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Home Prices Are Now Higher Than the Peak of the 2000s Housing Bubble

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Re: Home Prices Are Now Higher Than the Peak of the 2000s Housing Bubble

#72

Awesome. I've been trying to buy a home since 2015 or so and noting that housing prices continue to rise, without fail, regardless of economic or political climate. Economy is doing well? Price increase! Economy is doing terribly because of global pandemic? Price increase! I have been patiently waiting for the next "bubble" to pop, even as my realtor insists that oh no, we're not really in a bubble, this is just the…

Capitalism is predicated on the idea of perpetual and infinite growth. Those assumptions are reflected in many ways and we're going to need to rethink our economy and political systems with entirely different assumptions soon enough because we're already running into their limits.

Re: Home Prices Are Now Higher Than the Peak of the 2000s Housing Bubble

#73
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So basically all the important stuff, but hey, at least you can get a 50 inch flatscreen for 100 bucks on Black Friday.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/blogs/lookout/fed-official-heckle... (March 2011: Fed official heckled: ‘I can’t eat an iPad’)

The real answer to inflation is to start constructing homes from iPads and flatscreen televisions.

Re: Home Prices Are Now Higher Than the Peak of the 2000s Housing Bubble

#74

They cite the numbers in "real terms", which would mean inflation adjusted: > The average price of American homes, in real terms, is now the highest it's ever been Of course, you really need to be looking at mortgage rates to understand housing affordability: http://www.freddiemac.com/pmms/pmms30.html July 2021 average 30-year mortgage rate: 2.87% (with 0.7 points) 2008 12-month average 30-year mortgage rate: 6.03% (…

> excluding down payment

Therein lies the rub. It’s true that inflation adjusted average monthly mortgage payments have remained surprisingly constant over the last 40 years [*], since as you point out, low interest rates generally offset high home values (and vice versa). However, accruing enough cash in the first place to afford huge down payments keeps a lot of people out of the market who could otherwise afford the monthly payment.

As an aside, the quality of housing stock has improved dramatically over the last few decades, so that roughly constant average monthly payment actually buys a much better quality product today than in years past. I’m not sure how much of this is accounted for in hedonic adjustments.

[*] with the exception of the early 80s with its super high interest rates, and the housing bubble of the mid 2000s, with its super inflated home values without a commensurate drop in interest rates

Re: Home Prices Are Now Higher Than the Peak of the 2000s Housing Bubble

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is just the Chinese billionaires trying to hide their money before Xi Jinping takes it all. https://techcentral.co.za/xi-targets-chinas-richest/110293/

Use yes-and rather than no, for better results. Reminding myself as well. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes,_and ...

What's the yes-and version of that comment? Assuming you want to say basically the same thing then the answer to the question really is no.

Re: Home Prices Are Now Higher Than the Peak of the 2000s Housing Bubble

#76

Awesome. I've been trying to buy a home since 2015 or so and noting that housing prices continue to rise, without fail, regardless of economic or political climate. Economy is doing well? Price increase! Economy is doing terribly because of global pandemic? Price increase! I have been patiently waiting for the next "bubble" to pop, even as my realtor insists that oh no, we're not really in a bubble, this is just the…

I used to think 'no', but I think it pretty much can.

You can have 2 classes: property owners and non-owners.

The property owners have real estate that they can sell or collateralize to purchase different or additional real estate. This is why, for example, current California owners have no problem buying in e.g. Washington: even if a house in both places were $1billion*, they can just trade.

Obviously, non-owners may be priced out, but this doesn't affect the owners, and they, as a class, can ask for any amount to transfer the ownership.

TL;DR: In musical chairs, so long as there are no new chairs produced and nobody on a chair is forced to stand, there's no ceiling on the asking price for a chair.

*Neglecting transaction costs.

Re: Home Prices Are Now Higher Than the Peak of the 2000s Housing Bubble

#77

The ongoing eviction moratorium comes up quite a bit in real estate circles as one of the many reasons for current prices. Of course, the very low rates, high construction costs, demand to leave cities, and various other factors also come into play. However, yesterday I was very surprised to learn that the eviction moratorium that is preventing landlords from selling their properties is actually an order from the Cen…

https://api.politifact.com/article/2021/aug/04/cdcs-new-evic...

It is being litigated.

> Five justices — the three more liberal justices, plus Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh — supported keeping the moratorium in place. However, Kavanaugh emphasized in his appended statement that he agreed to continuing the moratorium only because it was about to end. As a matter of law, Kavanaugh wrote, he thought extending the moratorium further was unconstitutional.

Re: Home Prices Are Now Higher Than the Peak of the 2000s Housing Bubble

#78

They cite the numbers in "real terms", which would mean inflation adjusted: > The average price of American homes, in real terms, is now the highest it's ever been Of course, you really need to be looking at mortgage rates to understand housing affordability: http://www.freddiemac.com/pmms/pmms30.html July 2021 average 30-year mortgage rate: 2.87% (with 0.7 points) 2008 12-month average 30-year mortgage rate: 6.03% (…

Look up Case-Shiller home price index. In most markets, home values are much higher than they were in mid 2000's.

[1] https://wolfstreet.com/2021/07/27/most-splendid-housing-bubb...

Re: Home Prices Are Now Higher Than the Peak of the 2000s Housing Bubble

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the article is referring to 2007/2008 as peak of the 2000s housing bubble. Not 2000’s housing bubble.

They were still about 6.8% in 2007. Compared to a 3% interest rate today, on a $300,000 loan that's about $700/month difference in payment, about 50% increase. Housing prices have not increased by 50%. At these rates, they often still cheaper.

Is it possible that proportionally more mortgages were lent to riskier borrowers in years past, and as the years have gone on, for a variety of reasons, mortgages in general are now lent to less risky borrowers than before?

Also a conflating factor is if borrowers were perceived as riskier in previous years, but for whatever reasons, are now perceived as less risky.

Also, this is data is from a Freddie Mac website, so is it only for conforming loans? Could it be that many homes have moved up in price such that their mortgage information would no longer be reflected in this average from Freddie Mac because their mortgages are no longer conforming?

Re: Home Prices Are Now Higher Than the Peak of the 2000s Housing Bubble

#80

The ongoing eviction moratorium comes up quite a bit in real estate circles as one of the many reasons for current prices. Of course, the very low rates, high construction costs, demand to leave cities, and various other factors also come into play. However, yesterday I was very surprised to learn that the eviction moratorium that is preventing landlords from selling their properties is actually an order from the Cen…

They don't. A case went to the Supreme Court and said Congress needed to make that decision, not an unelected CDC, but that they wouldn't rescind the current existing order...which then expired. Biden basically said as much, and that he was going to do it anyway and extended it after it lapsed. For some reason, the news doesn't really cover that Biden is in direct violation of the Supreme Court with his latest extension and he knew, publicly said so, and did it anyway.

> Biden said on Tuesday he had sought out constitutional scholars to determine the CDC’s legal authority and “what could they do that is most likely to pass muster constitutionally.” The “bulk” of the scholarship reviewed by the White House said additional action by the CDC would not pass muster in the courts, Biden said, adding that there were some “key scholars” who said it could.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/03/eviction-moratorium...

The bulk of constitutional "experts" said it wasn't constitutional. He found one or more that didn't agree with that assessment, so he went with the few against the majority.

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