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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

#61

Post by alpha_squared »

BobbyTables2 wrote: post #49
FiatLuxDave wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, the problem isn't so much a lack of jobs or a lack of homes but rather that they aren't in the same place. In small town America, the problem isn't a lack of housing stock, it's that it is hard to afford it with few good paying jobs. In big city America, the problem isn't lack of jobs, it's that it is hard to find a job which pays enough for you to afford the limited housing stock. I think this…

Always hated how every startup sets up office in downtown San Francisco or similarly absurd cost of living area… Could pay people well but half as much and have nice office in Colorado mountains, Vermont, or somewhere else beautiful… Of course, startups rarely seem interested in saving money…

It's a little unfair to blame startups, they largely just set up shop where the capital is. Most VCs required startups to be headquartered near by for easier management/communication. The tech scene in SV had such exceptionalism that it quite literally viewed any startup not in SV as an inevitable failure. Even YC mandated startups be in SV.

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

#62

Post by gottorf »

mingus88 wrote: post #54
Dig1t wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many places in the US where you can buy a house for less than 50k. If you want prices to drop in popular areas then we have to make it easy for people to actually build houses and increase supply in popular areas. Of course giving homeowners a say about whether housing is allowed to be built near them, of course they are going to vote against it because they have an incentive to keep prices high.

I think it’s natural for homeowners to be resistant to new builds in the same way office workers hated the move to cubicles. I was in the Midwest recently and it was wild to see a block of high density houses in the middle of farmland. Houses that look exactly the same, shoved onto tiny lots with little gap between them, and surrounded by miles of corn. These are obviously attractive to developers as they are maximiz…

> 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.

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

#63

Post by tennisflyi »

donatj wrote: post #22

I've been casually job hunting for a couple months since rounds of layoffs started at my company. I've applied to umpteen places and haven't had a single callback. In my twenty+ years working as a dev, this is the worst I've seen it since about 2005.

Good luck. Reddit job hunting(?) sub has it pegged at ~400 applications, IIRC

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

#64

Post by itake »

Dig1t wrote: post #45
chao- wrote: post #30

It is difficult to balance the competing priorities of "home ownership is widely affordable" and "home prices must always go up". When the balance is not broadly possible, our system seems to favor "home prices must always go up", at least in the short term.

There are many places in the US where you can buy a house for less than 50k. If you want prices to drop in popular areas then we have to make it easy for people to actually build houses and increase supply in popular areas. Of course giving homeowners a say about whether housing is allowed to be built near them, of course they are going to vote against it because they have an incentive to keep prices high.

Do the homes selling for less than 50k have a job market to supports owning a home at that price?

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

#65

Post by clipsy »

eigen wrote: post #24
clipsy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if you sell your house for a million dollar where will You move to? Literally anywhere in the "bottom" 99% of the country by real estate costs?

median home price was 410k in 2025Q2 [1] so it may take most/all the net gains to purchase a median house. 1. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS

Complaining because you can "only" afford to buy a median house without needing a mortgage has to be one of the more shockingly out of touch things I've heard on this very out of touch site.

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

#66

Post by itake »

winter_blue wrote: post #32
yolovoe wrote: post #28

Just a single data point against this. I got interviews with 4 companies out of 30 or so I applied to. Cleared all the onsites. Think FAANG, famous hedge fund, popular data analytics platform, and defense. 4 different industries. Job market's not the best, but it's also not that bad if you have 5 YOE+. Offers were good, ~$50-100K over my current pay. So many people are using AI during the interviews to cheat, as long…

Was this very recent? The job markets for software engineers has been horrid, at least from mid 2022 to mid 2025. Maybe it’s changed now? Anecdotally, I know a few engineers with 10+ YOE in NYC, Seattle, and California, all with actual FAANG or FAANG adjacent work experience, who couldn’t find jobs. One of whom even took a minimum wage job, and another who nearly did the same as well. Maybe the tax code change is kic…

My friend that left cruise got a 2.3x pay bump (post-ipo) moving to Figma in Feb 2025. He also had interviews at Meta and other FANGA (where he used to work).

If tier3 companies are paying $540k-$1.5m for staff in 2025, then I assume the market is turned around.

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

#67

Post by gottorf »

FiatLuxDave wrote: post #36
toomuchtodo wrote: post #2

There aren’t enough homes or jobs. What do?

As far as I can tell, the problem isn't so much a lack of jobs or a lack of homes but rather that they aren't in the same place. In small town America, the problem isn't a lack of housing stock, it's that it is hard to afford it with few good paying jobs. In big city America, the problem isn't lack of jobs, it's that it is hard to find a job which pays enough for you to afford the limited housing stock. I think this…

> In big city America, the problem isn't lack of jobs, it's that it is hard to find a job which pays enough for you to afford the limited housing stock.

Maybe the more fundamental problem is that in big city America, it's easy for existing homeowners to band together to forbid any further housing stock from being built.

See Silicon Valley: amazing concentration of high-paying jobs, laughably low population density.

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

#68

Post by Hammershaft »

daedrdev wrote: post #44

It's basically illegal to build dense homes in most cities. And despite what people say, the vacancy rate is at historic lows so its not just "people are keeping them empty" Its a disgrace that people deny the supply crunch we are in

Housing as an investment creates all kinds of terribly misaligned political incentives for local democracies. A land value tax would've helped by shifting people's nest egg from the value of their homes to their accumulated savings from income.

As it is, NIMBYism is likely the biggest driver of rising costs of living, rising homelessness, rising municipal debt, and generational class divides.

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

#69

Post by mingus88 »

gottorf wrote: post #62
mingus88 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s natural for homeowners to be resistant to new builds in the same way office workers hated the move to cubicles. I was in the Midwest recently and it was wild to see a block of high density houses in the middle of farmland. Houses that look exactly the same, shoved onto tiny lots with little gap between them, and surrounded by miles of corn. These are obviously attractive to developers as they are maximiz…

> 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.

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.

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

#70

Post by Hammershaft »

bsder wrote: post #20

Nobody is switching jobs because if you move you likely have to switch two jobs rather than just one. Improving mobility means that you have to make a single earner household a viable pathway again. That means bring house prices down and subsidizing childcare. Which would cost a bunch of billionaires a couple of pennies. So it will never happen.

The problem with building more homes and bringing down the cost of housing isn't a couple billionaires as much as a massive geriatric class of NIMBY homeowners.
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