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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

#611

Post by turtledove »

refurb wrote: post #536
turtledove wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. And also no. Today, if I cannot pay, I get no housing. Taxes allow us, as a community, to decide that we should all chip in a little bit extra (commensurate to our means) to make sure everyone has a roof over their heads. Also, government operated facilities do not have a profit motive, so there's less incentive to maximize the cost of housing.

Hilarious how your system gets more and more complex requiring more and more rules. You’re basically taking a market that has an artificially constrained supply and trying to replace it with an entirely planned system. Why?

Why? Because the current system leads to poverty, inequity, homelessness, waste, inefficiency, etc.

And to be clear, I've proposed a system of adjusted incentives followed by but not necessarily required to be followed by a more planned system.

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

#612

Post by endisneigh »

diordiderot wrote: post #608
endisneigh wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think houses will stand for long without any maintenance?

Landlords don't maintain the bloody house. They use tenant money to pay someone else to do it

Yes, they use the money in order to maintain the house. Furthermore owner-occupancy is a thing, where the landlord does some maintenance themselves.

However no matter what, no landlord can maintain all aspects of the house alone. You think a single person can be a master of all trades and have all equipment on hand all of the time in an apartment, for instance?

Why does it even matter if someone pays others to maintain the house? Do you think there are people who build modern houses alone with no machinery?

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

#613

Post by trgn »

refurb wrote: post #322
trgn wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is rotating from housing as commodity investment to housing as intergenerational asset, something which has happened in a lot of other countries already (see e.g. Western Europe, mentioned in other comments here). House prices will remain up because any gain from sale will be plowed into the next home. It's a ratchet upward. Higher mortgage rates are somewhat irrelevant in this dynamic, because the home itself…

I like your thesis, but the problem is we only need to look back 15 years to see that housing has had massive corrections before. I think you're underestimating buyer sentiment. In Canada all it took was a couple rate increases in April for housing prices in the 'burbs of Toronto to drop ~20%. Housing can go from "hot" to "not" really damn quick when prices start their downhill trajectory. What was suddenly a "must h…

Thanks, I'm sensitive to that, and it's a great point, in the US for sure the 2008 correction was felt for years.

US will likely continue to see rate increases in the next couple years. We'll see if that is going to affect home prices here. Let's check back in 2025 :)

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

#614

Post by tristor »

galangalalgol wrote: post #265
tristor wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There’s no rule that you should be able to afford a house on a middle class income Here in the US, if one was asked to define “middle class” from a lifestyle perspective, probably the first thing that comes to mind is “homeowner.” I don’t think it’s possible to separate home ownership from class distinctions in the US social strata. Case in point, home ownership rate has remained largely stable for decades at aroun…

I was told that middle class in the US is the class that owns tools that they use to augment or repair their home, whether owned or rented. Poorer and you don't have time between jobs to do it or the spare income for the tools, so it doesn't get done. Wealthier, and you just hire it done, because it isn't worth your labor rate.

That’s an interesting take. It sounds intuitively correct, other than the part about “owned or rented”. Generally speaking in the US, the one major advantage to renting is it’s the landlords responsibility to take care pf the property, and on the flip side you are usually not allowed to modify or augment it in any way.

So I’d say if you extended it to incorporate that understanding, it’s pretty accurate.

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

#615

Post by turtledove »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #529
turtledove wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Profiting from housing , yes, is not something I personally consider moral. But also, I believe that we don't need to meet my fairly radical moral stance to make housing more affordable and attainable for all. We can make incremental progress here by just tweaking incentives. We can go further by reducing profits. It's not some binary all or nothing affair.

Well then, feel free to buy a house and sell it at cost. Don't worry about all that money you put into the home over the years to improve or maintain it, either. Oh, and to add to the utter inanity of what you're proposing, make sure that you sell it at your purchase cost and not the 200%ish extra that they tack on to a 30 year loan at 4% interest. Go ahead. Chalk it up to a personal experiment and let us know how it…

Improving and maintaining a house is "at cost".

