

I'm not talking about non-owner-occupied housing. A group here did a survey using water consumption figures to determine which houses were actually occupied and found that substantial numbers were completely unoccupied.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-12/water-use-study-highl...

(Old link but the same still applies)

Re: Home Price-to-Income Ratios

#165

Post by maerF0x0 » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 6:28 AM UTC

AWildC182 wrote: post #65

maerF0x0 wrote: post #52

This data makes me wonder why taxation doesnt take CoL into account? "Lower" salaries in the Bay Area are upper tier tax brackets.

This is a feature, not a bug. This helps prevent everyone from completely piling on top of desirable places and further driving prices up, as well as effectively subsidizing poorer places cover the remaining 99% of the US.

Why shouldnt people pile onto something that is desirable? Isnt that effectively a market making their decision?