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Priced out of home ownership

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Priced out of home ownership

#211

Post by thfuran »

piva00 wrote: post #147
EduardoBautista wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some governments around the world did incentivise and even footed the bill for building public housing I am not referring to building public housing. I am saying the government should build housing as if it were a for-profit company. Take those profits, and re-invest into building even _more_ housing. Don't try to sell to those in need, sell to those who are speculating on real estate and increase supply at the sam…

Telling voters that their tax money will be used to build housing to be sold to speculators will absolutely not work. Even if in the long-term that somehow could end up helping people, no one will vote for this absurdity. You're asking for people to fund the infrastructure speculators thrive on with their money, on top of that you want to depress housing prices which another large cohort of society will vote against,…

Aside from scale, it's pretty much the same thing but with the assumption that whoever is going to be buying is a friendly neighbor and not an evil speculator.

Re: Priced out of home ownership

#212

Post by mym1990 »

postalrat wrote: post #194
DGAP wrote: post #180

Stop subsidizing demand at the national level. Stop restricting supply at the local level.

Land is cheap but building a house is expensive. If you want more supply then you are going to need to make building more economical.

Land is definitely not cheap in places people actually want to live, and land is the thing that is appreciating over time, not the structure.

Re: Priced out of home ownership

#213

Post by FireBeyond »

blondie9x wrote: post #69

The problem is pretty easy to fix. 50-70% of homes (Depends on Area) are owned by people over 58-70 (Baby Boomers). They don't have good senior apartment/living options. Make more senior housing and provide incentives for them to sell their homes. There are so few available affordable senior apartment options. It's really saddening. Most places have 5-10 year waiting lists, if the waiting list is open at all. Fixing…

> Make more senior housing and provide incentives for them to sell their homes.

Oftentimes those same Boomers in business own retirement/senior living/nursing homes. And while generalizing, the fuck you, got mine attitude means that nursing staff get paid a pittance, and oftentimes they're abusing the 911 system (multiple homes around here have a "policy" to call 911 for anything worse than requiring a bandaid - they won't let their nursing staff evaluate or treat patients for ... reasons ... - so we (paramedics) get called multiple times a day for little more than first aid, if that. Meanwhile, out front of the nursing home is a big billboard, "Round the clock nursing care!" and they're sending bills to the residents/families that reflect that, while you have CNAs and an LPN or two barely meeting staffing mandates, if they even are, who are unable to do anything).

Re: Priced out of home ownership

#214

Post by ryandrake »

woodpanel wrote: post #190
oooyay wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live on a sleepy street that's half dense housing and half single family homes. Density will likely take over more than half of the street some day because the city has been relegating more dense housing to the working class areas of the city, which is where I happen to live. [1] Of those single family homes there is one that was owner-occupied for a year when we moved in. Since, it's been locked up and has had no…

I think the answer to your perplexity lies somewhere buried here: > The couple that own it own several properties across my city Without knowing which city you’re talking about I can assure you this is rather common. The moment a property becomes just one out of many (assets) in your portfolio your necessity to let becomes a mere annoyance. Many of the housing market imperfections could be at play here, but it certai…

>> The couple that own it own several properties across my city

There always seems to be this common thread running through these discussions, but few want to address it. It's just build build build, moar moar moar. The problem isn't that there aren't enough homes. The problem is that so many homes are owned by so few people/entities and are often vacant. We shouldn't allow people (often foreign investors or private equity firms) to buy a home, leave it vacant, and sit on it as an investment as if it were a bar of gold or something.

Re: Priced out of home ownership

#215

Post by daniel_iversen »

erickf1 wrote: post #205
whoknowsidont wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the problem at all. Stop allowing people to buy multiple homes. Stop allowing landlords to "collaborate" on prices.

[flagged]

It could be as simple as removing or reducing tax incentives for property investment?