And I've done what you describe. I was a landlord for a decade.

I paid back each of my tenants all the profit I made from them, thousands and thousands of dollars per tenant. Adjusted upwards by the amount the property had appreciated.

I now rent in a sliding scale, capped at the cost of the unit.

Granted, it's only been ten years, not the thirty you suggest, but it's worked out great. Nearly every tenant has used their time with me to build a nest egg or savings that enabled them to move into a house they owned.

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

#616

Post by oicU00 »

AlchemistCamp wrote: post #293
oicU00 wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU Apple to US orange comparison you mean? What’s the EU have to do with US home values?

I replied to that comment as well. Affordability of housing the EU (or Japan, or China, or India, etc) isn't really that relevant to the situation in the US.

What does your policing add to the conversation? Unrelated syntax and semantics is not related to US housing

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

#617

Post by turtledove »

UncleMeat wrote: post #590
turtledove wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Landlords don't need to raise rent if their costs aren't rising.

We should enforce this with the law. Right now, landlords raise rents anyway. I've never once heard of a landlord lowering the rent once they finish paying their mortgage, even though their expenses are now far lower.

Let me be the first then. I've been a landlord for a decade. I've paid back each and every one of my tenants the rent I collected in surplus to costs. Adjusted upwards to reflect the appreciation of the unit.

I now rent at cost, choosing to believe that it's better to help the people who live with me establish themselves and build financial safety.

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

#618

Post by turtledove »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #532
turtledove wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Landlords don't need to raise rent if their costs aren't rising.

Landlords don't need to raise prices. They want to. We all want to have more dollars than everyone else and landlords are no exception.

Disagree that this is a universal desire. We don't all want to have more money than everyone else. Plenty of us just want to have enough money to live modestly and comfortably.

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

#619

Post by carom »

UncleMeat wrote: post #594
carom wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are passing laws to dictate what someone does with their property, then society should cover the losses. If they are free to do as they wish with their property then the landlord can cover losses. You're suggesting we privatize the costs of a social problem. This also assumes good faith on behalf of the renters.

Why? If we pass a law dictating that chemical companies have to pay for cancer patients that developed the disease because of their use of those company's products, does the state cover the losses of the people who hold stock in those companies? No. Landlords always say that they should be compensated for the risk of homeownership. If that's true, then some landlords need to lose money .

We do that for pharma companies. [1]

The system you purpose is not a loss some times, it is a system that can be abused all the time.

Who says landlords aren't losing money?

I am currently taking a loss. Two units are rent control at 600 per month, the third at 2300 hasn't paid in ten months with an eviction trial next week, I am in the last unit. I will be shutting down the property and using it as a single family home due to this loss. If you remove the incentive you remove housing or prices rise to cover the risk.

I see rent control as privatizing the cost of a social problem. You create restrictive zoning then say random landlords will subsidize people's rents. The single family home owners should share in the cost, and to a lesser degree, so should the renters who benefit.

Now you purpose an expansion on that same idea. Just remove zoning so housing can be built. Don't add more impediments like relocation fees and guaranteed housing in new construction for old residents and price controls. Then you will just have legacy units and luxury housing, an exacerbation of the current system.

1. https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-are-pharmaceutical-compa...

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

#620

Post by refurb »

turtledove wrote: post #611
refurb wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hilarious how your system gets more and more complex requiring more and more rules. You’re basically taking a market that has an artificially constrained supply and trying to replace it with an entirely planned system. Why?

Why? Because the current system leads to poverty, inequity, homelessness, waste, inefficiency, etc. And to be clear, I've proposed a system of adjusted incentives followed by but not necessarily required to be followed by a more planned system.

No doubt you'll need more "fixes" before you're done.

It's like rent control in SF or public housing in Singapore. Design a new system and you'll create loopholes to be exploited. Fix those and new loopholes are created. And on and on.

Easier to just remove government restrictions to supply and build until prices come down.

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