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

Priced out of home ownership

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

811–820 of 1001 posts

Re: Priced out of home ownership

#811

Post by bobthepanda »

mattgibson wrote: post #808
rndmize wrote: post #796

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, lack of building _is_ the main problem. It doesn't matter if the demand for homes is "artificial" or not - the easiest solution is to build more. > Ask yourself, do Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the US, Britain, Ireland, etc, all have the same inability to build or is there maybe some other common cause? This is something I've wondered, and I'm of the opinion there's two reasons that are rarely discussed. One i…

You really need to provide data to make that assertion. Shortages of buildings are not the only reason that property prices can be high. Properties are made up of a building and a plot of land that it's attached to. Whilst we can nake more buildings, we can't make more land, so the land in a given location is by definition going to be in a permanent state of shortage. If more poeple want to live in that location OR (…

Land price is inherently tied to buildings though, in the sense that the cap of value one can realize from land is the maximum square footage you can build by zoning.

Land that you can develop into multifamily that still has capacity is getting ever rarer. If you poll Americans the preference split is 60-40 suburbia for suburbs vs dense walkability, and yet in metropolitan regions the residential land allocation looks more like 93-7. This shows up in square footage prices, where dense walkability is priced much higher per square foot.

Re: Priced out of home ownership

#812

Post by nostrademons »

kurthr wrote: post #763
derlvative wrote: post #707

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a lot of mental gymnastics to pretend people don't need places to live. More people are born, hence more housing is needed.

Actually, California population (for example) has fallen by >400k over the last several years. The first falling year was 2019, 2020 saw a small rise ( 300k, 2022 a fall of ~150k, and 2023 a fall of ~50k. https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/states/california... That includes both births/deaths and in/out migration. Population growth rate has been generally falling since 1990 (except for a peak in 2000) and sig…

Crowding is huge in California though. The starting point was "multiple unrelated families living in one house." If the population has dropped by 1% but you started with 3 families per house, you still have (to some rounding error) 3 families per house.

Re: Priced out of home ownership

#813

Post by geraldhh »

rndmize wrote: post #796
tmnvix wrote: post #274

People intuitively jump to the conclusion that the problem is caused by a lack of building. While more building would help, a lack of it isn't the main cause of this problem. Ask yourself, do Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the US, Britain, Ireland, etc, all have the same inability to build or is there maybe some other common cause? In my view this is symptomatic of a more fundamental issue - global asset price infla…

No, lack of building _is_ the main problem. It doesn't matter if the demand for homes is "artificial" or not - the easiest solution is to build more. > Ask yourself, do Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the US, Britain, Ireland, etc, all have the same inability to build or is there maybe some other common cause? This is something I've wondered, and I'm of the opinion there's two reasons that are rarely discussed. One i…

> It doesn't matter if the demand for homes is "artificial" or not - the easiest solution is to build more.

crafting a "i owe you a house" and giving it to the investor while squatting the real estate seems much more efficient

Re: Priced out of home ownership

#814

Post by nayuki »

cgh wrote: post #441
tmnvix wrote: post #274

People intuitively jump to the conclusion that the problem is caused by a lack of building. While more building would help, a lack of it isn't the main cause of this problem. Ask yourself, do Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the US, Britain, Ireland, etc, all have the same inability to build or is there maybe some other common cause? In my view this is symptomatic of a more fundamental issue - global asset price infla…

Yes, at one time it was estimated that roughly 1/3 of Vancouver’s condo supply was vacant. So the city implemented an empty homes tax [0] and promptly raised $115,000,000 in tax revenue [1]. However, the tax is still far too low and it contains various loopholes that allows developers to hold condos empty for years until deep-pocketed buyers show up [2]. Vancouver isn’t unique. Housing is being traded like poker chip…

> it was estimated that roughly 1/3 of Vancouver’s condo supply was vacant

Did you misread something? Maybe from this post:

> https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-empty-homes-tax-st...

> Empty Homes Tax has reduced Vancouver's number of vacant homes by 36%

> After five years of the EHT being in effect, the total number of vacant properties within Vancouver has fallen to 1,398 homes or 36% fewer properties compared to 2017, when the tax regime first launched.

