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House prices surpass housing-bubble peak on price-to-rent ratio

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Re: House prices surpass housing-bubble peak on price-to-rent ratio

#81

Post by mac01021 »

slv77 wrote: post #57
chadcmulligan wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard a theory the other day that houses are more affordable than they were in the 70's - because even though the house prices are high, the repayments are lower because the interest rates are a lot lower. It was a business commentator trying to rationalise the housing market.

When rates were higher total interest payments tended to dominate over the life of the mortgage. In most cases the interest payments would exceed the entire value of the principal over the life of the loan. Over the life of a loan the interest portion is negotiable while the principal payments are not. A buyer in improving financial circumstances can accelerate payment on the principal and avoid future interest payme…

Hi slv77! I would love to ask you about a comment you made on another thread 5-6 years ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12367754).

If you're willing to spend a minute or two on me, please say so.

You can email me at mac@quartyard.us

or message me on twitter @mac01021

or we can go off topic and talk right here!

Re: House prices surpass housing-bubble peak on price-to-rent ratio

#82

Post by question000 »

anon98356 wrote: post #73
question000 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes literally never in my lifetime, even after the 2008 recession those same houses are worth more now then ever. Any findings that show house values are "going down" are just sampling errors, or more likely people being purposefully misleading by distorting the trends.

Firstly, never and never in your lifetime are two very different timespans. Second, just because those houses from 2008 recession are now worth more than in 2008 doesn't mean they have been steadily increasing in value since 2008. There have definitely been downturns in the property market. One in particular that springs to mind is the impact of Brexit on house prices in London. Sure, eventually the price might recov…

Ok never ever have housing really prices gone down. Look at any chart of average home prices in the US if you bought a house at any time and waited 10 years you definitely made money. Even in neighborhoods where >50% people were in foreclosure their homes are worth more then ever.

If you can find anywhere housing prices are less then in 2008 please say so.

The Brexit thing is just guesswork on your part those properties will be sell at the same prices they were listed at probably nobody actually purchased them in the first place just for speculation.

Re: House prices surpass housing-bubble peak on price-to-rent ratio

#83

Post by silicon2401 »

akudha wrote: post #74
silicon2401 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great example of the many flaws in globalism. If Canada were to put higher restrictions on foreign real estate purchases, Canadians wouldn't be in such a pickle. The flaw of generosity is that it leaves you vulnerable to being taken advantage of, which is what's happening in this case.

If such laws are put in place, it would handle only foreign buyers. It still wouldn't handle local born rentiers. There should be some kind of robust policy change. It would be hard, since landlords aren't exactly a friendly bunch (just look at San Francisco).

That's fine, there's no magic bullet to any issue. I don't have an issue with landlords; property is a human right and that includes the right rent it out (similarly, I expect the freedom to rent if I want to in a private contract with a property owner). But if citizen landlords are being abusive, then there should be separate legislation to keep them controlled as well.

Re: House prices surpass housing-bubble peak on price-to-rent ratio

#84

Post by yunohn »

silicon2401 wrote: post #80
akudha wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not at all what I am implying. When you buy that much amount of land, which is a basic human necessity, at minimum the public needs to know what the plans are for those lands, right? If someone buys 5 acres of land, that is a different story, nobody cares. The scale is what making the difference here. Let me ask you another question - recently (2019 I think), Bill bought 14,500 acres of land for 171M in a sin…

Who decides where the line is drawn for scale?

Dude, this is not some weird fine line slippery slope situation.

Normal people don’t often buy 269,000 of acres of land, only influential people like Bill Gates can.

Re: House prices surpass housing-bubble peak on price-to-rent ratio

#85

Post by Teever »

yunohn wrote: post #84
silicon2401 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who decides where the line is drawn for scale?

Dude, this is not some weird fine line slippery slope situation. Normal people don’t often buy 269,000 of acres of land, only influential people like Bill Gates can.

The claim is that Bill Gates has bought too much farm land.

If someone is making that claim surely they can clarify exactly what too much is and why.

How do you expect anyone to take this suggestion seriously? How do you expect actual policy to be set without clearly defined boundaries of acceptable behaviour?

