111–120 of 127 posts
That increase in people around 65 buying retirement houses could pull up the average homebuyer age.
I do financial coaching as a side business and I can tell you the main two reason why most people in their 30s can't afford a home is because they have no idea how to budget and they carry too much debt spent on things they don't need. On average people spend about 30% of their income paying off non mortgage debts like credit cards, car loans, and student loans. I teach my clients how to budget, cut back on unnecessa…
You don’t have clients who are barristers/teachers/cooks etc in SF or NY. It is literally impossible to own even if you save 200% of your income.
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A lot of never-purchased-home-before people have money but still don't buy a home. Why? What happens that causes people who have money and can pay to finally buy a home?
A lot of reasons! Some I have heard: - Homeownership comes with responsibilities that people may not want - They prefer to invest the money elsewhere - They expect to relocate on timeframes shorter than those that make homeownership a good investment
For upper middle class people the answer is probably having a baby, so you can see why if people are having babies later in life when their incomes are higher, prices rise.
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Exactly: the billionaires aren't the problem here, it's the middle-class NIMBY homeowners who refuse to allow any new construction near them.
Middle-class NIMBY homeowners have literally zero meaningful input into zoning and permitting processes. At the absolute peak of their power they can show up to public hearings and whinge into a microphone for 3 minutes, an activity that planning boards and city councils around the country are perfectly happy to ignore.
Well that’s what happens when you frame housing as an investment. If it didn’t outpace the market and the consumer inflation rate, it wouldn’t be a good investment. So by definition it must become unaffordable for the masses. No great way out of this mess.
Something like 2/3 of people in the US are homeowners, your idea of the masses are may not be entirely accurate.
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Exactly: the billionaires aren't the problem here, it's the middle-class NIMBY homeowners who refuse to allow any new construction near them.
At what point do you just call that illegal cartel behavior?
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Are you aware of the vast disparity of wealth among American families? On the order of 100k for white families, 10k for black families. Wealth being passed down family trees ensures immigrants and people who are worse off now will remain priced out. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/black-wealth-is-increasin...
Inheritance rarely survives past the third generation, it's not really part of the problem.
I thought I would have a house in my 20s. Then I thought maybe by the time I was in my 30s. Now I’m in my 30s and I have no idea when I’ll buy a house, if ever.
Have you considered getting married? I may very well have been able to afford a house before I got married but the timing and the compromises that would have entailed always seemed to hold me back. Once I got married though there was both more money and a realization that some possibilities (you know I might just pick up sticks and move across the country) were less likely. Plus expanding our family was very possible…
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Depends on how hard you want it. I spent more than a decade between the start of the search for proper property and buy decision. I even managed to sign my mortgage agreement in last weeks of cheap money in eurozone. It’s a long game unless you have a case full of cash.
To a degree. But plenty of people want it real bad and there aren't enough days of avocado toast in a month that add up to a mortgage.
One of the unintuitive consequences of low interest rates/ZIRP is that the savings rate is abysmal. When I was a kid I remember my first savings account earned maybe 2 or 3% interest annually. Now you’re lucky to get half a percent. People are disincentivized from saving money and instead end up putting savings into investments, which are inherently risky.
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Middle-class NIMBY homeowners have literally zero meaningful input into zoning and permitting processes. At the absolute peak of their power they can show up to public hearings and whinge into a microphone for 3 minutes, an activity that planning boards and city councils around the country are perfectly happy to ignore.
If city councils and planning boards ignore them, they promptly get voted out of office. The NIMBYs are more reliable voters than anyone else.