The statement about 36% is a relative percentage, not absolute percentage points. What happened is that ~2184 homes were vacant in 2017, and fell by 36% to 1398 in 2022.

It's saying that of the homes that were originally vacant, there is 36% less of that now. It is not saying that of all homes that exist, the vacancy rate decreased by 36%.

Re: Priced out of home ownership

#815

Post by ben_w »

tossandthrow wrote: post #735
ben_w wrote: post #652

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a different problem entirely. I've been looking at getting a house built, and that starts at about €200k*, but the land in Berlin is at least another €200k on top of that (and usually more). If I was willing to live in the back end of nowhere, I can get the land for almost nothing, halving the total cost. But then I'd be living in the back end of nowhere, and turning that into an interesting town (let al…

EUR 400k for a newly build home in the greater Berlin area seems like extremely affordable in my opinion. Houses, like other goods, decrease in value over time. A new house should be significantly more expensive than a 50 year old house - just like a car.

> EUR 400k for a newly build home in the greater Berlin area seems like extremely affordable in my opinion.

I was picking the absolute lowest cost for an example, so on one hand it should have.

On the other hand, what's that in "years of average income", and does it seem reasonable that half of this is the land itself?

Re: Priced out of home ownership

#816

Post by suroot »

apwell23 wrote: post #714

all housing posts on HN can be summarized with this without reading any of the comments all housing posts have the following discussions 1. housing shouldn't be an investment 2. 'local democracy' always turns into nimby 3. something about gentrification 4. something about govt incentives/disincentives: don't give tax breaks for homeowners, tax second home ownership ect . 5. something about airbnb 6. some comparisons…

[dead]

Re: Priced out of home ownership

#817

Post by carom »

tmnvix wrote: post #274

People intuitively jump to the conclusion that the problem is caused by a lack of building. While more building would help, a lack of it isn't the main cause of this problem. Ask yourself, do Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the US, Britain, Ireland, etc, all have the same inability to build or is there maybe some other common cause? In my view this is symptomatic of a more fundamental issue - global asset price infla…

>Too many properties are being used as investments and not as a primary residence.

Following this logic it would be a net positive to buy an apartment building, move everyone out, and live in it as a single family home.

Re: Priced out of home ownership

#818

Post by boppo1 »

tmnvix wrote: post #274

People intuitively jump to the conclusion that the problem is caused by a lack of building. While more building would help, a lack of it isn't the main cause of this problem. Ask yourself, do Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the US, Britain, Ireland, etc, all have the same inability to build or is there maybe some other common cause? In my view this is symptomatic of a more fundamental issue - global asset price infla…

I try to explain the ills of interest rate intervention to people all the time and they act like I'm a conspiracy theorist. The problem will likely not get better.

Re: Priced out of home ownership

#819

Post by tuatoru »

946 comments!

Here is mine. The Boomers, the generation born 1945 - 1965, benefited from affordable housing, and when it grew up, set about making housing an investment.

'Affordable ' and 'investment' are mutually exclusive. That is why supply is not keeping up with demand, and why there are so many unoccupied houses.

Re: Priced out of home ownership

#820

Post by QuarterReptile »

tmnvix wrote: post #274

People intuitively jump to the conclusion that the problem is caused by a lack of building. While more building would help, a lack of it isn't the main cause of this problem. Ask yourself, do Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the US, Britain, Ireland, etc, all have the same inability to build or is there maybe some other common cause? In my view this is symptomatic of a more fundamental issue - global asset price infla…

>Cheap credit causes an increase in demand. This is not demand for homes but additional 'artificial' demand for properties as investments. Think short term rentals, second homes, land banked properties, etc. By definition, only investment properties can be underutilised - owner occupied homes are occupied! So in an environment that encourages property investment you will see more underutilisation.

An important nitpick: cheap credit intensifies the search for returns. You need to consider why those races end in real estate. In the US, at least, the answer is that the American single family house is the single most privileged asset class in the history of the world. The entire economy assumes that housing prices will grow at a rate that outpaces inflation. You cannot, in that system, be a person who calmly watches to evaluate the correctness of the hypothesis.

No, you shut up and push. Whether you're the President or the Fed or some affordable housing commission, you shut up and push for housing as an appreciating asset.

Post reply on HN