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Priced out of home ownership
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Re: Priced out of home ownership
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is this happening everywhere right now? On Reddit I see this in so many places (US, UK, Europe, not sure about Asia)
I recall a thread from someone from South America in the Slovenia subreddit, where they said they wanted to move to Europe because it's impossible to afford a home where they currently live. The response was basically "yeah, welcome to the club pal". It's definitely a global issue, rising population mixed with late stage capitalism.
Is this late stage capitalism in the room with us now?
Re: Priced out of home ownership
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is this happening everywhere right now? On Reddit I see this in so many places (US, UK, Europe, not sure about Asia)
Situation in Europe is often reported in misleading ways. Everybody calls it "housing crisis" - but we do not have millions of homeless roaming the street. It is actually a "moving crisis" - people want to move to nicer places but can't afford it. I.e. here in Germany, we have close to 1M perfectly habitable empty flats/houses - but they are in rural areas or the countryside. Indeed there is high demand for urban are…
That's because a house 100km away from the nearest job is not cheap. Even rural area houses are very expensive compared to what jobs in those rural areas pay.
This makes them even more of a trap. The rents will go up. And yet, even more jobs will leave those places. And then you haven't saved up, because the amounts were tiny
Re: Priced out of home ownership
#94Same here in the Netherlands. I currently rent a 130m3 house for 2500 euros. 500 energy. 2500 euros daycare (4 kids). I think I spend around 6000, 7000 euros after taxes on fixed costs. I wont complain. My life is good, but for most peope here impossible to pay those amounts. Result is that lots of my friends with "normal" jobs end up living in small apartments far outside the cities or even move to a completely diff…
Why is this happening everywhere right now? On Reddit I see this in so many places (US, UK, Europe, not sure about Asia)
The strange thing is that while I definitely see it happening in many places around the world, not all the causes are the same. I think @moralestapia has it right: massive inflation is likely a root cause.
Re: Priced out of home ownership
#95In a lot of ways this is a problem creating itself.
The reason Home Ownership is desirable is that the pricing of houses go up faster then both inflation and depreciation caused by wear decreases the utility value of a dwelling, and the reason that houses are expensive is that the state actors are invested enough in this cycle to make sure it never really breaks.
In a real functional market there would be no real benefit to house ownership over long term leases. but were dealing with a market thats been deliberately broken by policies promoting home ownership for reasons that's fundamentally religious/dogmatic in nature.
Re: Priced out of home ownership
#96Younger people need to join the YIMBY movement in droves. Your economic future depends on removing the crushing restrictions on building new homes, especially homes in high wage cities. The older Boomer generation will never change its NIMBY views. Never.
So developers can build more low density unaffordable housing that includes nearly no social housing?
New market rate housing gives wealthier people something to buy so they stop bidding up the price of older homes. This immediately relieves price pressure on the older housing stock.
Leftist dreams of a government funded social housing utopia in the United States and the UK are just that: dreams. Reforming zoning on the other hand will strongly encourage developers to quickly add higher density housing in job rich urban areas.
Re: Priced out of home ownership
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
They will die though
1.8M/year (55+ cohort) is potentially not fast enough to bring about housing policy change in a timely manner from this alone. Non market housing is also a necessary component besides YIMBY. Housing locked up from market forces is housing that can remain affordable. Vienna is an example: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
I think you’ll find the real problem is that younger homeowners face the same incentives as old ones
Re: Priced out of home ownership
#98[flagged]
I dunno, spending years giving someone the same price as a mortgage (for me at least, back when i rented and decided to buy) and seeing almost nothing in return but convenience seems a pretty strong argument no?
Yea, renting has some advantages. However in my view many people are simply too poor to spend that kind of money on the convenience of not managing a house. Is it more work and liability to own a home? Yes, definitely. However i was looking at throwing away $168,000 when i was renting over the next ten years (assuming no price fluctuations, which also doesn't happen lol). I couldn't afford to spend that kind of money on convenience.
Plus there's America's (imo bad) idea that home ownership is an investment. Unfortunately, my home has doubled in price. So not only could i not afford to waste the money renting before, but now i've made significant money by simply not renting before. Where as i'd get the privilege to lose even more money by renting if i had stayed where i was before, since the rent has gone up - many times.
Is there another angle i'm missing? I rented for years, and now have owned for ~8 years or something. Renting has upsides, yes - if you've got the money. I don't think most people do, especially these days. Is there an argument i missed?
Re: Priced out of home ownership
#99Younger people need to join the YIMBY movement in droves. Your economic future depends on removing the crushing restrictions on building new homes, especially homes in high wage cities. The older Boomer generation will never change its NIMBY views. Never.
They will die though
In addition to others point out the timing issue, in many cases you'd end up buying a home that has been lived in for 40 years and is likely well due for expensive updates. Sure its a house and that's not nothing, but it may not really help with the "affordable" part that's missing today.
Re: Priced out of home ownership
#100The problem is pretty easy to fix. 50-70% of homes (Depends on Area) are owned by people over 58-70 (Baby Boomers). They don't have good senior apartment/living options. Make more senior housing and provide incentives for them to sell their homes. There are so few available affordable senior apartment options. It's really saddening. Most places have 5-10 year waiting lists, if the waiting list is open at all. Fixing…
Handouts to the homeowners does not feel like the right call here
Senior living centers are often atrocious and still can set people back over $10,000 a month. I think a program could be designed without being a handout.
One option could be if you’re going into a government run senior living center you need to pass that money down to whoever was going to inherit it/receive it through donation. And that has to be a taxable event to cover the cost of the subsidy on senior living.
People would hate that option because no one likes taxes but the private market is not getting us where we need to be. If people don’t like the option, no subsidy for them and they are free to figure out their own senior care. That money goes surprisingly fast.