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Home Price to Income Ratio

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Re: Home Price to Income Ratio

#561

Post by postingawayonhn »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #470
xyzzy123 wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure about the US but fixed-rate term in Australia is about 5 years. Nobody would give you a 30 year fixed rate. You'd eventually have to pay 6% on the $1M.

Damn, I would assume houses must be much cheaper in Australia than in the US? Or only the very very rich can afford to buy their own home? (Or is it amortized over more than 5 years, you just have a balloon you need to refinance?) In the US, where 30-year mortgages are standard, the LARGE majority of homeowners would not be able to afford payments on their home amortized over only 5 years.

30 year mortgages are standard I Australia too. After your initial fixed interest period expires you will then pay the current floating rates or chose to refix for another period (of up to 5 years) at the current interest rates.

Re: Home Price to Income Ratio

#563

Post by nickff »

kerbs wrote: post #562
nickff wrote: post #146

Why do they use "average" home price (without specifying whether it's mean, median, or modal), with "median" income? It makes these graphs very difficult to interpret.

“Mean” is quite literally the average.

>”Mean” is quite literally the average.”

No, median is the average home, mean is the average of homes, and mode is the most common of the homes. They are all “average home prices”, just different averages.

Re: Home Price to Income Ratio

#564

Post by taurath »

twofornone wrote: post #248
taurath wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there’s plenty of real reasons people don’t do this economically, but don’t downplay the social parts of it - we have very Balkanized communities in the US. Ask a minority what it’s like going on a road trip sometime - I guarantee there’s many places where they won’t want to stop. Living in a place with no amenities, an extremely regressive/borderline extreme social climate and a lack of economic opportunity…

>I guarantee there’s many places where they won’t want to stop. As someone who recently made the jump to a rural area, these problems are almost entirely imaginary. The notion of backwards, ignorant, racist rednecks occupying all the rural lands is nothing but a bigoted stereotype. Southern hospitality is real; and while rural peoples will be more likely to notice and acknowledge cultural differences, they generally…

I'm happy to hear that's your experience. My experience comes from being raised in such a place (not the south, just rural conservative), and fleeing to the nearest metro region as soon as I was able while growing up. That was a while ago though, and this was over LGBT things - a bit less about abject discrimination and more that it was impossible to even think about finding a date, and a fear of being found out with people regaling me of stories of houses of known queers being firebombed in recent years. I don't really speak about the stereotypes of the ignorant rednecks - the most virulent haters were the orderly christian pastors and the true believers who opened up multiple conversion camps in my area. There were 2 black students in my high school of 1500 kids, and both of them got pulled over literally dozens of times in just a few short years, and it wasn't for driving fast.

Culture has changed somewhat since then. I don't presume to speak for anyone's experience but my own, and I go off of the stories that my friends have told me for other things.

That said, Trump flags fly everywhere, and BLM flags get torn down/burned/vandalized. I don't think its really fair to say that its all politeness and mutual respect - in my experience that is how it is until you accidently fall into one of the cultural battlegrounds, and then its more conform or die. Lastly..

> The truth is that urbanites have been hypersensitized to so called racism

I think this can be true while the rest can also be true.

Re: Home Price to Income Ratio

#565

Post by taurath »

xibalba wrote: post #229
taurath wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount of private equity in housing is really underreported I think - still the vast majority of people owning second homes or additional property are doing it for investments, but there is nothing stopping an “uber for housing” where they use VC money to buy up massive amounts of properties and influence pricing. I believe this is one of Zillow’s primary models. My take is that we need to treat housing as an act…

Anecdotally, I live in rapidly growing, tech-friendly metro and track housing data in the area. The county assessor's office exposes homeowner's names and you can easily spot the "private equity" owners. They are very few and far between. > The amount of private equity in housing I think this issue is, at least at the moment, overstated. Could be a problem in the future though.

I think nationally it just approached 1% of all purchases being done by "e-buyers", with much heavier concentrations in certain areas they're targeting.

