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What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

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Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#321

Post by nmfisher »

drunkenmagician wrote: post #138
robocat wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We are already looking to move to other places Moving doesn’t necessarily help much. That is because usually house prices are directly driven by how much people can loan on a mortgage, which is directly driven by earnings. Cheaper housing often means lower earnings potential. Conversely, saving in a high earning country can mean you have a deposit for a house in a cheaper country. Edit: Counterintuitively, high int…

Wow… Singapore is not even on the list. As a Kiwi expat I can tell you Singapore is at Hong Kong levels of unaffordableness for non locals. The Singapore government housing scheme skews theses statistics significantly. If you are a local here, great. Everyone else is paying top dollar (2 bedroom condo units renting for 50% of the median household monthly salary)

That list was from 2021 when rents were high, but not ridiculous. Back then, the slightly higher rents were offset by the lower income tax rate.

In the last 12 months, though, it's become obscene. It would definitely top the list.

Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#322

Post by LegitShady »

xist wrote: post #275
LegitShady wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some TFWs and international students some come from wealthy families in their home country and use whatever program they can to get into canada to get a foot in the door, and be allowed to buy a house here. I live in an east indian heavy neighborhood and I know a dozen people who were extremely rich before every coming to canada, far far more than the average canadian.

Make sense, rich people would have an easier time to immigrate. But how many of this dozen are here on TFW like you're suggesting? I'm doubtful that it's TFW that are buying the properties you're concerned with, especially since they're still at the mercy of PR/work authorization laws that could make them leave the country at any time. It _could_ happen, but that would be pretty exceptional. You want to complain abou…

TFW are used to drive down wages.

international students do purchase houses for their families out of country - it happens more in some areas than others.

And if someone couldn't get in as a student, they might try to get in as a TFW and spend their family money on a home - I don't know how often it happens but its allowed because TFWs DO buy houses.

Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#323

Post by LegitShady »

satvikpendem wrote: post #284
LegitShady wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That basically meant my options are Liberal or NDP. NDP policies seem to think if I make more than 200K, I am a rich fat cat If you make $200k a year, you've got almost 3x the average household income in canada ($75k). You're way up there in terms of wealth, and don't need any help from the NDP or anyone else.

I like that you entirely ignored their parenthesized statement immediately following what you just quoted. If you're going to respond to a point, at least respond to the entire point the other person makes.

It's not really relevant - he can save for downpayment on a house in most places in the country in a single year while also paying down his loans for a phd. He's so far out of the norm at his income that houses that are unattainable to most people are within reach. Sorry he chose to take out loans to get a phd and has to pay it back - I didn't make that decision. But he can definitely afford a home.

Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#324

Post by r00fus »

dehrmann wrote: post #309
r00fus wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

REITs buy up housing everywhere. That’s your answer - the wealthy elite need ways to keep making money.

REITs aren't the problem; it's a lack of construction.

You can build all you want the corporate and foreign wealth will still buy it before people can.

Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#325

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

tpmx wrote: post #99
tannhaeuser wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> all these people want to have a cheap apartment in the same 10 km^2 that's designated as the cool place. Which, incidentally, is cool because not everyone's living there ;) Don't know about Stockholm, but I guess those places are the same 19th/early 20th century quarters like in every other European city build for renting out to an upward moving middle class and popular exactly because they're meeting the represent…

There's nothing special about the buildings - the same kind exist all over the country in large numbers.

It's not about the buildings themselves, it's about the neighborhood. As always in real estate it's location, location, location.

Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#326

Post by brankoB »

satvikpendem wrote: post #113
amelius wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it could be simple, but the most important reason that it is not simple is because the rich control the system.

It really isn't that simple, because again, no one really can say how it is so simple, merely that it is, somehow. Economists also talk about this point often, and they also can't agree, generally speaking, on how to, or even if to, reduce the inequality gap. The best solutions I've seen are land value taxes, inheritance and estate taxes, and taxes on loans backed by stock; and among the worst are unrealized capital…

The best solution is communism. But you won't hear an economist say so ;)

Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#327

Post by whitemary »

erur wrote: post #263
watrami wrote: post #103

It seems like it's the same story everywhere I look. Housing is the main driver of inequality and there is little change happening. We have the same problem here in Germany. I am currently living in Munich to finish my CS Master's at TUM and build a startup, and it is absolutely impossible to find anything remotely affordable. I am supported by two startup scholarships and make enough to get by, but no landlord even…

It's definitely not every city in Germany that has this problem. You're trying to live in one of the objectively best parts of Germany by a lot of stats and thus you're competing with a lot of folks. I'm honestly sick of this whining about rent in top-tier areas. Living there is a luxury, given the major move to cities and scarcity, driven by insane regulations and basic logic. There are plenty of cities in Germany w…

People need jobs. Most people realize that. How old are you?

Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#328

Post by pivic »

Sweden differs a lot in terms of both the cost of living arrangements and wealth compared with the rest of Europe. I've written about this:

* https://pivic.blog/blog/the-swedish-cost-of-living-arrangeme... * https://pivic.blog/blog/swedish-greed-seen-through-andreas-c...

Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#329

Post by Roritharr »

rickydroll wrote: post #273
baseline-shift wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, insane zoning limits in cities in the US since the 60s have indeed made it impossible to build near jobs. But there's abandoned medieval villages (no plumbing or electricity so far...) in hilly rural Italy.

zoning would not matter to my commute length unless I moved every time I changed jobs and had no dogs or human partners. I have made 30 years of compromises because of partners and pets. I've stayed at shitty jobs because good ones were too far away and I could not move. building near jobs is either building company towns or embedding classism and environmental injustice into property. would you live next door to a s…

I live next to a coal power plant. It's a tradeoff between my ability to pay the rent for a single family home with a garden and living close to a large city in Germany that gives our family the chance of job and education variety.

Is it a good deal? Ask me in twenty years.

Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#330

Post by f6v »

watrami wrote: post #103

It seems like it's the same story everywhere I look. Housing is the main driver of inequality and there is little change happening. We have the same problem here in Germany. I am currently living in Munich to finish my CS Master's at TUM and build a startup, and it is absolutely impossible to find anything remotely affordable. I am supported by two startup scholarships and make enough to get by, but no landlord even…

> Germany paid a lot for our education but offers us little reason to stay.

Yet many-many people come to Germany every year to join tech companies.

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