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New US homeownership measure puts people first

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Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#221

Post by vablings »

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…

I might also point out that Finland has very good social programs, probably some of the best in Europe

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#222

Post by jgeada »

mchusma wrote: post #201
ecshafer wrote: post #192

Housing can not be a viable asset class, or it will continue to rise in prices. Step 1 is Land Value Taxes. Step 2 is remove/greatly reduce zoning, allow construction and streamline the process. If you allow density, building up, and incentivize it, then it will be built. Developers spend tens of thousands of dollars in permits and interest payments before they can put a shovel in the ground. Being a landlord isn't r…

The issue is not investment at all, we want more investment into housing. But you are absolutely correct you cannot both want housing to be a good investment (increase in value faster than inflation) and an affordable (drop in price lower than inflation). Don’t subsidize demand. Allow more supply. Private homeowners, big developers, all of the above. Build.

And stop allowing people who view their house(s) as an investment from being able to veto any and all building. While that incentive is present, there will be massive hurdles to being able to build the amount of housing that is necessary.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#223

Post by footy »

an0malous wrote: post #30
bluGill wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both also make the assumption that owning a house is good. Renting should be just as good.

Why? It’s a position of less security and stability

Personally, I like the asset diversification that investing 40% of my income allows. Buying a house at this point in my life would mean a very significant portion of my net worth would be concentrated in one asset, and I'd have less cash flow every month to boot.

I don't feel my rental situation in either insecure or unstable. I recently moved (my choice) but previously I lived in the same rental complex for almost a decade. I took advantage of COVID to move to a larger apartment there for cheaper rent, which was a massive advantage I had over friends who owned homes at the time.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#224

Post by matwood »

scottious wrote: post #116
AbsurdCensor wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Renting isn't 'good' though in many metrics. Ownership is, and that's what the push should be for, rather than promoting basically a monthly subscription to have a roof over your head.

It's not that simple. Owning a home is not just a better version of renting. It's a whole different thing with pros and cons. Your mortgage is the lowest amount you'll pay. On top of that you have to manage the upkeep of the house, which costs both time and money. Lots of people go through phases in their lives where they move around and owning just doesn't make sense for a few 1 to 2 year stretches. On the other han…

> Your mortgage is the lowest amount you'll pay. > rent is the highest amount you'll pay.

I don't like these 2 statements because they are only true at a starting point. If someone gets a mortgage today for $2k/month, 10 years from now it'll still be $2k/month, or even less if rates drop and they refinance. Rents OTOH will continue to rise with inflation. I had a $2k/month mortgage at my last house and the house next door rented for $4500/month.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#225

Post by cfbradford »

randusername wrote: post #84

I find it hard to trust economic narratives when so many metrics cited upon further inspection do not really measure what they are implied to measure. Or maybe we measure what is easiest to measure, not what is best. I see this everywhere, though. Jobs data is really job openings not actual hires. Unemployment data is really paperwork filing not people out of work or retiring early. And now home ownership is really "…

> "count everyone in the home if the owner resides there"

It’s even worse than that, it’s not counting people at all. It’s number of houses with at least one owner living there divided by total number of houses.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#226

Post by jandrewrogers »

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…

In the US, bricks and concrete are unsafe, not "higher quality". Much of the US has severe earthquakes which collapsed the European-style masonry buildings they used to build. There are many old photos of what happened to cities that were built with brick/concrete after major earthquakes. The main alternatives are steel and wood, same as in Japan.

My home is rated to survive earthquakes stronger than any in recorded European history without structural damage.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#227

Post by 100percentjake »

nxm wrote: post #148
mlinhares wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life is much harder when you don't have a roof over your head or when that roof can be taken away from your or take more from your salary than you were anticipating. I don't think people understand the psychological safety of knowing you will not pay a single dime more on a loan for your home for 30 years. It completely erases that worry from your head.

Then come the property taxes

This seems like FUD. Anecdotally, even with property taxes, insurance, and all the rest of it, my 1,000 sq-ft 40s constructed house is 60% the cost of what my girlfriend was previously paying to rent a 1bd apartment on the outskirts of our town. And that is with a "first time homebuyer" $0-down mortgage I got through a local credit union.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#228

Post by jameshart »

vablings wrote: post #210
mchusma wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is not investment at all, we want more investment into housing. But you are absolutely correct you cannot both want housing to be a good investment (increase in value faster than inflation) and an affordable (drop in price lower than inflation). Don’t subsidize demand. Allow more supply. Private homeowners, big developers, all of the above. Build.

The issue is that housing should not be an investment but due to rising labor and materials costs and also more restrictive code, they are now an investment.

Housing - more generally real estate property - can absolutely be a legitimate asset class, sustaining speculation and global investment; that is how we get capital invested in building out housing infrastructure.

But you shouldn’t have to make a leveraged loan-backed investment in a single asset class in order to afford shelter.

The problem isn’t ’housing is an investment’, it’s that people are long not on ‘housing’ but on their own single specific house. That’s a horrendously undiversified portfolio.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#229

Post by NiloCK »

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…

> You can have these things without owning a house.

Yes this is feasible, but respecting it as a design problem, renting is more transient than ownership and tilts the floor away from deep communal relationships.

Comparing the neighborhood I grew up in with the one I now live in is night and day. My mom has had the same next door neighbors for 44 years. Up and down the street there are many similarly familiar persons.

By comparison, from my own front door, I can only physically see two houses that are owner occupied. There are good neighbors (and friends!) in the rental houses as well, but investing in those relationships pays off with lower certainty because circumstance is very likely to uproot them at any given moment.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#230

Post by ch4s3 »

vablings wrote: post #221
ch4s3 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I might also point out that Finland has very good social programs, probably some of the best in Europe

Right, my point is that you can't boil happiness down to a single causal factor and if you could the evidence doesn't support home ownership being that factor.
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