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Baby boomers are making it harder for millennials to buy homes

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Re: Baby boomers are making it harder for millennials to buy homes

#101

Post by masklinn »

jmclnx wrote: post #27

Not really the Baby Boomers fault, but bad decisions made over the past 30/40 years are coming to fruit. Right now only a hand full of cities have 'real' jobs and those cities have strict zoning laws (and NIMBY). So young people in the US, if they want to make any real $ need to move to those cities, otherwise all they will have are 'mcjobs'. I would not be surprised to see slums like the type seen in many poor count…

> those cities have strict zoning laws (and NIMBY)

Strict zoning laws is not an issue, shit zoning laws is, especially exclusive ones (though I have no idea what zoning laws the bay uses). Zoning laws are just a way to define what can be mixed in areas, the US have notoriously garbage ones (often exclusive, overly complex and hyperlocal) but it doesn't have to be that way: http://urbankchoze.blogspot.be/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html

Re: Baby boomers are making it harder for millennials to buy homes

#102

Post by QuarterReptile »

chii wrote: post #91
falsedan wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> building new housing attracts an influx of population You got this backwards: we build housing for the influx of population. People don't move to new places just to get a new house. They move for economic reasons, like they got a $150k software dev job in SF & don't want to commute 90 minutes each way, or they got evicted so the landlord could double/triple the rent. Regardless of whether SF builds now housing stoc…

> forcing existing, lower-income residents out to the periphery of the Bay Area. but this should drive those who receive low income out of state, and thus lower the amount of worker available for low-income jobs, which in turn should drive up the wage?

That assumes an underdamped system (and I'd be really interested to know if that feedback is generally considered underdamped). In the end, can't we agree that things would stabilize or nearly stabilize in the appropriate equilibrium?

On another note, I (as a visitor) always figured the most visible effect of the dearth of affordable housing was the ridiculously early time the city shuts down. Madrid is the city I've spent the most time in, and there SF shutdown time would be right in the middle of, or before, dinner! I just figured that the early closing time facilitates closing up, cleaning, and getting home before the transit shuts down since no one working in restaurants or nightlife could afford to live in the city. I'm sure I'm not the first one to suggest that: is that theory generally discounted/disproven?

Re: Baby boomers are making it harder for millennials to buy homes

#103

Post by falsedan »

joyofdata wrote: post #98
falsedan wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people in their late 20s/early 30s are thinking about starting a family, and have the secure jobs to give them the financial stability they need for this. Raising small children in an apartment can be pretty stressful, and given the choice, I think young families would overwhelmingly prefer a house over an apartment (all other considerations being equal barring price). Plus, houses generally have 3-4 bedrooms, a…

> Raising small children in an apartment can be pretty stressful this is precisely the entitlement I was hinting at - I was raised in an apartment - lots of my friends have been raised in apartments - I do live in an appartment (*1984) and we have many neighboors with children in our apartment building. It is absolutely possible and also very humane indeed also to raise children in an apartment. > But: apartments als…

So congratulations on living somewhere that medium-high density living is not only accepted but seen as obvious! My wife also grew up in an apartment.

The thing is, apartments in the US usually have timber floors (since wood is so available and cheap), and little insulation (apartments are usually on the coasts, where the climate is mild).

> It is absolutely possible and also very humane indeed also to raise children in an apartment.

I feel that the social fabric between Europeans is stronger than in the US. Sure, kids will be fine, but property owners in the US are an entitled bunch and may feel like their rights are being violated by the pitter-patter/clonk-bonk of active children. A foot of concrete absorbs a lot more noise than an inch of timber.

> it's b/c your government fails to build them

Most development in the US is done by private companies; very little housing stock is built by government agencies. The biggest constraint is building permits, which is controlled by local government like city councils, which local residents are elected to, who generally are… baby boomers.

> If you can afford to build a house you can afford a car and you have to commute.

I don't understand this comment. If I live in Nebraska/Detroit (where is is extremely easy to afford a house & jobs are scarce), do I commute to the Bay Area? That's days of driving, or getting a pilot's license.

It's the same in Australia: if I can afford to build a house in Bourke, do I commute to my job in Sydney every day? Even Centrelink says that the maximum reasonable commute is 90min each way, which (at worst) would mean getting a place in the Blue Mountains/Wollongong/Gosford.

Re: Baby boomers are making it harder for millennials to buy homes

#104

Post by CodeWriter23 »

Millennial whines about how hard prosperity is making her life. Blames another generation for her woes.

Of course the competition in the market has nothing to do with the trend the author cites, that Millennials have upset the natural order by skipping the starter home. Nope, just blame the boomers.

For the record, I'm GenX, and like many from my generation, I hope to be a homeowner some day.

