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New US homeownership measure puts people first

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Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#101

Post by threetonesun »

applfanboysbgon wrote: post #45
GodelNumbering wrote: post #33

There was a youtube video sometime ago that argued about how life has vastly improved in every single aspect (with numbers about how 'stuff' has gotten universally more affordable), only housing has gotten more expensive relative to income and how that proves we have a better quality of life because of that. It got me thinking that maybe the home ownership, or having a place you can call yours, disproportionately aff…

Singapore is surveyed as either the happiest or second-happiest country in Asia (IIRC), with at one point a >95% homeownership rate due to government policy (although I believe that's now closer to 90%, in part due to foreign immigration?). It seems self-evident that having a home is somewhere on the order of 1000000x more important than being able to buy lots of cheap junk that barely matters.

Also if you buy lots of cheap junk for your apartment and then have to move, you will not be happy.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#102

Post by [deleted] »

ch4s3 wrote: post #75
applfanboysbgon wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Singapore is surveyed as either the happiest or second-happiest country in Asia (IIRC), with at one point a >95% homeownership rate due to government policy (although I believe that's now closer to 90%, in part due to foreign immigration?). It seems self-evident that having a home is somewhere on the order of 1000000x more important than being able to buy lots of cheap junk that barely matters.

Finland is consistently ranked as the happiest country in the world and has a home ownership rate comparable to the US. Denmark ranks 3rd and has a slightly lower home ownership rate than the US. Oh, and Singapore ranks 36th[1], while the US is 23rd[2]. So you're probably wrong on all points here. [1] https://data.worldhappiness.report/country/SGP [2] https://data.worldhappiness.report/country/USA I'm curious what pe…

[deleted]

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#103

Post by CPLX »

rayiner wrote: post #64
smallmancontrov wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Health care, housing, and education are the big three drivers of mandatory expenses in most peoples' lives. It's undeniably a little cool that luxuries got cheap, but it's severely un-cool that necessities got expensive. I'm glad to see a focus on pushing statistics to do a better job of reflecting that, but yeah, this is all downstream of structural incentives so fixes are only going to happen through legislative ch…

> Health care, housing, and education are the big three drivers of mandatory expenses in most peoples' lives. BLS says housing, transportation, and food are the top 3. Insurance/pensions is #4, but that also includes car and homeowners insurance and retirement contributions. Over the past 50 years, both transportation and food got cheaper. Moreover, clothing actually used to be one of the top categories, but that’s f…

The numbers are just bullshit. The current inflation numbers tell us the price of health insurance is falling for example.

When reality seems to be in conflict with logic, the next step is to question assumptions.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#104

Post by trimethylpurine »

ch4s3 wrote: post #66
twoodfin wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Owning a home creates a stable, personal nexus with a set of vital institutions: Family, community, local economy, government, … As a driver and measure of well-being, it’s probably at least 10,000 years old, since agriculture made migratory hunter-gatherer societies obsolete.

> 10,000 years old, since agriculture made migratory hunter-gatherer societies obsolete. This isn't really how the transition to agriculture worked. Historically agricultural elites captured lands with conscripted armies and forced people to farm. There are plenty of examples where central authority collapsed and the archeological evidence shows us that people largely stopped farming.

This seems reasonable without negating the previous comment.

With no army to protect the farm, there can be no farm. A return to hunting and gathering would occur as an effect of warfare, regardless of whether or not the farmers have any choice. But hunting and gathering is still obsolete, whereupon agriculture is possible.

Obsolescence does not by definition imply permanence.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#105

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

paxys wrote: post #76
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing to do with poisoning the non-AI parts of the economy to drive investment in AI? Its not like this bubble was gonna blow itself. It's clear that there's plenty of money to go around. It's just that none of it is being spent on things that improve people's lives, mostly due to corruption.

These problems have existed since well before AI.

Sure, it's only the most recent example of how lopsided economies like ours cyclically shoot themselves in the foot.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#106

Post by win311fwg »

inigyou wrote: post #90
jenniferhooley wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or we just wait for automation and robotics to make building housing much cheaper and the free market system to fix things - which 5 years ago I assumed was too far out, but with all the advances in the sector, seems like we might get significantly cheaper building costs within the next 10 years or so.

