41–50 of 161 posts
I can't wait for the housing prices to go down, but there is no sign they will in France. They kept going up, even during the covid crisis.
Meanwhile in Toronto a house is $1m+ while salaries are 100k-150k.
It’s because interest rates are so low. A combined income of $225 can easily afford a $1m home at todays rates.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The markets absolutely soared. People saved money rather than spent. Most people's jobs carried on as normal or were protected by the government. As a concrete example, bank account deposits in the UK rose 10% during COVID.
> The markets absolutely soared. The markets are not invididuals, if we're talking about stock markets. And in Europe they don't represent most of the population as asset holders or anything like that. Case in point for France: "There was an 8.3% decrease in France’s economy in 2020, and the country has not seen a recession to this extent since World War II. For example, France’s travel and tourism sector’s contribut…
And the 200k people laid off from the tourism and other sectors were paid 80% of their previous income by the state.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s because interest rates are so low. A combined income of $225 can easily afford a $1m home at todays rates.
Canada doesn't have a 30-year fixed rate mortgage, though. So anyone making that trade better be betting that interest rates never go up...
Very curious to see what happens with the US housing / real estate market. I think stocks / equities are going to see a severe down turn this year and a good deal of money is going to leave the market. At the same time inflation is very high so sitting in cash is a loser as well albeit not as bad as riding the markets down. Will that money from the stock market go into real estate or will real estate crash too as the…
Depends on how much the real estate market is being fueled by the Stock Market. We've seen a bull market now for the last, what, 13 years? Is this continual wealth driving all the other prices upward? As we saw in 2008/2009, financial markets are linked more so than they tell you. Diversifying your portfolio is a good idea, but having both real estate and stock investments is probably not in fact diversifying.
I'm not sure how many HN readers we have in Ireland, but as an American I'd be interested to hear their perspective on this article.
I lived there at the time, and it may be foolhardy to argue with an Assistant Professor of Economics, but it seems that the author is willfully ignoring the distinction between 'Unfinished' and 'Empty' houses. The Central Statistics Office (which often has difficulty counting things) found around 230,000 empty houses at that time. So while he may have a point that some of the 'Unfinished' ones never made it past the…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s because interest rates are so low. A combined income of $225 can easily afford a $1m home at todays rates.
I also heard the downpayment required is only 5%.
I can't wait for the housing prices to go down, but there is no sign they will in France. They kept going up, even during the covid crisis.
Is it cheap capital? Fraudulent bank practices? Or is it because people wanted more space during lockdowns while having the sense of financial stability?
If the demand increased while supply stayed constant, the price increase is not a bubble. I waited for "the bubble to burst" for years before realizing there likely is no bubble where I am from. Housing's just expensive.
I can't wait for the housing prices to go down, but there is no sign they will in France. They kept going up, even during the covid crisis.
I've noticed that the covid crisis has resulted in steady or even growing home purchases, many of them as second homes. In the US there was a lot of talk in 2021 of those who had not lost their jobs sitting on more liquidity than ever before, so I'd assume it's many of these people who jumping into the housing market.
Interest rates fell dramatically, government stimulus/cash transfers were far in excess of any lost wages, fewer people wanted to list houses and do showings due to covid.
Certainly a perfect storm.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I lived there at the time, and it may be foolhardy to argue with an Assistant Professor of Economics, but it seems that the author is willfully ignoring the distinction between 'Unfinished' and 'Empty' houses. The Central Statistics Office (which often has difficulty counting things) found around 230,000 empty houses at that time. So while he may have a point that some of the 'Unfinished' ones never made it past the…
He covered the empty estates issue well enough I thought: by the mid-2010s they were mostly fully constructed and occupied, including in rural areas. That chimes with my experience, having lived in a few different parts of the country (urban and rural) over that time period. It was rare for completed housing estate to be bulldozed.
I don't have figures for the amount of bulldozing that went on, but it was enough to make headlines for the years between 2008 to 2012, the bottom of the market.