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U.S. home prices are the most unaffordable they've been in nearly 100 years

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Re: U.S. home prices are the most unaffordable they've been in nearly 100 years

#21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ENTIRE vinyl villages of McMansions will be unlivable. They aren't even built to last the standard 30y mortgage because the builders know the initial buyers will sell and move on. Cheapest possible 2x4's with worst insulation ever known, all covered up in plastic siding. But hey, it's 10k sq ft right?

> with worst insulation ever known, What are you talking about?

[deleted]

Re: U.S. home prices are the most unaffordable they've been in nearly 100 years

#23
post #18

This is to be expected. Sellers are always reluctant to be reasonable when they are on the wrong side of a peak. The raising of interest rates means prices have to adjust. But after so many years of increasing prices sellers are not yet rational. And yes, some more inventory would help. That said, as the population ages, who is going to buy all the McMansions? Price not only need to adjust to interest rate but demogr…

Prices actually have adjusted and have fallen somewhat. What life event would cause someone who currently owns a home at a It’s a once in a generation type of rate. You’d have to be a complete fool or have some kind of crazy life circumstance to sell. Over 30% of employers in the US exclusively hire remote employees. Post-pandemic it’s hard for me to imagine someone in the home ownership socioeconomic class giving up…

There are lots of reasons people move besides jobs.

Re: U.S. home prices are the most unaffordable they've been in nearly 100 years

#24
post #18

This is to be expected. Sellers are always reluctant to be reasonable when they are on the wrong side of a peak. The raising of interest rates means prices have to adjust. But after so many years of increasing prices sellers are not yet rational. And yes, some more inventory would help. That said, as the population ages, who is going to buy all the McMansions? Price not only need to adjust to interest rate but demogr…

Prices actually have adjusted and have fallen somewhat. What life event would cause someone who currently owns a home at a It’s a once in a generation type of rate. You’d have to be a complete fool or have some kind of crazy life circumstance to sell. Over 30% of employers in the US exclusively hire remote employees. Post-pandemic it’s hard for me to imagine someone in the home ownership socioeconomic class giving up…

[deleted]

Re: U.S. home prices are the most unaffordable they've been in nearly 100 years

#25
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ChatGPT numbers? That would be 1.45 billion homes from 1950-2008.

*edit*: I see what I did, the plot I give numbers from is houses per decade. Not per year. Sorry about that. You can confirm the values are still real by comparing the simple plot (via: statista.com, http://a.superkuh.com/USA-number-of-homes-built-between-1900... ) to the https://www.census.gov/construction/nrc/historical_data/inde... numbers. Thanks for pointing out what should have been an obvious error. Yikes.

[deleted]

Re: U.S. home prices are the most unaffordable they've been in nearly 100 years

#26
post #18

This is to be expected. Sellers are always reluctant to be reasonable when they are on the wrong side of a peak. The raising of interest rates means prices have to adjust. But after so many years of increasing prices sellers are not yet rational. And yes, some more inventory would help. That said, as the population ages, who is going to buy all the McMansions? Price not only need to adjust to interest rate but demogr…

Prices actually have adjusted and have fallen somewhat. What life event would cause someone who currently owns a home at a It’s a once in a generation type of rate. You’d have to be a complete fool or have some kind of crazy life circumstance to sell. Over 30% of employers in the US exclusively hire remote employees. Post-pandemic it’s hard for me to imagine someone in the home ownership socioeconomic class giving up…

> Over 30% of employers in the US exclusively hire remote employees.

[X] Doubt

Re: U.S. home prices are the most unaffordable they've been in nearly 100 years

#27
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as the population ages, who is going to buy all the McMansions? The McMansions will be unlivable by that point. They weren't built to last.

This is a bit dramatic. All buildings are depreciating assets. This was true before the idea of the McMansion existed. It’s the land that is scarce and is the appreciating asset. The truth of the matter is that any house that is around long enough gets repaired over time.

>It’s the land that is scarce and is the appreciating asset

May be appreciating. Depends on where it is. A lot of land in metro Detroit hasn't appreciated in certain timeframes. Nor on some barrier islands.

Re: U.S. home prices are the most unaffordable they've been in nearly 100 years

#28

From 1950 to 2008 the USA built ~25 million homes per (edit, not year) decade. From 2008 to 2018 it was about 7 million. In recent years building rates have mostly recovered but there's still that gap in production combined with everything else the last handful of years. This isn't to discount the shift of ownership from human persons to corporate persons, that's a factor too. But just numbers of available houses ver…

This is important and few seem to look at the simple supply/demand. It explains the housing crises in 06/07/08 and the subsequent situation too.

Re: U.S. home prices are the most unaffordable they've been in nearly 100 years

#29
post #18

This is to be expected. Sellers are always reluctant to be reasonable when they are on the wrong side of a peak. The raising of interest rates means prices have to adjust. But after so many years of increasing prices sellers are not yet rational. And yes, some more inventory would help. That said, as the population ages, who is going to buy all the McMansions? Price not only need to adjust to interest rate but demogr…

Prices actually have adjusted and have fallen somewhat. What life event would cause someone who currently owns a home at a It’s a once in a generation type of rate. You’d have to be a complete fool or have some kind of crazy life circumstance to sell. Over 30% of employers in the US exclusively hire remote employees. Post-pandemic it’s hard for me to imagine someone in the home ownership socioeconomic class giving up…

Unemployment is going to go up somewhat, foreclosures are a thing.

Re: U.S. home prices are the most unaffordable they've been in nearly 100 years

#30
This article is missing perhaps the most important graph, which is median income to some common monthly payment metric (e.g. average monthly payment for a 30 year mortgage with 20% down).

Reason being that the article mentions interest rates, but then just shows graphs comparing to sales price. Ironically, showing a metric that took interest rates into consideration would probably highlight why the current situation is even worse, because rates have skyrocketed but prices have only come down a little bit. Of course, as others have mentioned, that is because overall sales numbers have collapsed. Owners won't sell at a loss if they don't have to, and overall employment numbers are still high. But over time people are forced to sell for various reasons, so in 5 years prices will either go way down or stay flat as wage inflation catches up.

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