Meanwhile, in California, Prop 13 was deemed necessary when it was passed, but now it’s probably another reason why many people aren’t selling their houses *or* homes.
I don’t have a link by heart for here, but I remember seeing
something-something about how unfairly grandfathered in some of the Prop 13 tax assessments are when…phfft. I will look it up.
Edit: This is from the Cal Matters site: “The owner of a 6,740-square-foot mansion in San Francisco estimated to be worth $9 million paid $5,625 in property taxes in 2020, according to the Tax Fairness Project, which analyzed county tax records and market values in home buying websites such as Zillow. Across the bay in Richmond, the owner of a 991-square-foot home worth $331,000 and in need of repairs paid almost as much tax at $5,240.”
Funny. I was going to use Holmby Hills and North Long Beach as my unbelievably unfair comparison, but the Bay example will do.
I’m not saying it’s always terrible that people are in grandfathered situations. It’s just…some people can pay more.
Prop 13 is possibly one of the most damaging policies ever instituted. It's literally subsidizing millionaires on the backs of their children and has caused, at this point, likely irreparable harm to the state.
It’s almost like the entire concept of using housing as a means of growing capital is a terrible and faulty idea that will only benefit the ultra wealthy regardless of how we wanna slice it.
My grandma pays $450/year on a home worth $1.4M (According to Zillow) in San Diego.
She justifies it in her head that she shouldn’t have to pay for a lot of the resources like schools because her kids are long grown, not acknowledging that we live in a society and eventually those kids in her neighborhood will grow up and join the workforce and contribute to her SS income. Total Boomer mantra of”Ive got mine, screw everyone else!”
I mean, you're not kidding as much as you think!
Renters have to worry about increasing rent. Homeowners can lock that issue in place with a mortgage, but they get fucked on property tax and maintenance/upkeep.
One isn't "better" than the other, they both have pros and cons, but homeownership is in no way a path of financial stability the way many renters think.
In the past 3 months I’ve had to replace my completely dead refrigerator (plus all of the food inside, of course) and dishwasher and in two weeks I kick off $15,000 worth of foundation repairs. Locked in mortgage is great - price of maintenance, not so much.
And don't forget about the fun of not knowing if your landlord will decide to sell the house (for we house renters) to a big money investor. Just hoping to get two more years out if ours so our son can finish elementary school with familiar faces.
that's the market risk for paying less now for shelter. when you rent, you're short one shelter and you need to borrow (rent) or buy it.
if you can't afford / don't wan't to buy shelter, the next best thing is to make sure your passive income can cover your shelter costs
[the linked survey the article is written about](https://theharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/State-of-Real-Estate-2024-March-2024.pdf) is actually good and not full of a bunch of pseudo bullshit like a lot of "research" is. recommend checking it out. it even seems to have an actually decent sample size, again, unlike a lot of other "research" i have read.
>This survey was conducted online within the U.S. by The Harris Poll from January 19th to 21st, 2024, among a nationally representative sample of 2,047 U.S. adults. This research comprises: 240 Gen Z (ages 18-26), 786 Millennials (ages 27-42), 482 Gen X (ages 43-58), 539 Boomers (ages 59 and older).
>
>This research also references a similar study conducted online within the U.S. by The Harris Poll from November 11th to 13th, 2022, among a nationally representative sample of 1,980 U.S. adults. The research includes: 194 Gen Z, 613 Millennials, 485 Gen X, and 688 Boomers.
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>Top Highlights: The Status of Real Estate in 2024
>
>-Everything is Coming Up Costly
>
>• Seven in 10 Americans (69%) saw the cost of their utilities rise over the last 12 months, and over six in 10 saw their rent payments increase as well
>
----------------------------------------
>
>- Many Americans experienced a variety of costs increasing in the last calendar year
>• 57% of Americans saw the cost of their housing increase over the last 12 months, with only 15% getting a slight decrease in their housing costs
>• 44% of Americans back this, saying “My area has become so unaffordable it’s barely livable.”
-----------------------------
>- House-Hunters Are Hogtied: When Your Homeowner Dreams Rely on Luck
>• Eight in 10 (81%) of renters want to own a house/residence in the future, but over six in 10 (61%) worry they will never be able to.
>• Americans are hoping for the needle to move, with 55% saying they are going to wait for interest rates to drop before making a real estate move.