Re: Baby boomers are making it harder for millennials to buy homes

#105

Post by saurik »

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #104

Millennial whines about how hard prosperity is making her life. Blames another generation for her woes. Of course the competition in the market has nothing to do with the trend the author cites, that Millennials have upset the natural order by skipping the starter home. Nope, just blame the boomers. For the record, I'm GenX, and like many from my generation, I hope to be a homeowner some day.

The article explains that they are being forced to skip the starter home because almost all of the lower end housing stock is only available for rent, not to own.

Re: Baby boomers are making it harder for millennials to buy homes

#106

Post by CodeWriter23 »

saurik wrote: post #105
CodeWriter23 wrote: post #104

Millennial whines about how hard prosperity is making her life. Blames another generation for her woes. Of course the competition in the market has nothing to do with the trend the author cites, that Millennials have upset the natural order by skipping the starter home. Nope, just blame the boomers. For the record, I'm GenX, and like many from my generation, I hope to be a homeowner some day.

The article explains that they are being forced to skip the starter home because almost all of the lower end housing stock is only available for rent, not to own.

Sure, if you just skip over this statement from the article:

"Millennials, on the other hand, tend to overestimate what they can afford in terms of housing."

The reality in the Bay Area is hyper gentrification driven by the currently inflating Silicon Valley Bubble 3.0 (or is it 4.0 now) has deleted low end from the market altogether.

Re: Baby boomers are making it harder for millennials to buy homes

#107

Post by expertentipp »

mcv wrote: post #81

Houses in "hot" markets still stay on the market for 54 days? In Amsterdam, you can reliably sell your house in 2 weeks. Some people are willing to buy a house without a visit. The housing market here is insane. We recently bought a house and sold our old one (we haven't moved yet, but remodeling on our new house will start in a couple of days). We sold our house for EUR 100k over what we paid for it in 2008 (just be…

This is the case for any major desirable city in EU, applying both to property rental and acquire market. Someone please stop this craze.

Re: Baby boomers are making it harder for millennials to buy homes

#108

Post by crdoconnor »

omegaham wrote: post #50
mythrwy wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear you and apologies for the rant. Down votes are entirely understandable as I don't care for radical sounding rants either. I'm not saying in in the US, nor concretely, but philosophically I think when a person is born they inherit the right to inhabit a piece of earth. You shouldn't arrive in the earth and not be able to sleep on piece of it without paying someone. I guess I feel that land in general belongs to…

> Leave wealth building for bitcoin and Apple stock and companies that make mascara. The flip side of this - people then complain that we have 25 different high-tech varieties of boner pills while the developing world is dealing with antibiotic-resistant infections and malaria. Despite the SV Founder Changing The World rhetoric, most people are in business to get paid. People go where the money is. If you declare tha…

"If you declare that no one should get rich off of bread because it's A Basic Necessity, you're going to find that the bread biz is going to stagnate"

If you declare that nobody should get rich off there being a shortage of bread because it's a basic necessity, you're not going to stop somebody getting rich from making artisanally crafted locally sourced handcrafted sourdough (or whatever).

Re: Baby boomers are making it harder for millennials to buy homes

#109

Post by CuriouslyC »

kevinburke wrote: post #44
nitrogen wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But before too long the roads are jam-packed again, the problem isn't solved, just have more cars clogging traffic. Isn't that a good thing, indicating greater economic activity?

It's a well known feature of transportation planning that traffic expands to fill available road space: http://www.culturechange.org/issue8/traffic%20expands.htm The argument is, if the traffic is just going to expand to fill the new roads we build, then why not build more densely instead and help people have shorter commutes. Also some arguments around vicious cycles of building more roads, leading to more traffic,…

The problem with density is that it assumes that housing will be efficiently allocated so it reduces people's need to commute. Unfortunately there are a lot of other factors involved and density in some cases ends up making traffic worse.

Re: Baby boomers are making it harder for millennials to buy homes

#110

Post by CuriouslyC »

alpha_squared wrote: post #74
sintaxi wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A city is not obligated to densify. The give is that people start to move to places they can afford to live instead of complaining about what hasn't been handed to them.

> instead of complaining about what hasn't been handed to them While I understand this sentiment, it's certainly glossing over the opposing view of people being kicked out of the homes/neighborhoods they grew up in.

I don't think people being forced out of the neighborhood they live in is necessarily a bad thing, if it means that the new residents are paying more to society for the privilege of living there, and thus lowering the tax burden on everyone else.

The problem from my perspective is that land taxes aren't sufficiently high. Land should not be an easy, safe long term investment. Land should be something you gain title to in order to put to a highly productive use, i.e. live in. A lot of property in growing cities is owned by foreign investors who rarely (if ever) occupy it. If land was no longer a good investment, this would instantly liberate a lot of housing to be used by people who need it.

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