New US homeownership measure puts people first • Hacker News Board

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#211

Post by ch4s3 » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 2:56 PM UTC

jltsiren wrote: post #156

ch4s3 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When archaeological evidence shows that people largely stopped farming, it usually means that those people largely stopped existing No, there are signs of habitation. If you look at the evidence from the alluvial plain around ancient Babylon and similar cities from the early history of cities in the region you see people returning to fishing, hunting, and sort of opportunistic planting on river banks. These cities…

That's what I meant by "largely stopped existing". With the decline of agriculture, there was a major decline in food production and therefore a major decline in population.

Again, you don't see a major decline in population in many cases based on the archeology. Insofar as we can tell people would spread out a bit away from the cities. In the fertile crescent early city states attempted to corral people in to controlled zones of production. Absent coercion, people didn't die they just moved.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#212

Post by CalRobert » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 2:57 PM UTC

kakacik wrote: post #147

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 In Europe its only housing, and still proportionally cheaper than what US has, often in higher quality for older homes (bricks / concrete vs cheap creaky wooden houses). The idea of saving massive amounts for my kids potential university studies is ridiculous to me. Same for any health issue. I mean any health issue as long as I can work, and then social state takes over (that is…

Concrete houses suck and Europeans need to get off their high house about them. I own a concrete brick house in Europe and I’d strongly prefer a wooden American one. It’s hard to insulate, hard to alter, uglier, has a terrible embodied carbon footprint, has too much thermal mass, and alterations that would make it more livable (like having eaves) are illegal.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#213

Post by 100percentjake » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 2:57 PM UTC

eulers_secret wrote: post #160

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.

You can have these things without owning a house. Community is IMO easier in apartments, the higher density means there’s a bigger pool of folks you might click with. Community gathering spots are more prevalent as well: pools, playgrounds, green spaces, etc are common amenities. Especially if you get a dog, you will meet lots of people. Of course it depends on which complex you live in. If I move I will miss my apar…

And then after 3 years in the apartment the landlord (or a new owner, if the place you call "home" is merely a line on some out-of-state investment leech's spreadsheets) decides to "adjust" the rent and price you out and you are, with little to no warning, forced to move and very likely abandon many of those connections.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#214

Post by pixelatedindex » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 2:58 PM UTC

JKCalhoun wrote: post #145

xnx wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly referencing the "Chart of the Century": https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/chart-of-the-day-or-century-8...

Oh, thank god, TVs are less expensive. ;-)

Can’t really spy / collect data if they’re expensive

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#215

Post by vablings » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 2:58 PM UTC

alexjplant wrote: post #190

dktp wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was an interesting video by Ben Felix that makes a case that home ownership doesn't significantly (or at all) increase happiness - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0G_OSohLC_A That being said housing has gotten worse for both buying as well as renting. I think there is a case to be made that having a place you feel comfortable/home in (whether rented or owned) affects people's wellbeing disproportionately.

> home ownership doesn't significantly (or at all) increase happiness N=1 but for me it didn't. I'm probably repeating myself on this site but 70 years ago a home was a box that kept you out of the weather. Now it's an investment that you have to treat as a going concern. Many industries - contractors, window salesman, landscapers, HGTV, realtors, mortgage brokers, driveway pavers, deck builders, HOAs, etc. - have su…

One issue is that if you plan to have an expanding family your home needs to retain its resale value to allow you to sell it and move into a larger home to suit your family needs.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#216

Post by CalRobert » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 2:58 PM UTC

jenniferhooley wrote: post #111

inigyou wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Huh? I have a 650sqft house, it costs 430K in a small town. I looked at building a new place, it would cost roughly the same to hire a building team to make it - not to mention years of waiting on development. The land is fairly affordable if I buy a little bit out of town. It's the cost of building that is stopping me.

I had a 1200 sqft house built for about €180,000 in Ireland.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#217

Post by BeetleB » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 2:58 PM UTC

Looking at this, seeing that 50% are homeowners is actually astoundingly good. In a lot of countries 50% cannot afford to be homeowners.

This is an international community here on HN, would love to hear takes from other countries.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#218

Post by ch4s3 » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 2:58 PM UTC

Nicholas_C wrote: post #189

ch4s3 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I see you have read James C Scott as well.

His book, and Graeber and Wengrow's The Dawn of Everything as well as some miscellaneous books on Mesopotamia. The Dawn of Everything does a great job challenging some popular ideas around state formation as well.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#219

Post by saghm » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 2:59 PM UTC

jvanderbot wrote: post #46

saghm wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A key difference is illustrated in TFA. To maximize fraction of people owning a home, you dislike people renting or living with a homeowner. A spouse that marries a homeowner, for example. It would be "better" if they broke up and owned their own separate homes. Or perhaps they could buy two homes, one for each. Or they could by two homes and rent a third to actually live in - same metric value. Or they could... bo…

Yes, we're not talking about reality, we're talking about the measures of it. A metric would fall down on corner cases, so identifying the corner cases is how you determine if a metric is a good one. "% people owning homes" is maximized by joint ownership, as well, but the corner cases are interesting: It is lower with big families living together or when anyone rents. On the other hand, the "% homes lived in by owne…

I feel like this could just as easily be accounted for as "are you paying rent to the person who owns it or not?", which rules out family members.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#220

Post by cpburns2009 » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 2:59 PM UTC

testing22321 wrote: post #188

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 In every developed country two of those are basic human rights, and you get them free even if you’ve never worked simply because you don’t want to. Every developed country except one, that is.

All of those are free to the poor in the US with our very generous welfare to the bottom and top percentiles.