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Americans need to be richer than ever to buy their first home

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Re: Americans need to be richer than ever to buy their first home

#61

Post by EvanKnowles »

alexjplant wrote: post #32
legitster wrote: post #12

I think this is only half of the story. There are still lots of affordable houses - in parts of the country that no one wants to live anymore. The value of my sibling's property in Illinois has barely kept up with inflation. So I think some of the national statistics about house prices vs number of units are a bit misleading. We're increasingly paying a premium because we are increasingly concentrating where we want…

Very much this. Many of my friends in Southern California lament that they'll never be able to buy a home because in their minds houses _start_ at $750k. I bought a house for roughly one-third of that in a place that none of them would be caught dead so much as visiting. It's almost as though areas that are nice to live in are consequently in high demand which drives property values up... obviously NIMBYism, Prop 13,…

The kind of houses that could be bought for that starting value in South Africa, in beautiful, safe neighourhoods, with 1gb/s internet connections...

Re: Americans need to be richer than ever to buy their first home

#62

Post by BillyTheMage »

fleventynine wrote: post #14
tayo42 wrote: post #10

This is something I hope the government can step in and help with. Maybe really low/no interest loans for first time home buyers so they can at least get into the market. Maybe that exists? Income limits need to account for up to date salaries. I'm not rich or wealthy just because I had a couple years of making 250k. I still have loans and im still burning up cash on renting. Taxes take away a ton of that income. Som…

If we don't expand the housing supply dramatically, additional subsidies to home buyers will lead to even more inflated housing prices, and transferring even more money from the working class (who pay taxes and want to buy houses) to old rich people (who own most of the desirable property). If we were to expand the housing supply by 20% over the next 5 years I would expect to see house prices and rent crash to a more…

There are far more empty houses in the US than there are homeless people. We do not need more houses, we need to stop allowing parasites to hold houses hostage for personal profit.

Re: Americans need to be richer than ever to buy their first home

#63

Post by loeg »

ReptileMan wrote: post #23
blue039 wrote: post #2

[flagged]

Isn't the real problem that there are too few desirable places for people to be - state capitals and mega cities urban cores - everybody tries to cram there. So you actually have to fix the demand problem. The phrase "flyover states" is an early precursor of the current problem. I don't know how - all of the solutions I can think about are bad, but you actually have to convince people that there are other places wort…

We could also just add a lot more supply in these desirable places. There's no reason we can't.

Re: Americans need to be richer than ever to buy their first home

#64

Post by ReptileMan »

loeg wrote: post #63
ReptileMan wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the real problem that there are too few desirable places for people to be - state capitals and mega cities urban cores - everybody tries to cram there. So you actually have to fix the demand problem. The phrase "flyover states" is an early precursor of the current problem. I don't know how - all of the solutions I can think about are bad, but you actually have to convince people that there are other places wort…

We could also just add a lot more supply in these desirable places. There's no reason we can't.

And yet you couldn't cram 300000000 people in manhattan. You can't solve infinite demand with supply.

Re: Americans need to be richer than ever to buy their first home

#65

Post by loeg »

ReptileMan wrote: post #64
loeg wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could also just add a lot more supply in these desirable places. There's no reason we can't.

And yet you couldn't cram 300000000 people in manhattan. You can't solve infinite demand with supply.

Demand, like supply, is not infinite. While demand is not (and likely can not be) constrained by local law, supply often is. This imbalance results in high prices.

Re: Americans need to be richer than ever to buy their first home

#66

Post by fleventynine »

BillyTheMage wrote: post #62
fleventynine wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we don't expand the housing supply dramatically, additional subsidies to home buyers will lead to even more inflated housing prices, and transferring even more money from the working class (who pay taxes and want to buy houses) to old rich people (who own most of the desirable property). If we were to expand the housing supply by 20% over the next 5 years I would expect to see house prices and rent crash to a more…

There are far more empty houses in the US than there are homeless people. We do not need more houses, we need to stop allowing parasites to hold houses hostage for personal profit.

There are almost no empty homes anywhere near good jobs. Demand far outstrips supply, and putting all the greedy landlords in prison won't fix the imbalance.

Re: Americans need to be richer than ever to buy their first home

#67

Post by BillyTheMage »

fleventynine wrote: post #66
BillyTheMage wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are far more empty houses in the US than there are homeless people. We do not need more houses, we need to stop allowing parasites to hold houses hostage for personal profit.

There are almost no empty homes anywhere near good jobs. Demand far outstrips supply, and putting all the greedy landlords in prison won't fix the imbalance.

I never said we should put them in prison

Re: Americans need to be richer than ever to buy their first home

#68

Post by dang »

blue039 wrote: post #48
legitster wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a common misconception that Blackrock has a webpage on their website dedicated to clearing it up: https://www.blackrock.com/corporate/newsroom/setting-the-rec...

[flagged]

We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines and ignoring our request to stop. That's not allowed here, regardless of how right you are or feel you are.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

For all I know you're completely right about Blackrock but even if that's true, you still can't abuse other people like this on HN. Moreover, it's not in your interest to, because it discredits the view you're arguing for. See https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... for lots of past explanations about that, if you (or anyone) care.

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