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Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

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Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#451

Post by MichaelBurge »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #420
MichaelBurge wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that sense, you don't own your body either: At any time, the government could send goons to shoot you or jail you or harvest your kidneys. Even if you leave the country, they could put a bounty on your head or send assassins. Sure, there's courts and laws, but they pick the judges and can choose to change the laws. They could pass a constitutional amendment tomorrow giving themselves the right to harvest your kidn…

What you say is absolutely correct. While you have governments that can legally steal everything from you just because they can, you'll never really be free. That said, there are degrees of freedom. Property taxes in the US are very high so I consider it an inferior degree of freedom compared to owning a house in a country where I don't have property taxes. The more corporation / income tax I have to pay the less fre…

That seems like it would very quickly turn into tribute to the local warlord.

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#452

Post by techsin101 »

halotrope wrote: post #450

Everyone seems to agree that speculation in housing is a global problem with adverse effects on communities and societies. Toronto seems to be a good example of how the end-game will look like. People are priced out of owning a home for good and/or have to leave places where they might have been living for their whole life. Rent controls don't seem to work, and just cancelling (by whatever means) the market for real…

high tax penalty on owning 5+ housing units

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#453

Post by cycrutchfield »

account42 wrote: post #445
cycrutchfield wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“profit from rent is amoral”. Care to elaborate on this? Does this ethical standard also extend to other human needs as well? For instance should farmers not be able to profit from providing food?

If the farmer disappears, the food will no longer be produced. If the landlord disappears, the house will still be there.

Oh ok, I get where you’re going with this now. Some Marxist bullshit

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#454

Post by turtledove »

cycrutchfield wrote: post #433
dvh wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You build apartment and sell it to people for profit.

No, profit is icky and illegal apparently.

Profiting from housing, yes, is not something I personally consider moral. But also, I believe that we don't need to meet my fairly radical moral stance to make housing more affordable and attainable for all.

We can make incremental progress here by just tweaking incentives. We can go further by reducing profits. It's not some binary all or nothing affair.

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#455

Post by jjav »

turtledove wrote: post #359
mutatio wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Nearly every case" is very wishy washy, I assume you have some specifics, what about trashing a property, who absorbs that cost? Living where one has historically lived is interesting, take London - you're implying it should be a birth right for natives - what about the immigrant flow into such cities, how would you reconcile the "right of natives" with human capital?

Not a birthright, I don't think it should move across generations, but I do think that it's needlessly cruel to force someone out of their home because wealthier people want to live there. As for tenants v landlords, I believe it should be difficult to evict tenants except in cases where the tenant is clearly a danger to others or to the home itself. If they are vandalizing the property, that should be an eviction. L…

> But I think tenants should be protected if, eg, their income drops due to a layoff or unforseen medical expense.

They should stay if they can't pay? Who takes the loss? It would be sensible to have a government program to help people in such circumstances. But if you'd be asking for the landlord to just take the loss, that's not sensible. The owner is probably barely breaking even on rent vs. costs, so they can't afford it.

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#456

Post by TrackerFF »

Every time we get some ridiculously small AND expensive apartment here in Norway, the newspapers usually write about it. For example, this 10 m^2 / 107 ft^2 apartment in Oslo: https://www.finn.no/realestate/homes/ad.html?finnkode=256395...

It was listed for a total price of 2.2M NOK / 235k USD. 12 years ago, it was sold for 240k NOK / 25k USD.

Or this: https://www.finn.no/realestate/homes/ad.html?finnkode=254704...

Which was sold for 2.5M NOK / 261k USD. It is 13 m^2 / 140 ft^2, and 11 years ago, the same apartment was sold for 325 NOK / 34k USD.

As you can see, both of these tiny apartments have increased by around %700-%900, or a 11-12 year gross CAGR of around 20%!

As you can imagine, these apartments are not meant for long-time living. These apartments have been bought and sold 3-5 times since 2010, and if I had to guess, they have been bought by the parents of students, and sold as soon as they've graduated. No-one has lost money on these apartments.

At least here in Norway, more so Oslo, real-estate pricing has slowly but steady outpaced the purchasing power of young people. In fact - over half of first buyers in Oslo are backed by parents / family. The ones that don't get help, probably have to rent and save for a longer time.

It is purely anecdotal, but I've seen this divide in a pretty stark way...those that get help from their parents, buy their first apartment straight out of university (sometimes even while being students), so around age 22-24. People that don't get any help, late 20s / early 30s.

While Oslo would be the worst place here for first-time buyers, most mid-sized cities in Norway are trailing these prices and trends.

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#457

Post by techsin101 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #55
maxerickson wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Square feet aren't a great affordability measure (they tend to come in rather larger lumps). In any case, why not just continue the era of abundance? We aren't really running short on space, and there is at least some indication that the lack of housing availability is a policy failure (rather than an expected outcome of some physical process or limit).

We lack space in the few urban areas people want to live in. If people were flexible about where they wanted to live, you’d think that the cheap land/lightly zoned places would prosper, but they don’t.

most of US cities have no public transportation, weird parking zonning rules that making it impossible to have small commercial scene and lack of parks.. just handful of cities are actual cities, not just offices for suburbs.

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#458

Post by digisign »

halotrope wrote: post #450

Everyone seems to agree that speculation in housing is a global problem with adverse effects on communities and societies. Toronto seems to be a good example of how the end-game will look like. People are priced out of owning a home for good and/or have to leave places where they might have been living for their whole life. Rent controls don't seem to work, and just cancelling (by whatever means) the market for real…

A good list.

Odd that, build enough homes for the population, is not mentioned however.

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#459

Post by turtledove »

cycrutchfield wrote: post #429
turtledove wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a meme that shows "leftist housing", and it depicts concrete tenements. It shows "capitalist housing", and it depicts tents under a bridge. Haha. But memes aside, no, there are many, many examples of public and social housing that are not concrete slums. Look at Singapore, Paris, the Marxhof in Vienna. Quayside Village in Vancouver. If you'd like, I can provide links to many examples from many countries aroun…

As many people have told you repeatedly throughout this thread, your understanding of the great success of glorious public housing worldwide is seriously misguided at best. But I suspect you most likely just glean all of your political opinions from memes, which could explain some things.

My apologies for bringing some levity to the discussion. It seems I've upset you, not the intent.

There's a lot of people building straw men in the comments, and then pointing out how flimsy those straw men are, I'll grant you that.

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#460

Post by turtledove »

notch656a wrote: post #441
turtledove wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seattle just built a major light rail expansion ahead of schedule and under budget. But I specifically believe in building more, smaller units. Places with eg 20 apartments. By building smaller scoped projects, costs are better understood up front, maintenance costs are lower, and you need less specialized construction expertise. Building 50 20-unit complexes to house a thousand families is going to serve everyone be…

This light rail [0]? [0] "Light-rail cost soars $1 billion" https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=20001213&slug... -------- Edit: here's another one "Sound Transit’s light-rail system, called Link, has also had its share of challenges. The 25 miles of light rail that voters were told would be completed by 2006 at a cost of $1.7 billion, have resulted in 23 miles of track which, when completed, will end up co…

Sort of? That's a very old article. The project was voted on as a $1.6B project, and was approved. It came in almost two hundred million under budget in 2016.

This is the project I'm describing: https://mynorthwest.com/24890/university-link-light-rail-to-...

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