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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

#111

Post by joyofdata »

falsedan wrote: post #103
joyofdata wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

well - at the end of the day my message is that the perspective of the article is misguided.

the problem is not too many baby boomers - the problem is unafordable and unavailable space to live.

also in Germany this is a topic - resurging in regular intervals. the nationalistic perspective is "migrants take our flats" - when in fact its the government failing to either provide flats funded by the state or influencing the market to prevent excessive rents and encourage building of cheap apartments.

it's effectively a more or less intended divide and conquer strategy - have the people fight each other then they won't fight for changes of the status quo.

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

#112

Post by ghaff »

QuarterReptile wrote: post #102
chii wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I'm not sure I see the correlation. US cities in general start rolling up the sidewalks earlier than is often the case in Europe. Dinner times in particular tend to be earlier. 7pm is a fairly typical peak sitting time.

As a counter-example, Manhattan is an atypically late night city for the US [that also has very high housing prices]. You could argue that it also has 24 hour mass transit to cheaper areas. But, in general, tons of US cities that shutdown fairly early have low housing prices.

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

#113

Post by jefurii »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #110
alpha_squared wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 t…

> I don't think people being forced out of the neighborhood they live in is necessarily a bad thing

I wish my account would let me downvote this

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

#114

Post by aaron695 »

jrapdx3 wrote: post #36
kevinburke wrote: post #23

I'm going to sound like a broken record here but there are policy and other decisions being made in the Bay Area that are restricting the housing supply and driving up the price of existing housing. You don't have to be a bystander in this process, you can help lobby for more supply. A list of propositions and legislation to support (SF, Brisbane, Mountain View, the CA state legislature) can be found here: https://ne…

The question I have has several parts, but fundamentally I wonder if the housing supply could even be increased enough to materially affect housing prices. Not saying that the housing supply isn't excessively restricted, but how much can restrictions be decreased and how much difference would it make? An analogy is building freeways to relieve traffic congestion. What regularly happens is that additional roads or add…

> What regularly happens is that additional roads or adding lanes to existing roads provides temporary respite from traffic jams. But before too long the roads are jam-packed again, the problem isn't solved, just have more cars clogging traffic.

I've never seen proof of this, do you have any studies?

I know it's blah blahs law which I can't remember but outside of academia I never see a real world case.

If you just mean they fill again from growth well that makes sense. Without building them they would be even worse.

I've never see a cited case where improving infrastructure makes everyone worse off.

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

#115

Post by ghaff »

aaron695 wrote: post #114
jrapdx3 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question I have has several parts, but fundamentally I wonder if the housing supply could even be increased enough to materially affect housing prices. Not saying that the housing supply isn't excessively restricted, but how much can restrictions be decreased and how much difference would it make? An analogy is building freeways to relieve traffic congestion. What regularly happens is that additional roads or add…

> What regularly happens is that additional roads or adding lanes to existing roads provides temporary respite from traffic jams. But before too long the roads are jam-packed again, the problem isn't solved, just have more cars clogging traffic. I've never seen proof of this, do you have any studies? I know it's blah blahs law which I can't remember but outside of academia I never see a real world case. If you just m…

There are some references in the Wikipedia article on Induced Demand. Most of the cited cases deal with heavily trafficked roads being removed and demand decreasing as a result.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand

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

#116

Post by ghaff »

jefurii wrote: post #113
CuriouslyC wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

> I don't think people being forced out of the neighborhood they live in is necessarily a bad thing I wish my account would let me downvote this

Gentrification has plusses and minuses. It is one of the processes by which a city improves in various respects. However, in spite of (very imperfect) mechanisms like rent control and caps of property value assessments, an inevitable result of a neighborhood becoming more upscale is that prior residents and business owners find it increasingly hard to remain there.

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

#117

Post by ghaff »

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…

>Right now only a hand full of cities have 'real' jobs

That's a pretty broad brush. The world really doesn't revolve around a few coastal US cities.

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

#118

Post by aaron695 »

ghaff wrote: post #115
aaron695 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What regularly happens is that additional roads or adding lanes to existing roads provides temporary respite from traffic jams. But before too long the roads are jam-packed again, the problem isn't solved, just have more cars clogging traffic. I've never seen proof of this, do you have any studies? I know it's blah blahs law which I can't remember but outside of academia I never see a real world case. If you just m…

There are some references in the Wikipedia article on Induced Demand. Most of the cited cases deal with heavily trafficked roads being removed and demand decreasing as a result. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand

That's it.

I find the examples on wiki a little sketchy and some are flat out anecdotal.

I do agree it will increase the total traffic as you improve the system but the concept it can ever make it worse or the same in the entire system doesn't make sense.

Peoples need to travel by car is not totally fluid. Jobs stay the same and many people catch public transport for reasons other than convenience.

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

#119

Post by maxsilver »

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…

> The housing market here is insane.

This is sort of the problem -- the housing market is insane literally everywhere.

You mention that houses in Amsterdam sell in 2 weeks. Houses in bumblefuck Michigan are selling the same day. It's common here for sellers to do no showings at all, simply throw an open house on Sunday and say "best offer by 9am Monday wins". These houses all have multiple offers, $20k+ over asking prices. We're not London, or NYC, or SF, or Boston, or Paris, or Amsterdam. Bumblefuck Michigan can't even keep their housing market sane.

Pick any city with any half-functional economy. Yes any city. The housing market is insane there. Big city? small city? Popular city? Unknown city? It doesn't matter -- the housing market is insane there too.

Literally everywhere the housing market is broken. Literally everywhere.

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

#120

Post by falsedan »

ghaff wrote: post #112
QuarterReptile wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm not sure I see the correlation. US cities in general start rolling up the sidewalks earlier than is often the case in Europe. Dinner times in particular tend to be earlier. 7pm is a fairly typical peak sitting time. As a counter-example, Manhattan is an atypically late night city for the US [that also has very high housing prices]. You could argue that it also has 24 hour mass transit to cheaper areas. But, in ge…

If you work in the Financial District and live in Pittsburgh, then you have to be on BART no later than 10:30pm to get home. Assuming a 45min clean-up and some slow diners keeping the floor occupied until 9:30, I would arrange for a 9pm closing time.

With the same situation, but a 30 minute commute and a 24h transport system and staff happy to get home around the same time, you could set the closing time at 10:30-11pm.

> tons of US cities that shutdown fairly early have low housing prices

Ah, are they low-density? I have lived places with very fast commutes and low property prices that would shut down by 7pm, since it was deep in the country and thus there was stuff-all foot traffic once people stopped working.

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