Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A record 242 US cities now have starter homes that cost $1M

investors.zillowgroup.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 104 posts

Re: A record 242 US cities now have starter homes that cost $1M

#81

Post by anal_reactor »

littlexsparkee wrote: post #79
anal_reactor wrote: post #77

I have a theory that the housing crisis is caused by the dating crisis. Statisticians estimate that in the Netherlands we're missing 400 000 houses, while we have 1,2 million people aged 30 to 60 living alone. If two-thirds of those people married each other, the entire housing crisis would be solved overnight. And it's worth pointing out that people used to marry each other at much higher rate than they do now, so i…

Do you have a source against the smartphone claim? There was a recent NBER paper in favor of this hypothesis https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48444543 The GFC housing bust happened at the same time but note that the drop in fertility was most severe for teens so the phone effect predates the shortfall in units built

The smartphone claim is based on "people have started to prefer living alone long before smartphones became a thing", but TBH that's the weakest claim in my comment.

Re: A record 242 US cities now have starter homes that cost $1M

#83

Post by thelastgallon »

Danox wrote: post #62
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #2

" The housing problem hasn't been solved" This assumes it is a problem that is being addressed. When housing values soar, there are people getting rich off of that. The "solution" is devaluation of people's assets, and all politics is local, and all local politics is housing values. As clearly is a supply and demand issue. Supplies clearly being artificially suppressed. Of course, the housing market merely reflects e…

All of the English speaking capitalistic countries are suffering from the same problem the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. Housing un affordability for the next generation coming up, starter homes in California are easily at least 500,000 the old two bedroom one car garage starter house I grew up in cost $550,000 today built in the 1925. There is no way anyone in the surrounding area…

> All of the English speaking capitalistic countries are suffering from the same problem the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand.

A third world country like India has costlier real estate than any of those. A 2nd rate metro has apartments in high rise buildings for $500K - $1M. Unbelievably expensive. Then there are villa communities (equivalent of single family homes, suburbs), which are even more costlier. I keep asking people how do they afford these and how will this sustain, nobody has an answer about how these are afforded but everyone thinks the growth will continue. The usual problems of mosquitoes (dengue, malaria), water problems, power outages, lifts not working, worst air quality, etc, etc .... looks like the only thing copied from western world is super costly real estate.

Re: A record 242 US cities now have starter homes that cost $1M

#84

Post by jameshart »

casey2 wrote: post #65
xnx wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. I meant to point out that "million dollar home" has a certain psychological meaning but it's the same as what a $750K home was just 7 years ago. Mortgage payment vs. household income is probably the best way to assess affordability.

Nope you have to take property tax into account and the median is skewed due to prop 13

That’s California-specific

Re: A record 242 US cities now have starter homes that cost $1M

#85

Post by thunky »

lenerdenator wrote: post #3
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #2

" The housing problem hasn't been solved" This assumes it is a problem that is being addressed. When housing values soar, there are people getting rich off of that. The "solution" is devaluation of people's assets, and all politics is local, and all local politics is housing values. As clearly is a supply and demand issue. Supplies clearly being artificially suppressed. Of course, the housing market merely reflects e…

Exactly. For most people, the housing problem is that their house isn't worth more. My parents were whining a few months ago about the possibility of new apartments being built not far from their house. Why? More noise, more traffic, more people. Things that would impact the value of their nearly debt-free home. Meanwhile most people my age (mid-30s) who don't have a home have more-or-less given up on the idea of get…

> More noise, more traffic, more people. Things that would impact the value of their nearly debt-free home.

Maybe they just don't want the noise and traffic, and they don't really care about the impact on their house value.

Seems like you're jumping to a conclusion.

Re: A record 242 US cities now have starter homes that cost $1M

#86

Post by robocat »

xnx wrote: post #54
swatcoder wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This tells you more about inflation methodology than it does home affordability.

Yes. I meant to point out that "million dollar home" has a certain psychological meaning but it's the same as what a $750K home was just 7 years ago. Mortgage payment vs. household income is probably the best way to assess affordability.

> Mortgage payment vs. household income is probably the best way to assess affordability.

Except that effect and cause are counterintuitive.

People bid against each other on houses to the limit of affordability (maximum payments). With somewhat different dynamics for existing mortgages.

So house prices increase if income increases.

And house prices increase if interest rates fall.

And house prices increase if mortgage terms are made longer.

So affordability doesn't act like you think it might, because how people compete really matters.

Re: A record 242 US cities now have starter homes that cost $1M

#88

Post by tbeseda »

bombcar wrote: post #15

Apparently this means that the top house of the bottom 1/3rd is now $1m in 242 cities.

Technically, "the top house of the bottom 1/3rd is at least $1m"

The title of the article is not helpful.

Even "In 242 cities[1], 2/3 of homes are more than $1M" is better.

[1]where "city" is ambiguous

Re: A record 242 US cities now have starter homes that cost $1M

#89

Post by RestlessMind »

devolving-dev wrote: post #71
thelastgallon wrote: post #58

Housing in US is one of the easiest ways to launder money: https://globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/corruption-and-money-... Housing as an investment is bad policy. If your house appreciates, it doesn't mean that you can sell it and buy another which is cheaper. All livable (and unlivable) houses have appreciated and it will cost at least that much to buy another. It is far more likely your new house will cost a lot mo…

You'll make more money when you downsize or move to a cheaper city or country for retirement if your house goes up in price. If you own a house in San Francisco you can sell, move to a vlcol city, buy a new house, invest the remainder, and retire. You probably will want a smaller house once the kids move out too.

> move to a cheaper city or country for retirement if your house goes up in price

What kind of life experience would lead to such a conclusion? It's almost like you have no idea what a community is - with one's friends, neighbors, familiar shops, clubs, church etc. Money is not everything in life. Any policy which forces people in their late 60's to uproot and go somewhere else to rebuild their lives is bound to face a very angry backlash. A mindset like yours is why we got prop 13 here in California.

Post reply on HN