Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

longtermtrends.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 246 posts

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

#101

Post by justrealist »

blurbleblurble wrote: post #93
superkuh wrote: post #10

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…

There are ~30 vacant homes per homeless person in the US. Tell me how that makes any sense.

Taking a mentally ill fentanyl addict from San Francisco and dropping them in a condemned house in Scranton PA is not actually going to solve the problems you think it will.

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

#102

Post by helianer »

Auracle wrote: post #60
jahewson wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Less than 10% of mortgages are variable rate. And why would anybody sell their house with a 2% mortgage? They’d need to be paid a significant premium to justify this.

Well, in my instance we’re hoping to have another child and we only have two usable bedrooms. We could get by if need be, but it’s not like many people get a new house for the hell of it. Usually it’s because of new life circumstances.

Anyone who is capable of getting a second mortgage will consider holding it and renting it out if they can. The yield is very likely to be higher than the payments these days.

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

#103

Post by medion »

superkuh wrote: post #10

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…

Would be interesting to see how different the costs and difficulties compare to the prior building boom. The red tape involved in building today is off the charts - prior generations had a much easier time building houses.

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

#104

Post by ActorNightly »

crooked-v wrote: post #91
ActorNightly wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't fall for the socialism anti-landlord brainrot. People have plenty of places to live. This is more about the fact that people want to have the same financial opportunity to own a house. It sucks that the older generation had an opportunity to buy a house that has risen in value, with an area that got gentrified with more stuff around them, and were able to refinance during Covid at like 2-3%, while the younger g…

> People have plenty of places to live. Actually, there is a 6.5 million home shortage in the places that people actually live ( https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/08/homes/housing-shortage/index.... ). That shortage has nothing to do with landlords, though, and everything to do with shitty zoning and with constructing new homes being incredibly slow and burdensome in most big US cities.

Oh right my bad. People MUST live in a house, I completely forgot thats a law in US.

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

#105

Post by lamontcg »

hayst4ck wrote: post #81
superkuh wrote: post #10

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…

If home prices are going up, that means that demand exceeds supply. If home prices are going up everywhere that means demand is exceeding supply everywhere. If homes are a good monetary investment, that means home prices are going up, which means supply is not keeping pace with demand. If home prices are going up at a rate faster than wages, then they are becoming more expensive for our children. Not in a round-a-bou…

> If home prices are going up, that means that demand exceeds supply. If home prices are going up everywhere that means demand is exceeding supply everywhere.

Misses the fact that homes are bought (most of the time) with borrowed money and leverage.

You can either look at that as increasing the supply of money or lowering the cost of money, and its reflection in housing prices.

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

#106

Post by pphysch »

There's a lot of noise about supply, demand, investment cycles, AirBnB, but the elephant in the room is that USA housing is a casino and the banks are the "house", which always wins.

The banks only care that housing prices remain astronomical--the mechanics are not important--so that mortgages must be taken out.

And, as recent history shows, the mortgage casino is "too big to fail" because of the globally-systemic role of mortgage-backed securities.

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

#107

Post by greesil »

rootusrootus wrote: post #31
meghan_rain wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by transactions? House sales?

Lots of people sitting on 2-3% fixed rate 30 year mortgages are suddenly deciding maybe staying in their current home isn't a bad idea after all. If you need a mortgage to buy a house, what you can afford just got a lot more modest. Sales will pick up a little; some people will need to move for reasons they cannot avoid. Some people who don't have fixed rate mortgages will have to sell because they can no longer affo…

When the bubble popped last time it took three years before the market hit bottom.

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

#108

Post by notch898a »

justrealist wrote: post #101
blurbleblurble wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are ~30 vacant homes per homeless person in the US. Tell me how that makes any sense.

Taking a mentally ill fentanyl addict from San Francisco and dropping them in a condemned house in Scranton PA is not actually going to solve the problems you think it will.

It would save a lot of money on demolition though. The plumbing, cabinets, appliances, doors, ducting, and everything not fixed to the frame would get removed for free and it would be very easy to bulldoze after the house catches fire from people trying to stay warm inside without paying a utility bill.

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

#109

Post by yawnr »

UberFly wrote: post #94

In my area, friend groups are organizing into LLPs and buying up houses for investments. Individual people home shopping have to deal with this kind of competition. Houses are bid out of their price range and become airbnbs.

Yep. Why live in a house when you can charge someone $1200/nt to stay there and a $600 cleaning fee? (Basically every house that can sleep more than 6 people in the northeast)

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

#110

Post by deadbolt »

shaburn wrote: post #6
_ea1k wrote: post #3

With high interest rates, payment to income would likely be even worse. I have a hard time seeing how this can be anything but a major problem in a few years, if not before.

Prices will reset to accommodate.

What makes you so sure?
Post reply on HN