Re: Priced out of home ownership

#216

Post by shrewduser »

erickf1 wrote: post #205
whoknowsidont wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the problem at all. Stop allowing people to buy multiple homes. Stop allowing landlords to "collaborate" on prices.

[flagged]

Sorry what? Shelter is a necessity for survival.

Is it communism to not allow people to buy up all the water supplies and sell it back to you at an extortionate rate?

The truth about the housing market is that it's not a free market anyway it's controlled by special interests, bad laws, zoning, local nimbys and councils the list goes on.

Re: Priced out of home ownership

#217

Post by FireBeyond »

cyberlurker wrote: post #100
jncfhnb wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Handouts to the homeowners does not feel like the right call here

Senior living centers are often atrocious and still can set people back over $10,000 a month. I think a program could be designed without being a handout. One option could be if you’re going into a government run senior living center you need to pass that money down to whoever was going to inherit it/receive it through donation. And that has to be a taxable event to cover the cost of the subsidy on senior living. Peo…

> Senior living centers are often atrocious and still can set people back over $10,000 a month.

For "fun", most states publish nursing home reports. In the county I work in EMS, there are probably only two that have only either minor or no infractions. Every single other one has major / patient/resident risk infractions. Often around minimum staffing levels. Perhaps pay your CNAs above minimum wage, your LPNs above $20/hr, and so...

Re: Priced out of home ownership

#218

Post by jb1991 »

fairity wrote: post #208

I don’t get articles like this. It’s arguably a better financial decision to NOT buy a home, and park your downpayment in a broad based index fund. I get that there are arguments for or against, but there doesn’t seem to be a clear financial advantage to home ownership. So, what’s the big fuss about? Just pay rent and carry on? Surely, there are better things to focus on?

It's not as simple as that. Home ownership can be a lucrative investment long-term, it depends on many factors. When property values appreciate a lot, as they have been recently, home owners have done very well.

Re: Priced out of home ownership

#219

Post by masterj »

Auracle wrote: post #204
lwansbrough wrote: post #171

In my opinion, there can only be one solution to this that will come sooner or later. A great correction following simplified zoning & building legislation. Federal governments across the west need to take control of building and zoning. Planning can remain a city/state/provincial affair, but it must be done under standardized and simplified building and zoning legislation. We are wasting unfathomable economic potent…

I’ll keep shouting this from the rooftops: while it may contribute in some areas, zoning laws are not the primary cause of home prices increasing like they have. For proof, look at any rural (and I mean actual rural) area and how their home prices have also been skyrocketing. It’s supply and demand, with other things being small factors. We either need to vastly increase supply across the entire country somehow, or c…

> zoning laws are not the primary cause of home prices > We ... need to vastly increase supply across the entire country somehow

Zoning laws reduce available supply by making it illegal or impossible (due to e.g. parking minimums) to build densely in most of the bigger cities in North America

> For some reason it’s ok to talk about this in the context of Canada and how their mass immigration has increased home prices

1. It's not okay to scapegoat immigrants 2. Canada hasn't built enough housing to keep up with a growing population, largely due to exclusionary zoning policies. The vast majority of land in Vancouver is reserved for SFHs, even within walksheds of skytrain stations representing billions of dollars in Provincial investment.

Re: Priced out of home ownership

#220

Post by jb1991 »

caeril wrote: post #51
bdcravens wrote: post #8

I bought in 2022, and while it was new construction, it's a pretty mid-range house. No premium finishes, in a growing but small city northwest of Houston. If you told me 10 years ago how much I paid for it, I'd ask what the name of my butler is.

Indeed. My home "value" has roughly doubled in the last five years. Sounds nice, but land/home values in the area I'd like to move to has nearly tripled in the same timespan. I feel bad for renters priced out of the market, but many of us who have "enjoyed" the upside are actually deeply underwater relative to our preferences, to say nothing of the doubling of insurance premiums, and ~25% property tax hikes in the la…

> many of us who have "enjoyed" the upside are actually deeply underwater relative to our preferences

what do you mean by this?

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