Re: House prices surpass housing-bubble peak on price-to-rent ratio

#86

Post by akudha »

silicon2401 wrote: post #80
akudha wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not at all what I am implying. When you buy that much amount of land, which is a basic human necessity, at minimum the public needs to know what the plans are for those lands, right? If someone buys 5 acres of land, that is a different story, nobody cares. The scale is what making the difference here. Let me ask you another question - recently (2019 I think), Bill bought 14,500 acres of land for 171M in a sin…

Who decides where the line is drawn for scale?

Better questions would be - why does one man need so much farmland? What is he going to do with it? How much more is he planning to buy? If he suddenly stops all farming on all farmlands that he buys, what would be the impact on the food supply?

It is amazing that you're arguing in support of a billionaire with a monopolistic, predatory past. He might be doing good things today, but he is also a big supporter of companies like Monsanto. He also has the arrogance of influencing things his way using his money, even when a majority of people/voters don't agree with him. Here is an example : https://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/04/13085/charitable-plutoc...

I do not know if you are arguing in good faith at this point. No single person, especially an unelected person, should have as much influence as Bill has. He is just one example. There are other super shitty examples. At least Bill is doing some good, there are other billionaires that are much, much worse.

Re: House prices surpass housing-bubble peak on price-to-rent ratio

#87

Post by eutropia »

Just your annual reminder that the Land Value Tax is the Least Evil Tax. Tax "rent"[0] at 85-100%, allow owner-residents to defer LVT taxes owed to time of sale with modest interest. Speculators would be naturally driven out in favor of people actually using the land.

[0] - Which is gatekeeping/charging for land (finite natural unimproved resources like space, spectrum, water, wildlife, oil, etc)

Re: House prices surpass housing-bubble peak on price-to-rent ratio

#88

Post by throwaway316943 »

akudha wrote: post #35

I wish something is done about these rentiers. Someone I know is amassing a rental property portfolio, while I am struggling to buy my first home. I am not against people making money and getting rich, but it would be nice if it wasn’t so easy to buy up multiple properties simply because they have the cash. There should be all kinds of incentives for first time home buyers. But it should be made very expensive/very p…

242,000 acres sounds big but it isn’t a significant percentage of US farmland. A large farm (in the $1m sales class) is usually above 3,000 acres in size. So Bill has bought less than 100 large farms. There are somewhere around 78,000 US farms in that class making up about 4% of farms and containing 25% of existing farmland. In other words, Bill owns squat. He probably bought those farms as an investment, there’s no reason to be hysterical about it.

Re: House prices surpass housing-bubble peak on price-to-rent ratio

#89

Post by dragonwriter »

sokoloff wrote: post #19

COVID added two factors, both positive for housing prices: additional time in the home, making its faults more apparent and spending money to address them more sensible. It also added trillions of dollars of government borrowing without creating offsetting trillions of dollars of production in the economy, leading many to worry about an uptick in inflation. As inflation fears increase, borrowing money and buying prod…

Three: widespread (and in many cases transitioning to long term) WFH: that’s not just time in the home, its new demands on what the home is used for.

Re: House prices surpass housing-bubble peak on price-to-rent ratio

#90

Post by dragonwriter »

hellbannedguy wrote: post #25
bko wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Low interest rates don't make people offer 150k over asking while waiving all contingencies Paying above offer always struck me as strange. In my housing market its very common as well, to the point I believe under-pricing the home is intentional. There's no reason the home should be priced considerably below the market price. Sometimes you get it wrong but homes consistently selling above ask tells you the sellers…

The USA is the only country, I can think of, that allows anyone, from anywhere, to buy our land. You don't need to be a citizen of this country in order to buy our land? Just money, and a email will buy a house. The federal government could stop some of the insanity of buying a home, if they just made it a bit harder for foreigners to buy our land? Isn't the federal governments purpose to put Americans first?

> The USA is the only country, I can think of, that allows anyone, from anywhere, to buy our land.

The only other country I've specifically looked at, Mexico, only has restrictions on non-citizens owning land near coasts or international borders, for the vast majority of the country anyone can buy land.

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