Live data from Hacker News

Why Do Fewer Renters Expect to Move?

libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org

11–20 of 114 posts

Re: Why Do Fewer Renters Expect to Move?

#11

30 year mortgage is founded partly on the idea that your house will be worth more in the future when you sell it. That you can lock in a lower price now. Number cannot always go up. We are at the top of the carbon pulse. Financialization has taken us far from the material baseline of the rock we are flying through space on. Debt will only get us so far. For this and many other reasons, why would you believe a house "…

[deleted]

Re: Why Do Fewer Renters Expect to Move?

#12
Where I live, there's just a growing sense that rent and homeownership are wildly more expensive compared to what you get. Lack of development in the urban core has made moving anywhere else (cheaper) entail buying a car, dealing with commutes, etc. It has also made moving within the urban core significantly more expensive, especially with rent control pricing limiting availability. Basically, from a purely financial perspective, the juice (moving) is not really worth the squeeze.

The promises of WFH have also not come to fruition. The dream of moving anywhere and retaining your email job are not the reality in 2026. Employers seem actively hostile to that idea or are reneging on promises or claims that that "is the future".

Re: Why Do Fewer Renters Expect to Move?

#13

30 year mortgage is founded partly on the idea that your house will be worth more in the future when you sell it. That you can lock in a lower price now. Number cannot always go up. We are at the top of the carbon pulse. Financialization has taken us far from the material baseline of the rock we are flying through space on. Debt will only get us so far. For this and many other reasons, why would you believe a house "…

Buying a house as an investment is so dumb.

Its only an investment if you are renting it out to someone else, otherwise you are just gambling.

Re: Why Do Fewer Renters Expect to Move?

#14
post #8

Because you cannot pay market prices if you leave your rent controlled apartment. Once you are out, you never get one again. Apparently that is beyond the high and mighty Federal Reserve employees who wrote this speculation. The housing market needs to be socialized.

A socialized housing market replaces exorbitant prices with a lottery; public-subsidized housing in Stockholm has a waiting list of years. The way to stabilize the demand curve is to increase to supply.

Re: Why Do Fewer Renters Expect to Move?

#15

30 year mortgage is founded partly on the idea that your house will be worth more in the future when you sell it. That you can lock in a lower price now. Number cannot always go up. We are at the top of the carbon pulse. Financialization has taken us far from the material baseline of the rock we are flying through space on. Debt will only get us so far. For this and many other reasons, why would you believe a house "…

Buying a house isn't just about expected return. It's also about hedging. You need to live somewhere, so you have an implicit liability of a stream of rental costs. The most natural hedge for that is a house. If expected future rental costs go up, your house value goes up. If they go down, your house value goes down. Overall, your risk, in present value terms, is reduced.

Of course this doesn't work exactly and you can nitpick this, but I think people should at least look at housing assets as more than "is it going to go up?", and more about long-term risk reduction. (And, just to be clear, this doesn't mean that you should lever up beyond reason to buy a house.)

Re: Why Do Fewer Renters Expect to Move?

#16
post #13

30 year mortgage is founded partly on the idea that your house will be worth more in the future when you sell it. That you can lock in a lower price now. Number cannot always go up. We are at the top of the carbon pulse. Financialization has taken us far from the material baseline of the rock we are flying through space on. Debt will only get us so far. For this and many other reasons, why would you believe a house "…

Buying a house as an investment is so dumb. Its only an investment if you are renting it out to someone else, otherwise you are just gambling.

Agree here. But I'm a doomer/collapsenik - so, the same future coming for "retirement" is the same future coming for "house always appreciates in value". Maybe 1990 -> 2020 was an okay 30 year period, 2026 -> 2056 sure won't be.

Re: Why Do Fewer Renters Expect to Move?

#17
post #10

30 year mortgage is founded partly on the idea that your house will be worth more in the future when you sell it. That you can lock in a lower price now. Number cannot always go up. We are at the top of the carbon pulse. Financialization has taken us far from the material baseline of the rock we are flying through space on. Debt will only get us so far. For this and many other reasons, why would you believe a house "…

You're falling for the trap of just thinking of buying a house as an investment . Buying a house can be an investment, but it's also buying a place to live. Even if the home's value merely keeps pace with inflation over 30 years, you've converted a largely fixed housing payment into ownership rather than paying ever-increasing rent indefinitely.

Along the same lines, you are buying a place. A place that you own and can do whatever you like with. I spent twenty years renting and twenty years of feeling like you can’t hang a picture on the wall, paint a room, upgrade an appliance, or really do anything to improve your surroundings, tends to get tiring.

Re: Why Do Fewer Renters Expect to Move?

#18
post #13

30 year mortgage is founded partly on the idea that your house will be worth more in the future when you sell it. That you can lock in a lower price now. Number cannot always go up. We are at the top of the carbon pulse. Financialization has taken us far from the material baseline of the rock we are flying through space on. Debt will only get us so far. For this and many other reasons, why would you believe a house "…

Buying a house as an investment is so dumb. Its only an investment if you are renting it out to someone else, otherwise you are just gambling.

In the UK at least there’s significant tax advantages to home ownership compared to renting.

Easily 30-50% of the money you pay in rent is immediately burned in tax/letting agent fees that don’t happen to a homeowner who “is their own landlord”. Additionally there’s no capital gains tax on one’s primary home.

Even if house prices stay flat it’s usually still better to own if rental yields in your area are higher than 5%.

Re: Why Do Fewer Renters Expect to Move?

#19
post #10

30 year mortgage is founded partly on the idea that your house will be worth more in the future when you sell it. That you can lock in a lower price now. Number cannot always go up. We are at the top of the carbon pulse. Financialization has taken us far from the material baseline of the rock we are flying through space on. Debt will only get us so far. For this and many other reasons, why would you believe a house "…

You're falling for the trap of just thinking of buying a house as an investment . Buying a house can be an investment, but it's also buying a place to live. Even if the home's value merely keeps pace with inflation over 30 years, you've converted a largely fixed housing payment into ownership rather than paying ever-increasing rent indefinitely.

I agree with this. The same goes for subscription cars. Default on the monthly payments and they take it away.

If you purchased a rust bucket of a car, you own it and if it all goes south you still have a roof over your head.

Re: Why Do Fewer Renters Expect to Move?

#20

It’s getting prohibitively expensive. Before brokers fees were banned in Boston, a $2,000/mo apartment could have cost you $8000 just to move in . That’s for first, last, security and brokers fee. That’s a worst case scenario but even just first and last months rent is $4000. It’s getting outrageous.

Way back when I started my career - I almost COULDN'T take a good job in Boston, because I couldn't figure out how I could literally live there long enough to get my first few paychecks to pay for my rent.

I decided that I'd just go into credit card debt and live in the crappiest hotel that I could find until I had enough money to pay the first/last/security deposit.

Luckily, I found some shady landlord on Craigslist that turned out to be pretty chill, and just let me move in without even paying until I had the money. Dude even picked me up from the airport and moved me right in. It was kind of a rip-off for a room, but it was furnished, and I wasn't going to be in a position to buy furniture for months, so it worked out for both of us for 6 months or so.

I do wonder... At what point does this start to impact who can and can't even move to your area for work? Have we already reached that point?

Post reply on HN