Job vacancies surge past one million in new record • Hacker News Board

Re: Job vacancies surge past one million in new record

#291

Post by conductr » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 5:01 PM UTC

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #266

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wage rises without solving the housing issue is only going to raise house prices further. There's a bunch of potential solutions, but no-one directly benefits from them in the short term. Any attempt to fix it will be met with sob stories about old ladies in multi-million dollar homes being "forced out of their homes". So we'll all just sit and watch as things slowly spin out of control.

Old ladies in multi-million dollar homes is largely a myth. Sure, there are some of them. But it's absurd to think this is anywhere near the majority. Short Term rentals make up These are just excuses. These aren't real problems. The real problem is artificially low interest rates, artificial scarcity caused by NIMBYism, low downpayments (backed by Fannie & Freddie), tax breaks for home owners but not for renters, hi…

I've come to believe flipping is a major problem, at least in my locale. A $300K house gets $50K of "improvements", then the investors needs $100K profit after commissions are covered and so we're in the $500K range for the next buyer and very little value was added. It's often the proverbial "lipstick on a pig" house after the renovations.

There's little to no regulations on flippers. They can be DIY people that have never swung a hammer or people that cut every corner possible to squeeze out every cent of profit. Often, buyers of flipped properties are doing major repairs in the first 2 years as things behind the walls was not done correctly. It's a very common tale of people completely renovating their newly renovated bathrooms and kitchens (yes, the most expensive rooms in your house) because the flippers did not take the time to properly waterproof behind the tiles. Or they did not properly mortar the tiles for adhesion and they are now popping up.

Re: Job vacancies surge past one million in new record

#292

Post by xxpor » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 5:02 PM UTC

Factorium wrote: post #261

Workaccount2 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue with this though is two fold: 1.) You cannot have a nation of college degree high skilled workers. At least until robots and AI are widespread. Being rich is a lot less fun when you cannot spend it anywhere, because none of those places have a staff. 2.) Since people aren't having kids, and we love to saddle the future with liabilities, someone has to fill that void. All the hot shot AI inventory management…

1) The ratio of people with a tertiary degree is probably too high. In past decades, only about the top 25% had university degrees: https://www.cedefop.europa.eu/files/images/graph_month-stat_... 2) Fertility is heavily influenced by the availability of housing. Without immigration, house prices will fall and wages will rise, providing a boost to fertility until the population equalises. https://www.nber.org/digest/f…

You do realize intra-country migration has the same effect right? In the US, the majority of counties are losing population, because people are moving to cities.

You're advocating for internal passports and residency permits:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou

Re: Job vacancies surge past one million in new record

#293

Post by onlyrealcuzzo » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 5:03 PM UTC

mateo411 wrote: post #284

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Old ladies in multi-million dollar homes is largely a myth. Sure, there are some of them. But it's absurd to think this is anywhere near the majority. Short Term rentals make up These are just excuses. These aren't real problems. The real problem is artificially low interest rates, artificial scarcity caused by NIMBYism, low downpayments (backed by Fannie & Freddie), tax breaks for home owners but not for renters, hi…

Do Fannie and Freddie underwrite mortgages in the UK?

No - but the problem is the same. You have 5% downpayments (instead of 3.5% in the US), and mortgage-backed securities.

From my understanding, it appears there is NOT a government agency backing them, though. I don't think the 3.5% downpayment market be very big in the US if not for Fannie and Freddie (it basically doesn't exist outside of conventional loans Fannie & Freddie will buy).

I don't know how big the market is in the UK - maybe it's not much of an issue?

I'd love to hear from someone who knows more about this part of the UK market.

Re: Job vacancies surge past one million in new record

#294

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 5:04 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #69

When a few companies or industries can’t find enough labor, the solution is simple: Raise wages to attract a larger percentage of the labor pool. When every company and industry is struggling to hire, raising wages is still necessary but it no longer fixes the bigger problem. Those higher wages aren’t producing more labor, they’re just convincing employees with jobs to switch to other jobs. Switching jobs creates a v…

[deleted]

Re: Job vacancies surge past one million in new record

#295

Post by FredPret » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 5:04 PM UTC

jimbob45 wrote: post #265

FredPret wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meanwhile local politicians and boomers support NIMBYism and oppose all housing developments This is the problem - artificially constrained supply. Fix this and the lower prices will follow. Fix other things and you’ll just create further distortions and frustrations later on

Making more houses won't solve the problem - there will just be more houses to rent out at vastly inflated prices. Renting houses simply shouldn't be such a profitable endeavor. There have been stories posted where hotels snap up apartment units for AirBNB because those make more money than hotel rooms. That should never be the case.

Lmao. Have you ever owned a property you were trying to sell or rent out? Every single month of vacancy / no sale hurts, a lot.

If there are more units than renters, prices WILL drop, and fast. Landlords compete against each other, which is why you want many of them.

Re: Job vacancies surge past one million in new record

#296

Post by shartacct » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 5:04 PM UTC

Levitz wrote: post #190

jenscow wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if there aren't enough workers to give the pay increase to, then what? Reducing the pool of workers (Brexit) doesn't sold the wage problem. If a production line requires 30 people, and there are only 20... increasing their wages won't help. It won't encourage additional staff, as company B to Z is doing the same, and people aren't out of work because the wages are too low. Increasing minimum wage is the better wa…

The kind of company that can survive in an economy paying X doesn't necessarily survive if they later have to pay 120% of X. And that doesn't have to be a bad thing either, that kind of company probably wouldn't have existed to begin with if inequality wasn't brutal nowadays.

