Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Nobody’s buying homes, nobody’s switching jobs, America’s mobility is stalling

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 176 posts

Re: Nobody’s buying homes, nobody’s switching jobs, America’s mobility is stalling

#121

Post by potato3732842 »

itake wrote: post #64
Dig1t wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many places in the US where you can buy a house for less than 50k. If you want prices to drop in popular areas then we have to make it easy for people to actually build houses and increase supply in popular areas. Of course giving homeowners a say about whether housing is allowed to be built near them, of course they are going to vote against it because they have an incentive to keep prices high.

Do the homes selling for less than 50k have a job market to supports owning a home at that price?

And do they a) qualify for normal mortgage products b) need another $50-100k dumped into them immediately to be habitable.

Re: Nobody’s buying homes, nobody’s switching jobs, America’s mobility is stalling

#122

Post by dvfjsdhgfv »

FiatLuxDave wrote: post #36
toomuchtodo wrote: post #2

There aren’t enough homes or jobs. What do?

As far as I can tell, the problem isn't so much a lack of jobs or a lack of homes but rather that they aren't in the same place. In small town America, the problem isn't a lack of housing stock, it's that it is hard to afford it with few good paying jobs. In big city America, the problem isn't lack of jobs, it's that it is hard to find a job which pays enough for you to afford the limited housing stock. I think this…

I had also hoped WFH would solve that problem. For sure it alleviated it for the time it lasted - at least some people moved to more affordable locations. Unfortunately, for some reason many CEOs decided to take a step back.

Re: Nobody’s buying homes, nobody’s switching jobs, America’s mobility is stalling

#123

Post by willis936 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #48
willis936 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The housing market won't soften until we build a shit ton of houses which will never happen until there are a lot of very angry people willing it into existence.

I don’t think we’re ever going to build houses again at the rate we did before the 2008 GFC. A substantial portion of people who work in construction are undocumented (and will be targeted for deportation by this admin for the remains of their term), zoning remains a challenge, cost of materials continues to inflate. How many years would it take to get back up to speed? 5? 10? What does the economy look like then? Wi…

We don't build slow because the cost of labor or raw materials have gone up. In fact productivity and efficiency has gone up across the board in the past century. We build slower because there is a will to build slower. We let local people kill high speed rail, high voltage DC, and, above all, housing. You know how we built rails in the 1800s and highways in the 1900s? We didn't give a shit when someone said "no". That's what's changed.

Re: Nobody’s buying homes, nobody’s switching jobs, America’s mobility is stalling

#124

Post by Esophagus4 »

hibikir wrote: post #41
Esophagus4 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think if you believed 7-8% loans were normal, you might be more likely to bite the bullet and make your move. But if you believe 3-4% is normal, then you’re probably waiting for rates to return to “normal.” I think it’s a side effect of years of low interest rates… people are conditioned now to believe low is normal, and they want to hang on until we get back to that. I was hoping rates would stay “high” for a whil…

It's the other way around. If you think 3% is normal, you buy now and refinance while people think that the house is unaffordable. Remember that lower interest rates make home prices go even higher! If you think it will stay at 7%, that 3% loan you already have is a treasure to keep using for a decade or two.

I would have agreed, but in reality, higher rates haven’t improved affordability.

Instead, high rates plus economic uncertainty has reduced supply significantly because no one wants to sell.

Maybe lower rates will make prices even more unaffordable, which would make this a low period by comparison, but if you look at home price to income numbers, they’re still near record highs.

Maybe it means: if you think the line is always going up and to the right, today is the best day to buy, but that’s a weird way for me to think of a house, which I still kind of see as a consumable good rather than an investment vehicle.

Re: Nobody’s buying homes, nobody’s switching jobs, America’s mobility is stalling

#125

Post by jmclnx »

gottorf wrote: post #37
jmclnx wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I look at it as an expense. If you can sell and make a few bucks, great. But I doubt any new buyers will make out. I expect in the not to distant future, the only way someone will get to own a house is to inherent one.

> I expect in the not to distant future, the only way someone will get to own a house is to inherent one. Only if the current insanity around zoning and regulation persists. In many real estate markets, it's literally illegal to increase the supply of housing; in others, price controls make it unappealing to invest in increasing the supply of housing. I don't know what kind of toxicity is unique to the Anglophone wor…

>just build, build, build. There's no inherent reason why the price of houses should so far exceed income in this vast country

You are right, but there is always a but :)

Seems right now the "good jobs" are only being create around a few mega cities. DC, NY, SF and a few others. DC stalled a bit I think due to DOGE. In a lot of those areas NIMBH is big. So if you build like crazy in many "fly over" states, where is is plenty of land, at best the builders will not make a profit. But probably the houses will stay empty.

As with everything else, politicians will not make the hard decisions due to fear.

I use to be against term-limits, but the last 25 years proved me wrong :(

Re: Nobody’s buying homes, nobody’s switching jobs, America’s mobility is stalling

#127

Post by Eddy_Viscosity2 »

In a way this is the ultimate goal of conservatism in its literal sense to conserve. The rich want have their place in society safely entrenched at the top, with no risk of people rising from below to displace them. Those at the bottom should stay locked in there and work and toil because that is the natural order of things.

Re: Nobody’s buying homes, nobody’s switching jobs, America’s mobility is stalling

#128

Post by roncesvalles »

yolovoe wrote: post #28

Just a single data point against this. I got interviews with 4 companies out of 30 or so I applied to. Cleared all the onsites. Think FAANG, famous hedge fund, popular data analytics platform, and defense. 4 different industries. Job market's not the best, but it's also not that bad if you have 5 YOE+. Offers were good, ~$50-100K over my current pay. So many people are using AI during the interviews to cheat, as long…

There is a very simple solution to AI cheating and I'm not sure why it hasn't made a comeback - fly candidates in for in-person interviews (which btw, if people remember, was the norm before COVID).

Re: Nobody’s buying homes, nobody’s switching jobs, America’s mobility is stalling

#129

Post by [deleted] »

ipnon wrote: post #57
yolovoe wrote: post #28

Just a single data point against this. I got interviews with 4 companies out of 30 or so I applied to. Cleared all the onsites. Think FAANG, famous hedge fund, popular data analytics platform, and defense. 4 different industries. Job market's not the best, but it's also not that bad if you have 5 YOE+. Offers were good, ~$50-100K over my current pay. So many people are using AI during the interviews to cheat, as long…

Let me guess, you went to an elite university and you worked in Big Tech? I think you should be proud of your success, but it's not indicative of the larger American economy or the tech industry in general. There are reports that new grads in CS have higher unemployment than philosophy majors. Something is structurally unsound, even if the kernel of the industry composed of people like yourself is sound.

[deleted]

Re: Nobody’s buying homes, nobody’s switching jobs, America’s mobility is stalling

#130

Post by [deleted] »

nunez wrote: post #103
Esophagus4 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think if you believed 7-8% loans were normal, you might be more likely to bite the bullet and make your move. But if you believe 3-4% is normal, then you’re probably waiting for rates to return to “normal.” I think it’s a side effect of years of low interest rates… people are conditioned now to believe low is normal, and they want to hang on until we get back to that. I was hoping rates would stay “high” for a whil…

I expressly waited for interest rates to jump before we bought ours. Buying couldn't have been easier because of that.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN