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Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

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Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#351

The sooner we collectively decide that housing shouldn't be a market, the better. We all need it, and we should figure out mechanisms to make it available to all. Practically that means paying to build and maintain housing stocks, changing tax incentives so developers are incentivized to build more housing and less luxury housing, charging a premium for unused land in desirable areas (parking lots don't house people)…

Cut down home ownership to max 3 homes per household. Otherwise rent from someone else.

And yes it’s possible to be capitalist and agree with sensible regulations. I’d rather we focus on building amazing companies and utilizing labor effectively.

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#352
post #177
post #43

Where I live, in an affluent town on the east coast, homes have been going for 50%+ over ask. And the asks were high. Something is broken. Homes that wound have been listed at $1,000,000 in 2019 are going for $1.750,000 today. Interest rates going up should cool it off but I fear it will break much of the rest of the economy. There was a massive mismatch in executive policy and fed policy and here we are.

High immigration + no construction -> High demand + low supply. Then on top of that you have record inflation with stagnant wages. The market is being completely rational. What "overvalued" here means is "are homes expensive compared to local wages" not "are homes irrationally expensive." Normally this would drive construction but the market is distorted by credit such that new construction is less economical (a resu…

US population is effectively flat over the past two years. Home construction is at an all time high.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNDCONTSA

People keep repeating these statements about underbuilding or lack of supply as if they're backed by data, but it's just he said she said. Number of housing units to households is the same as it was in the year 2000, and in line with historical levels.

Home price gains were driven by a low rate induced speculative frenzy. It's inflationary psychology at work. E.g. people spin narratives about why you need to buy now to avoid being priced out, thus everybody starts to panic buy making the prophecy self fulfilling in the end.

But this never ends well. At the root of every bubble is some collective narrative that "justifies" its existence

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#353

The sooner we collectively decide that housing shouldn't be a market, the better. We all need it, and we should figure out mechanisms to make it available to all. Practically that means paying to build and maintain housing stocks, changing tax incentives so developers are incentivized to build more housing and less luxury housing, charging a premium for unused land in desirable areas (parking lots don't house people)…

Why on earth would anybody build apartments or rent out property under your scheme?

The government would.

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#354

The sooner we collectively decide that housing shouldn't be a market, the better. We all need it, and we should figure out mechanisms to make it available to all. Practically that means paying to build and maintain housing stocks, changing tax incentives so developers are incentivized to build more housing and less luxury housing, charging a premium for unused land in desirable areas (parking lots don't house people)…

I guess you are unaware of all the money people pour into their homes - renovations, furniture, upkeep, maintenance. People spend all kinds of money on nice things, but nothing comes close to the home itself. There will always be a market for this.

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#355
post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High immigration + no construction -> High demand + low supply. Then on top of that you have record inflation with stagnant wages. The market is being completely rational. What "overvalued" here means is "are homes expensive compared to local wages" not "are homes irrationally expensive." Normally this would drive construction but the market is distorted by credit such that new construction is less economical (a resu…

US immigration is cratering, it's a national crisis nobody cares about. The supply constraint is old but its not why housing is high - housing prices are high even in places where there is a lot of construction. Monetary policy explains it a lot better, and it predicts that at some point the trend will reverse.

Perhaps legal immigration is but immigration overall is very high.

I've hit my quota, here's my reply: illegal immigrants still have to live somewhere So they're going to take housing off the market. They manage to rent houses in various ways (employers, government programs, ngos etc.)

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Western Europe is both considerably more crowded and poorer than the US.

That’s a sweeping comparison. I’ve visited both and my take would be that Europeans have a higher standard of living than Americans. But that’s just a hunch, I’d be interested to see a breakdown by specific metric and class.

I'd take data over an anecdote or hunch.

Specific breakdowns are harder to find, but top of line numbers are pretty easy to find in a minute on Google: https://datacommons.org/tools/timeline#place=country%2FUSA%2...

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#357

The sooner we collectively decide that housing shouldn't be a market, the better. We all need it, and we should figure out mechanisms to make it available to all. Practically that means paying to build and maintain housing stocks, changing tax incentives so developers are incentivized to build more housing and less luxury housing, charging a premium for unused land in desirable areas (parking lots don't house people)…

Ah yes, I also was deeply enamored with Coruscant the first time I saw it depicted. It never occurred to me to reverse engineer the planning policies which could give rise to such a nightmare however.

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#358

The sooner we collectively decide that housing shouldn't be a market, the better. We all need it, and we should figure out mechanisms to make it available to all. Practically that means paying to build and maintain housing stocks, changing tax incentives so developers are incentivized to build more housing and less luxury housing, charging a premium for unused land in desirable areas (parking lots don't house people)…

Why on earth would anybody build apartments or rent out property under your scheme?

No post body was provided.

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#359

The sooner we collectively decide that housing shouldn't be a market, the better. We all need it, and we should figure out mechanisms to make it available to all. Practically that means paying to build and maintain housing stocks, changing tax incentives so developers are incentivized to build more housing and less luxury housing, charging a premium for unused land in desirable areas (parking lots don't house people)…

"Nearly every case" is very wishy washy, I assume you have some specifics, what about trashing a property, who absorbs that cost? Living where one has historically lived is interesting, take London - you're implying it should be a birth right for natives - what about the immigrant flow into such cities, how would you reconcile the "right of natives" with human capital?

Not a birthright, I don't think it should move across generations, but I do think that it's needlessly cruel to force someone out of their home because wealthier people want to live there.

As for tenants v landlords, I believe it should be difficult to evict tenants except in cases where the tenant is clearly a danger to others or to the home itself. If they are vandalizing the property, that should be an eviction. Likewise if they are cooking meth. But I think tenants should be protected if, eg, their income drops due to a layoff or unforseen medical expense.

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#360
Same in the UK - https://www.theweek.co.uk/london-house-prices

I think it’s a combination of not enough available housing (and pandemic increasing costs for building new homes), fall in the value of the denominator due to central bank action, and people moving often having lots of equity in their existing home they shift to the new one so the increase in mortgage size isn’t huge.

There won’t be a big crash (unless we see a deep recession with rising unemployment and defaults) but central bank tightening and raising rates will definitely curb house price growth in the next couple of years.

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