Zero companies are going under from increasing wages for their lowest earnings workers by 20%. The places hurting most are fast food and restaurants which have very little actual payroll cost once you amortize the amount of food they serve per hour. Increasing wages from $15/hr to (an absurd example) $50/hr at a mcdonald's here would cost less than 35c per customer assuming they serve at least 100 customers per hour (easily more in peak time).

The cost increase over the last 10y at every fast food place and restaurant near me has vastly exceeded 35 cents. Wage increases are inevitable and stagnation is only sustainable until normal people are priced out of living entirely and decide to flip the table.

They can easily afford it. If you dig into any of these companies finances you will see that payroll is generally less than 20% of their overall costs. In my area most workers are flocking to warehouse work as a major american retailer has bumped their starting wage to $25.50/hr plus benefits and is literally hiring people without any sort of phone screen or face to face interview. You will out a web form and get a start date by email.

Re: Job vacancies surge past one million in new record

#297

Post by onlyrealcuzzo » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 5:06 PM UTC

conductr wrote: post #291

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Old ladies in multi-million dollar homes is largely a myth. Sure, there are some of them. But it's absurd to think this is anywhere near the majority. Short Term rentals make up These are just excuses. These aren't real problems. The real problem is artificially low interest rates, artificial scarcity caused by NIMBYism, low downpayments (backed by Fannie & Freddie), tax breaks for home owners but not for renters, hi…

I've come to believe flipping is a major problem, at least in my locale. A $300K house gets $50K of "improvements", then the investors needs $100K profit after commissions are covered and so we're in the $500K range for the next buyer and very little value was added. It's often the proverbial "lipstick on a pig" house after the renovations. There's little to no regulations on flippers. They can be DIY people that hav…

How is that the flipper's fault? Ultimately, a regular home owner is buying the finished product.

If they are willing to pay more for better housing, what's the problem?

Of course, they're not willing to "pay more". Interest rates get lowered, and they can keep the same payment and buy more house.

The reason flipping is attractive is because Central Banks push up house prices - which flippers capture on leverage. If it weren't for house prices artificially appreciating so much (by constantly lower interest rates) - there wouldn't be any profits to be made flipping houses. Transaction costs are too high.

Re: Job vacancies surge past one million in new record

#298

Post by FredPret » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 5:07 PM UTC

pyrale wrote: post #288

FredPret wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? Standards of living have increased the most at the bottom of society. - Labourers used to work seven days a week (12 hour days), then six, now five times eight is standard, with some exceptions. - Workplace safety have gone from a laughable concept to the first priority. - 100% of Western populations can read and write. This used to be a rich-person thing - How many poor kids have you seen…

> Standards of living have increased the most at the bottom of society. Ah yes, conflating 150 years of history like the 60's and the 2010's were comparable in a stable stream of progress. Remember even further, when we were forced to dress in animal furs and sleep in grottos? How amazing progress we made since then... I wonder why the serfs are complaining.

Oh, I’m sorry that the eye-watering amount of progress isn’t good enough for you, because sometimes it’s faster than other times.

Only if every single minute is better than the last by the exact same amount is capitalism working!

Re: Job vacancies surge past one million in new record

#299

Post by hdhjebebeb » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 5:07 PM UTC

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #266

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wage rises without solving the housing issue is only going to raise house prices further. There's a bunch of potential solutions, but no-one directly benefits from them in the short term. Any attempt to fix it will be met with sob stories about old ladies in multi-million dollar homes being "forced out of their homes". So we'll all just sit and watch as things slowly spin out of control.

Old ladies in multi-million dollar homes is largely a myth. Sure, there are some of them. But it's absurd to think this is anywhere near the majority. Short Term rentals make up These are just excuses. These aren't real problems. The real problem is artificially low interest rates, artificial scarcity caused by NIMBYism, low downpayments (backed by Fannie & Freddie), tax breaks for home owners but not for renters, hi…

Where do you get stats for short-term rentals? Anecdotally, our last landlady illegally evicted us, converted the house to an airbnb, and then bought the next-door house from the long-time owner to make it an airbnb as well. Not in a vacation town, just downtown in a second-tier city. It seems like a pretty common trend in our neighborhood, I'm wondering if short-term rentals are clustered in dense, walkable areas and the stats are skewed by exurban owner-occupied homes that are 30 minutes drive to everywhere.

Re: Job vacancies surge past one million in new record

#300

Post by jimbob45 » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 5:11 PM UTC

FredPret wrote: post #295

jimbob45 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making more houses won't solve the problem - there will just be more houses to rent out at vastly inflated prices. Renting houses simply shouldn't be such a profitable endeavor. There have been stories posted where hotels snap up apartment units for AirBNB because those make more money than hotel rooms. That should never be the case.

Lmao. Have you ever owned a property you were trying to sell or rent out? Every single month of vacancy / no sale hurts, a lot. If there are more units than renters, prices WILL drop, and fast. Landlords compete against each other, which is why you want many of them.

In the world of 20 years ago, I would agree with you. Renting simply wasn't profitable enough to be a problem back then.

However, in today's world where AirBNB is unbelievably profitable, more houses than ever can be put up for rent at extreme prices. It heavily restricts the housing supply in a way that wasn't possible before AirBNB came around.