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New US homeownership measure puts people first

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Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#351

Post by xyzzyz »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #133
rayiner wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Health care, housing, and education are the big three drivers of mandatory expenses in most peoples' lives. BLS says housing, transportation, and food are the top 3. Insurance/pensions is #4, but that also includes car and homeowners insurance and retirement contributions. Over the past 50 years, both transportation and food got cheaper. Moreover, clothing actually used to be one of the top categories, but that’s f…

Transportation has got cheaper? That seems at odds with what I'm seeing (although I was only 12 years old 50 years ago).

Gas prices have barely changed in inflation adjusted terms over last 50 years, and if anything, the trend is slightly downwards. At the same time, inflation adjusted incomes went up, and cars became significantly more fuel efficient.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#352

Post by marcusverus »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #332
marcusverus wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no such thing as "jobs natives don't want", only "wages natives don't want". > Maybe, or maybe they just employ less people and less things get built. The foreign born population residing in the US fell from ~15% to ~5% from 1920-1970. It was one of the most prosperous and productive periods in human history.

US was prosperous post war because the industrial capacity of the rest of the world was destroyed. Comparing that time period to any other doesnt make sense. We can only employ natives if we want, we just have to accept that prices of things that are currently run on immigrant labor will go up, and a lot less of it will be produced. Personally I am unwilling to make that tradeoff but obviously you dont have to agree.…

Everyone has their own priorities, I guess. I'm not willing to drive down Americans' wages to save a buck on strawberries.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#353

Post by therealdrag0 »

vinyl7 wrote: post #250
BeetleB wrote: post #217

Looking at this, seeing that 50% are homeowners is actually astoundingly good. In a lot of countries 50% cannot afford to be homeowners. This is an international community here on HN, would love to hear takes from other countries.

Instead of praising a mediocre number, maybe we should strive to make that number 90%

Why is ownership a goal? Housing is the goal.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#354

Post by rayiner »

daemonologist wrote: post #168
rawgabbit wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a hard time believing healthcare expenses is not in the top three.

It might be that a lot of the cost doesn't show up in the data because it comes out of your paycheck before it's "yours," in the form of your employer's contribution to health insurance premiums. (Anecdotally this is true for me - "my" portion of premiums would not be in the top three, but the total premiums are #2 after housing (for a while when I had roommates they were #1, which is ridiculous).) (BLS gets this dat…

Correct. You can argue this is money that you’d otherwise get if it wasn’t going to healthcare, and that’s a fair point. But then you have to count that in the top line income.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#355

Post by inigyou »

Xirdus wrote: post #182
applfanboysbgon wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If worse comes to worst, you can move another hour or two away from the big city. It is rarely the case that someone who can't afford housing in their current location can afford to move away from their support networks to a place with no jobs. Places with significantly cheaper rent almost invariably give you significantly less income, if you can even get a job without connections (which are important in general, b…

You misunderstand. Keep your job. Move away. Drive to work 3 hours one way everyday. Have no life except work, commute, sleep and family. And yes, it will drive your QoL to the ground, I'm fully aware of that. I'm just saying it's neither impossible nor infeasible nor unheard of. It's "merely" undesirable. Extremely undesirable. But possible.

If your solution makes your life so bad that suicide is better, it isn't a solution.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#356

Post by inigyou »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #138
inigyou wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost of housing mostly isn't in the building. If it was, we'd just build smaller and have houses. But you can't because the land costs too much.

"If it was, we'd just build smaller and have houses." Someone needs to tell the big developers. They keep turning out McMansions (and somehow selling them?). There's no profit in building smaller.

Yep. If you're already paying for whatever the city says is the minimum amount of land you can buy, the house on top is trivial.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#357

Post by inigyou »

win311fwg wrote: post #106
inigyou wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost of housing mostly isn't in the building. If it was, we'd just build smaller and have houses. But you can't because the land costs too much.

Why would you build a small new home when you can buy a large used home for the same price?

If homes were expensive we'd buy less of them.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#358

Post by pfisherman »

ecshafer wrote: post #192

Housing can not be a viable asset class, or it will continue to rise in prices. Step 1 is Land Value Taxes. Step 2 is remove/greatly reduce zoning, allow construction and streamline the process. If you allow density, building up, and incentivize it, then it will be built. Developers spend tens of thousands of dollars in permits and interest payments before they can put a shovel in the ground. Being a landlord isn't r…

I think land value tax is misguided. Issue is what happens to retirees on a fixed income when value of their property increases? Are they forced from their home to lower priced area? Regardless of how one might feel about the morality of that it is also worth asking whether this might create perverse incentives to become landlords?

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#359

Post by rayiner »

dachworker wrote: post #149
rayiner wrote: post #39

This isn’t “putting people first,” it’s baking in the cultural assumption that adults live separately from kin. Consider the examples: > Housing unit 1. A couple owns their home. The woman’s parents live with them. > Housing unit 2. A couple owns their home. Their son, a recent college graduate, lives with them. > Housing unit 3. A man owns his home. A friend lives with him. > Housing unit 4. A couple owns their home…

It's an economic metric, not a political statement.

The article touts that it’s a “homeownership measure [that] puts people first,” which seems like it’s trying to at least be politically relevant.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#360

Post by em-bee »

BeetleB wrote: post #217

Looking at this, seeing that 50% are homeowners is actually astoundingly good. In a lot of countries 50% cannot afford to be homeowners. This is an international community here on HN, would love to hear takes from other countries.

that number does not feel right. global statistics show only very few countries with a homeownership of less than 50%, two of which are germany and switzerland. and there it's not because they can't afford it but because the cities where people want to live do not even offer enough properties for sale because the majority of housing is owned by large rental businesses.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/home-owne...

the europe average is around 70% and globally i expect it is similar. unfortunately numbers for africa are mostly missing. the few examples there suggest that homeownership is either high, or extremely low, which means you could be correct, but i'd like to see actual numbers. and then it is still a question why it is low. it could be because land is owned by government, tribes or private and not for sale.

https://globalhousingdatabase.com/ shows more african countries, with most of them being medium to high. but it also hows high for nigeria, whereas the other statistic shows nigeria with 25%, and south africa and kenya are shown as much lower here compared to above.

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