What happens when housing prices go down? • Hacker News Board

Re: What happens when housing prices go down?

#341

Post by nobody9999 » Wed, Jul 23, 2025, 1:59 PM UTC

tsunamifury wrote: post #339

nobody9999 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hundreds to thousands of buildings over seventy years is a "singular success?" I personally know dozens of people who grew up in Mitchell-Lama housing. Tens to hundreds of thousands of people still do. But because other implementations are less successful (which is debatable, especially as you've provided zero examples), we should scrap successful ones? Or am I missing your point? Please do elucidate. Edit: It occurs…

Mitchell–Lama Housing Program Is specifically NOT public housing and you are calling me ignorant. JFC dude it’s a great private sector tax abatement program but this is a comment about Cabrini Green type projects.

I never said it was public housing. And it's not just a tax abatement program.

You go ahead and keep moving the goalposts, friend. You can do that all by yourself. kthxbai!

Re: What happens when housing prices go down?

#342

Post by trod1234 » Wed, Jul 23, 2025, 5:25 PM UTC

hollywood_court wrote: post #260

octopoc wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has the situation in Alabama gotten better over time? Have the Alabama workers been able to negotiate for more protections/better pay? Because that’s the explanation for why offshoring to countries with fewer regulations is a good thing. Yeah it’s tough at the beginning, but it theoretically gives the workers leverage over the company because there aren’t any cheaper sources of labor. It’s supposed to give the cheape…

Nope. It's weird because the company I worked for years ago still to this day spends a great deal of time and energy promoting anti-union stances and making sure the employees know that unions are bad for them. But at the same time, the company adopts a lot of union practices. For example, they pay based on tenure and not performance. So it doesn't matter how productive you are. You could be the single most productiv…

Sounds like a market distortion to me.

I have to wonder what kind of kickbacks they get for employing those people, or whether they have a work program based in whole or part on slave labor (quite common in a number of places, slavery isn't illegal for those who have been incarcerated).

Markets can't compete with slave labor, which explains why monopoly and other socialist practices take hold. Corruption has a long arm.

Re: What happens when housing prices go down?

#343

Post by indymike » Fri, Jul 25, 2025, 1:49 AM UTC

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #323

indymike wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be rational for the home owner, but for many losing money on the biggest investment they have is not really practical. Losing value on a percentage taxed asset is not really practical for govenrment. Also - the mortgage lender may not allow a sale at a lower than loan value price. The result is foreclosure, and even more loss in value.

Allowing our cities to become unlivable, inhospitable, and overall crazy places to accommodate letting people have enormous gains on an asset they do barely any work to improve was not practical but we did it for many years and it's time to stop.

> letting people have enormous gains on an asset they do barely any work to improve was not practical but we did it for many years and it's time to stop

This makes little sense. In a democracy, it will be hard to get people to vote against their own best interest.

Re: What happens when housing prices go down?

#344

Post by tsunamifury » Fri, Jul 25, 2025, 7:04 PM UTC

nobody9999 wrote: post #341

tsunamifury wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mitchell–Lama Housing Program Is specifically NOT public housing and you are calling me ignorant. JFC dude it’s a great private sector tax abatement program but this is a comment about Cabrini Green type projects.

I never said it was public housing. And it's not just a tax abatement program. You go ahead and keep moving the goalposts, friend. You can do that all by yourself. kthxbai!

Are you confused it’s literally what the thread is about. Jeeze dude.

Re: What happens when housing prices go down?

#345

Post by nobody9999 » Fri, Jul 25, 2025, 9:14 PM UTC

tsunamifury wrote: post #344

nobody9999 wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said it was public housing. And it's not just a tax abatement program. You go ahead and keep moving the goalposts, friend. You can do that all by yourself. kthxbai!

Are you confused it’s literally what the thread is about. Jeeze dude.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44634266

Re: What happens when housing prices go down?

#346

Post by ted_dunning » Tue, Jul 29, 2025, 4:28 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #277

kjkjadksj wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3% change really breaks your budget? Higher rates generally mean lower home prices anyhow making the effective mortgage rate more similar than anticipated.

Percentages don't work like this. It isn't a 3% change in rate, it is a doubling of the rate, and that will break the budget. You can find mortgage calculators to run whatever numbers you want, but it is hard to find any realistic scenario where it is less than $500/month, and for many over $1000/month. That amount of money will break any budget. I expect home prices to go down long term if interest rates remain as t…

Percentages don't work like that, either. Since buyers are mostly bound by available monthly budget, raising interest rates increases effective price, which lowers demand at a particular price point which drives total purchase price back down to get the monthly mortgage price closer to affordable.

Obviously, this feedback isn't entirely effective because buyers can simply opt out or delay a purchase but it does have substantial effect.

Thus, increasing interest does not have the full impact as predicted by assuming that purchase price is fixed.

Re: What happens when housing prices go down?

#347

Post by seanmcdirmid » Tue, Jul 29, 2025, 4:30 PM UTC

rwarfield wrote: post #77

This article is a mess. From the third paragraph: > What happens when prices actually start to fall? Because that’s not just a hypothetical. It’s already happening in places like Phoenix, Atlanta, Miami, Dallas... Then two paragraphs later > In The Atlantic, Rogé Karma recently pointed out that housing prices are rising fastest in the very cities once seen as escapes from high-cost coasts, places like Phoenix and Dal…

The ones that fall fast are the ones that have just risen fast.

But seriously, real estate busts used to be booms for artists, hipsters, entrepreneurs getting started with cheap real estate. The current mall bust is also turning out to be an opportunity of sorts. And Tokyo has long shown what creativity can do with surplus real estate and capacity. Not great for investors, sure, but it can be a net win for society.