201–210 of 298 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If DINKs can't afford it, what does that tell you about the direction housing prices will go? The ones with capital will buy them, and you will be renting.
Seems like a pretty risky investment. Especially as fewer and fewer people will have anything to gain from the NIMBY policies artificially increasing prices.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's Trump's interest rate policies, not his immigration policies. (Biden is continuing both of them by keeping JPowell on the job.) Immigrants are good for the economy and good for workers. They are your customers! Don't be a Malthusian.
No, because we had low interest rates before Trump and didn’t have the same low end job growth. “Good for the economy” isn’t the relevant concept. Immigration can grow the economy overall, while putting lower end workers in a relatively worse position.
> Immigration can grow the economy overall, while putting lower end workers in a relatively worse position.
They don't really do that either! Immigrants mainly compete with each other.
We have gone from a zero interest rate economy to a high interest one within months. Whoever claims to accurately predict what's going to happen in the next few years is talking out of their ass. We know inflation should start decreasing within a year or so, but you cannot predict how millions of people will react to suddenly not being able to afford stuff.
(Energy prices were much less affected in the US, but the economies are linked by trade)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is the norm really that home loans are unaffordable even to first-time-buyer DINKs with good-to-decent six figure jobs who just want a place to live? (not an investment property) Currently the mortgage rates are the highest ever since 1989. Have you personally already purchased your first home? Without family assistance, it would be absolutely brutal and untenable for my children to enter into in this domain at prese…
> Is the norm really that home loans are unaffordable even to first-time-buyer DINKs with good-to-decent six figure jobs who just want a place to live? The home loans are unaffordable because the house prices are too high. The median house price in 1989 was around $95K ($230K adjusted for inflation). Today it's about $400K.
As a global citizen, I'm worse off using the dolar. Sooner it's gone the better.
Isn't this the long arc of the sub replacement birthrates?
Turns out there is a factor of production in short supply that's even more vital than microchips: human labor.
We have gone from a zero interest rate economy to a high interest one within months. Whoever claims to accurately predict what's going to happen in the next few years is talking out of their ass. We know inflation should start decreasing within a year or so, but you cannot predict how millions of people will react to suddenly not being able to afford stuff.
That is assuming the Russians eventually pull out of Ukraine, are completely beaten militarily and their assets will be used to fund Ukrainian reconstruction, and it assumes that China does not increase tensions with Taiwan or, heaven forbid, actually invade.
Should the war drag on, the situation will grow completely unpredictable - eventually, governments (no matter their political orientation or prior campaign promises) will have to raise taxes to pay for Ukraine aid and especially new arms projects, which means price hikes for the masses as companies will just pass through tax increases instead of accepting lower dividends for the capitalist owner class.
> but you cannot predict how millions of people will react to suddenly not being able to afford stuff.
IMO: Riots are inevitable IMO unless politicians invest money into at least filling the gaps for the lowest rungs of the societal ladder, the French are blazing the trail here - and it's only a matter of time until at least the UK population has enough of empty supermarket shelves. In the US, it depends if Biden will be able to secure a second term.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not only it's not high compared to historical rates but worse I think is that Fed's real interest rate is still in the negative territory: January CPI report headline came at 6.3% YoY and core at 5.3% YoY (it's negative with current rates even if you use the PCE index as a baseline, which is the Fed's favorite index to measure inflation).
How does one determine the 'real' interest rate?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe a hot take but I feel like high(er) interest rates for homes should be the standard. This allows for demand to be modulated, and puts up a barrier to rent seekers from flooding the market. The problem is that over the past 5-10 years a lot of property has already been snapped up by investors at minimal interest rates, so as long as rents stay somewhat stable, they investors will be raking in the returns. I gues…
How does it put up a barrier to rent seekers, it makes homes less affordable, which impacts the poorer people more. The rich can but the homes. The poor still need somewhere to live and so tent the homes, they're paying more just they're helping wealth move to the bankers more as well as the property owners. Allowing ownership of houses as an investment is just wrong. (The usual response to this is that you need inve…
(And it’s of note that dealing with renting a SFH is possibly a worse experience than renting from a complex. Large enough complexes have maintenance staff and professional management. Someone renting a SFH might well have just that unit to rent - amateur hour. Or they could be a corporation but because you’re just one unit in probably a more spread out population of properties the renter might well experience lowered services from the property management.)
I do agree the investment activity we’ve seen in simply hoarding up SFH properties for investment is deeply problematic. There are all sorts of ways to push the market back towards owner occupiers.
It’d also be nice if it was a standard thing for working people to be able to make it to public local government meetings. Those tend to be timed when working people are at work. That could help something’s, but there’s probably still be a lot of NIMBYism…
I thought this was a bizarre (OK, I'll be honest, shitty) article. The beginning starts out by seemingly making the point that Japan has low unemployment because it has a lot of inefficient, "make-work" jobs, e.g. "smartly dressed women help you use the lifts" (subtext being who needs help using an elevator) and "a team of four people was involved in the preparation of your correspondent’s gin martini". OK, fair enou…
I agree with most of this, but birth rates are not relevant. Note that Japan has had a very low fertility rate for years but still has folks for all those make-work jobs. In the U.S. what changed over the past 5 years is legal immigration: it was drastically cut and has not been restored. So as citizens and existing long-term residents pursue better jobs or time at home, there are far fewer new residents eager for lo…