Re: Home Price to Income Ratio

#566

Post by greesil »

notJim wrote: post #421
robocat wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine creating cash to solve a liquidity trap is like continuously taking laxitives for a constipation problem... At some point you get a different problem! On topic: my experience of housing prices in NZ is that people bid up house prices to the point that they can only just afford the mortgage payments. Creating more housing doesn't "fix" the problem, because the more wealthy buy two or more houses, and are hap…

> Creating more housing doesn't "fix" the problem, because the more wealthy buy two or more houses, and are happy to leave one empty This surely can't go on forever though. People's ability and desire to consume housing is not infinite, particular in a given locale. If they're buying them to rent out, then a flood of other wealthy people looking for tenants reduces the landlords' bargaining power in the market, which…

You do have to build, but low interest rates drive capital to seek investments with lower average returns. Private equity used to stay out of housing, but now there are funds to buy up trailer parks. I hypothesize this is driving some of the insatiable demand. Higher real interest rates, or more productivity growth so there's better places to park the ocean of money, or taxation would do wonders.

Re: Home Price to Income Ratio

#567

Post by taurath »

rayiner wrote: post #379
taurath wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there’s plenty of real reasons people don’t do this economically, but don’t downplay the social parts of it - we have very Balkanized communities in the US. Ask a minority what it’s like going on a road trip sometime - I guarantee there’s many places where they won’t want to stop. Living in a place with no amenities, an extremely regressive/borderline extreme social climate and a lack of economic opportunity…

> Ask a minority what it’s like going on a road trip sometime - I guarantee there’s many places where they won’t want to stop. Certified brown person here. The only thing I think about in terms of deciding where to stop is how far I can get before needing gas, and what the odds of finding decent food are. I've travelled in rural areas all over the country: midwest (my wife grew up in rural iowa), west coast (wife's f…

Thanks for sharing your perspective, its nice to get another view.

Re: Home Price to Income Ratio

#568

Post by GaryTang »

taurath wrote: post #183
Doches wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For 99% of you that means living far away from your preferred locale among people you probably loath. Parent comment is vitriolic but not actually wrong. Myself, I take great comfort in the idea of huge swaths of liberal, well-educated millennials and xennials migrating out of coastal cities and into small towns across the South and Midwest. Can you work remotely? Want to own your own home on a multi-acre lot for $…

I think there’s plenty of real reasons people don’t do this economically, but don’t downplay the social parts of it - we have very Balkanized communities in the US. Ask a minority what it’s like going on a road trip sometime - I guarantee there’s many places where they won’t want to stop. Living in a place with no amenities, an extremely regressive/borderline extreme social climate and a lack of economic opportunity…

As a brown minority who travels regularly all throughout the US, I believe your statement only rings true for minorities with strong politically left-leaning identities. The only reason that persuades me against stopping in any location is the price of gas is too high or there’s better food options in the next town. Additionally, I find the contrary to be more true — people in major cities generally make me much more nervous.

Re: Home Price to Income Ratio

#569

Post by ncphil »

yurishimo wrote: post #527
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and I don’t think bankruptcy disappears from your credit report after 7 years like other items. Does it?

Bankruptcy does eventually disappear I think, or if it doesn't there are legal requirements not to hold it against you after X years without a problem on your end. It's been a while since I've looked into it.

The irony, of course, is that the US Bankruptcy Code provides you can't declare bankruptcy again until 7 years have passed. So creditors theoretically have less risk during the period they generally refuse credit to the newly bankrupt. Of course none of that applies to business bankruptcy, where the old company is often dissolved but you're often looking to the same former principal(s) for personal guarantees of the new company's obligations.

Re: Home Price to Income Ratio

#570

Post by ncphil »

jdkee wrote: post #516
Aeolun wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do they do with them? Doesn’t seem like something you renovate and resell?

They extract the maximum amount of rent they can. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/03/15/what-happens-w...

... and then kick the residents out when they finally get zoning approval to redevelop for luxury housing: from politicians whose votes are surprisingly cheap (most elected municipal officials have ties to the real estate industry, or are themselves in the business).

This is happening right now, here in North Carolina. The worst part? Who do you think makes up the largest part of trailer park residents here? Yep. That's right. Separated or retired military veterans, retail workers and domestic servants. They don't need to watch Masterpiece Theater to experience the wealth inequality and exploitation of the Gilded Age: they're living it every day (although our popular culture won't allow them to question it).

Oh, and one more thing: although some elitist s.o.b.'s may disagree, trailer park people are no more unlikable that McMansion neighborhood residents. In fact, I usually find the former a lot more pleasant to deal with.

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