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

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

#141

Post by [deleted] »

willis936 wrote: post #123
toomuchtodo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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". Th…

[deleted]

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

#142

Post by SoftTalker »

bnjms wrote: post #81
garciasn wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the median income to home price ratio is at an all-time high: https://www.longtermtrends.net/home-price-median-annual-inco... So, while interest rates are at historical 'norms', affordability is not.

I ask sincerely. Is there a way out of that problem other than raising wages and inflation?

Build more houses (or housing, if you prefer).

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

#143

Post by gottorf »

01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #86
gottorf wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Build a town, not a subdivision. I would really love to see a billionaire tackle this. There's loads of empty, or nearly empty, space in this country. Heck, take over a town if you really want! Sink a few million dollars into kickstarting small-scale urbanism. I'm not usually much of a billionaire-hater, but today's lot for the most part seems to be uninspired, when it comes to projects like this.

First institute a land value tax. If you have a regular property tax you are going to get speculators, and then eventually vacant lots This is part of the housing supply mystery. It's not very profitable to build housing when you are punished for building upwards and making good use of the land

I'm a big proponent of LVT, and even bigger of gradually replacing most taxes with LVT, but the great thing about being a billionaire is you can just buy up a whole town and develop it as you see fit and not have to worry about speculators engaging in rent-seeking behavior.

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

#144

Post by gottorf »

reducesuffering wrote: post #84
mingus88 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think you’ll ever see a billionaire tackle this. To become a billionaire, you have to have a complete lack of empathy. This is why the only solution we see are maximized profit vehicles. The qualities that would make someone want to create a lovely place to live exclude them from making billions of dollars in the first place.

Did you both not see the project that is trying to do exactly this in Solana County CA and has had immense criticism at it, far more than positive coverage... Damned if you do, damned if you don't https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Forever

Looks like it's stuck in the typical hell of environment impact reviews and local politicians seeing how many sinecures they can obtain through the project. I wish the project well and will follow up on it.

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

#145

Post by Eddy_Viscosity2 »

Herring wrote: post #137
Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #127

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.

According to the election and the polls, this is exactly what Americans want. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/06/24/americans-vi... > 41% of Americans say the government should provide more assistance to people in need > 30% say it's providing about the right amount > 27% say it should provide less 41-57? If there are issues in America, it's because Americans want it that way.

Mobility is not just about assisting the those in need, its also about having opportunities for advancement.

If you're trapped in a job because of its health coverage, that's restricting mobility. People can' take the risk on changing jobs/locations or even something like starting their own businesses because of the would lose coverage and don't have the wealth to self-pay.

If you're working so many hours just to cover essentials like rent you just too exhausted to look for better work or take courses for a new profession.

If costs and prices rise way faster than your wages, then you start losing ground and do so at an ever increasing rate while those at the top who live on investments and passive income benefit because the value of their assets rise faster.

If opportunities for high paying jobs dry up because, for example, AI replaces those jobs.

If fees and interest on student debt keeps you locked down forever.

If all best and highest paying jobs just go to family members of the already rich through systemic nepotism.

The list goes on. I'm not which of these the American public voted for.

- people trapped in poorly paying jobs and/or jobs with terrible conditions by blocking or dismantling unions.

- locking people out of high paying jobs via network effects. Like nepotism in hollywood or firms only hiring from certain universities which you can only get into

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

#146

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

simianwords wrote: post #99
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can and should build more homes Yes. The entry point to ownership lies within a state of affordability. > but the end goal is to improve utility of land For who? If it's anyone other than typical wage earners, this goal competes with home ownership by pressuring ownership costs upward and away from affordability. For context, home purchases are mostly (if not fully) impossible for typical wage earners.

For the city or country. Home ownership is not impossible, I know you meant it as hyperbole. We shouldn’t mind if home ownership becomes costly if more economic activity results out of it. More economic activity means more money in the hands of wage earners (just that proportionally more money is spent on housing which is okay).

> Home ownership is not impossible, I know you meant it as hyperbole.

I did not. 25% of US households make under $40/yr.

(based on 2022 data that 25% of all US households make ~$35k/yr or less. +10% for minorities.)

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

#147

Post by saguntum »

sqircles wrote: post #79
khernandezrt wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m in the same boat. I’ve been employed since 2019, got laid off 3 weeks ago. I’ve applied to over 70 jobs and not a single has replied other than to reject me. This is brutal.

The thing that seemed to work best for me was reaching out to dev shops in my area and starting a conversation even if they didn't have a position posted. Go to meetups and talk to people, join their discord, etc... and job fairs, as lame as they seem, produced contacts for me that are still reaching out "just in case" even though I found a position eventually. What's old is new again. Get those soft skills warmed up…

Job fairs are super underrated. When my spouse and I were a bit in flux years back for where we were going to live long-term, we ended up living in the city where we met which is very much not a tech hub - only a few big companies that hire engineers - despite spouse applying to various places in SF, Denver, and Seattle.

He landed the local job first by going to a career fair that I randomly discovered on Twitter. Affected the whole trajectory of our life.

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

#148

Post by Herring »

Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #145
Herring wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the election and the polls, this is exactly what Americans want. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/06/24/americans-vi... > 41% of Americans say the government should provide more assistance to people in need > 30% say it's providing about the right amount > 27% say it should provide less 41-57? If there are issues in America, it's because Americans want it that way.

Mobility is not just about assisting the those in need, its also about having opportunities for advancement. If you're trapped in a job because of its health coverage, that's restricting mobility. People can' take the risk on changing jobs/locations or even something like starting their own businesses because of the would lose coverage and don't have the wealth to self-pay. If you're working so many hours just to cov…

> Mobility is not just about assisting the those in need, its also about having opportunities for advancement.

I think it's really hard to do one without improving the other. They're inextricably linked. I only like to focus on the first one because it's easier and the ROI is higher.

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

#149

Post by Dig1t »

potato3732842 wrote: post #121
itake wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes they do, there are many normal houses which can be bought for very cheap just spend some time on Zillow looking at areas outside of major metro areas.

You could very easily live in a big city and work a job to save up 50k or a down payment for a 50k mortgage and then buy one of these cheap houses to live in. But most people don’t want to do that. They want nice weather and fun things to do, access to a good job market, and good schools. But the reason why those houses are 50k is just because of simple supply and demand. There is very little demand to live in Louisiana or West Virginia and tons of demand to live in the Bay Area or Seattle. If you increase supply, eventually prices will fall and accessibility will increase.

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

#150

Post by Ferret7446 »

lovich wrote: post #94
danans wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd caution from reading too much into numbers like this. 400 applications is borderline spamming, putting quantity over quality, which employers would notice. It can be far fewer if you have a focus/specialty and specific industries that you target. No doubt though, it's a slog right now. My recent process was around 10 applications - which became 3 interviews - and the last 2 were offers, one that came via a recrui…

It would be difficult for employers to notice since they are also spamming job postings en masse

It is definitely a MAD arms race. Bad actors on both sides force everyone to aggressively spam/filter
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