The cost of housing mostly isn't in the building. If it was, we'd just build smaller and have houses. But you can't because the land costs too much.

Why would you build a small new home when you can buy a large used home for the same price?

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#107

Post by busterarm »

rayiner wrote: post #39

This isn’t “putting people first,” it’s baking in the cultural assumption that adults live separately from kin. Consider the examples: > Housing unit 1. A couple owns their home. The woman’s parents live with them. > Housing unit 2. A couple owns their home. Their son, a recent college graduate, lives with them. > Housing unit 3. A man owns his home. A friend lives with him. > Housing unit 4. A couple owns their home…

Also the whole thing is just weird to me. The woman's parents, the kid just out of the college and the two young children aren't going to be paying the mortgage, upkeep and property taxes.

Once those stop getting paid, none of those people are housed. This is tracking things that don't matter.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#108

Post by [deleted] »

whack wrote: post #99

> the U.S. homeownership rate is 53 percent I hope this number drops below 50%. Well below 50%. Maybe then we can finally vote down the NIMBY regulations and NIMBY politicians. And start rapidly expanding our housing supply. Given our current political system, it seems high homeownership rates are the root cause of the housing affordability crisis

[deleted]

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#109

Post by bluGill »

ndriscoll wrote: post #55
bluGill wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More importantly, nobody cares about the people where renting is their ideal condition (at least for now - in different situations different ways of living are ideal). There should be nothing wrong with renting. Owning your own should be a worse choice if you will live there for less than 5-10 years. Owning a home should be only slightly better if you will live there for more than 10 years - not enough better to make…

I didn't vote when I rented in San Francisco for a few years because I had no intention to stay, and thought it immoral to disenfranchise the locals. Actually in my opinion you shouldn't be able to vote until you've lived somewhere for at least 5-10 years. Certainly even if you can, you shouldn't if you know you're only there temporarily. I don't see why you think owning should only be slightly better after 10 years;…

Risk is why owning needs 10 years. If the economy collapses you value goes down, by 10 years it will likely either have recovered, or at least not be done much. If the economy goes down and you lose your job in the process you have to sell to that down market and lose money.

Management companies have a terrible reputation. While you can use them, it is likely they will be much more costly than doing things yourself. Real estate investors tend to hire their own people for management even though this seems like the perfect thing for them to outsource because they have been burned so often. If they work for you great, but beware.

Even if you find a good management company, if the roof it 23 years old (expected lifespan 25 years) you should expect the big bill to replace the roof - over 10 years this works out since there will likely be one such big bill but not many. However if you live there less than 10 years these big bills will hit you.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#110

Post by forgotaccount3 »

GodelNumbering wrote: post #85
smallmancontrov wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Health care, housing, and education are the big three drivers of mandatory expenses in most peoples' lives. It's undeniably a little cool that luxuries got cheap, but it's severely un-cool that necessities got expensive. I'm glad to see a focus on pushing statistics to do a better job of reflecting that, but yeah, this is all downstream of structural incentives so fixes are only going to happen through legislative ch…

> undeniably a little cool that luxuries got cheap, but it's severely un-cool that necessities got expensive Well said. Being told that 'you should be happy without owning' to a party that can't afford to own by another party who is actively scooping up the same resource can feel extremely invalidating. My personal take is that a lot of support for contemporary political extremism in many countries comes from the fac…

> Being told that 'you should be happy without owning' to a party that can't afford to own by another party who is actively scooping up the same resource can feel extremely invalidating.

It's not really coming from those though? At the same time that housing costs have ballooned, we've also had a significant migration back to cities. When a larger % of the population are living in high density locations you are going to naturally have a larger % not owning homes. Owning your own home does not align with the density required for a city to function.

At the least, narrowing down the topic to 'Why do people rent instead of own a condo?' is a much more meaningful topic over 'Why do people rent instead of own a SFH?' since a condo is a more viable option in locations where most of the renters are.

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