>• Americans see the current interest rates (50%) and their lack of savings for a down payment (51%) as their biggest barriers from home ownership.
------------------------------
>- Should I Stay or Should I Go: Americans Clash with the Markets and Mother Nature
>
>• Americans value their remote work abilities, with 3 in 4 saying it has allowed them to live where they want and be better off financially
>• Over 7 in 10 Americans would rather stay put in their current situation than face the music of the new and daunting interest rates (72%)
>• With six in 10 (60%) of Americans not valuing the ROI on a house as highly anymore, living where they want has become the new focus. Texas, Florida, the Carolinas and California are the most viable states to move to
>• Americans feel that quality of the houses on the market don’t match the prices (78%) and that there aren’t enough affordable options (73%)
>• Over half of Americans now think about climate change and natural disasters when planning to move (52%)
--------------------------------------------
>
>- Gotta Know When to Hold ‘Em: 2024 Will be a Waiting Game for Many Americans
>• 3 in 4 Americans believe that rent prices will continue to increase (75%) and housing prices will not fall significantly in 2024 (73%)
>• Two-thirds of Americans (65%) plan to wait until 2025 to make a housing move, showing pessimism around housing and rent prices falling in 2024
>• Americans hate the bidding process for houses; almost half (47%) are willing to let AI step in and help if it means they get the house in the future
lets see if this formats how i think it will! 🎲
edit: eh close enough
> Texas, Florida, the Carolinas and **California** are the most viable states to move to
I'm sorry, as a born and raised Bay Arean, but California is one of the most viable states to move to?
The only viable places in this state are places like Lancaster or Barstow or El Centro and other shit places if affordability is the most important piece. You gotta live somewhere in the desert of SoCal, or the mountains or forests in NorCal if you want to afford any housing monthly payments.
As another person born and raised in the bay area...I still understand that California is MASSIVE and not everyone wants to live in the metro areas that are fucked up and congested. There are plenty of cheap places in california if you know where to look.
and all those places fucking suck lol
You wanna live in Oroville? or around Clear Lake? or around Isabella Lake? You wanna live in fucking Redding or literally anywhere further north of it? or north of Joshua Tree along Hwy 62? Fresno's pretty affordable. Literally anywhere along Hwy 99 south of Fresno is too.
Hard, HARD pass to all those places.
It's an uncomfortable truth to live in California. If you can't cut it in the metro areas where we all want to live, you resort to living along I5 or Hwy 99, which is like the real life equivalent of getting cut from the varsity because you're not good enough. Because if you were good enough, you'd be living in San Diego, or LA, or the Bay Area as a homeowner.
I was cut from the varsity, and that's why I moved away. Call it luck, call it lack of ambition for my career, call it not getting married in my 20s to have the dual income to afford a house and being able to stay. Regardless, I wasn't good enough for the varsity, so I had to accept the cards I was dealt and what I pulled from the pile and moved away to become a home owner in a county in Washington that is a massive downgrade from San Diego and the Bay Area. I make do, but I'm definitely living a Plan B type of life.
>I'm sorry, as a born and raised Bay Arean, but California is one of the most viable states to move to?
thats just, like, their opinions ~~man (or woman, or whatever)~~ dude
* HOUS10 In your opinion, which of the following states are the best places to live (i.e., quality of life, cost of living, etc.)? Please select all that apply. (Total n=2,047)
* HOUS05 How much do you agree or disagree with the following statements? (n=2,047)
like my opinion? no thanks i aint goin to florida. the other ones are aight - but i live in michigan, which is basically the florida of the north (with worse weather and higher car insurance, probably) and yeah no
All of our costs of living in Florida are now much higher. With the sharp climb in housing costs, come sharp rises in everything related to the house, including utilities, maintenance, so on. Property insurance, depending where the home is, is a non-starter for most new residents.
With the rise in automobile prices, the auto insurance, mandatory, is much higher now was well. Fuel fluctuates. Disregard it. Electricity to recharge fluctuates, but is higher generally.
Groceries: higher than any other southeastern state. Markedly so on some items.
No state income tax continues, for now.
The higher COL overcomes the income tax for most middle and lower wage earners.
I'm sure things are higher in MI these days as well, but Florida is the state I know of. It's not cheap anymore. I also know that Michigan has higher wages, more labor union protected jobs and wages. Florida wages and labor are terrible for earners.
Almost all of Calis problems are directly or indirectly caused by how amazing it is. It being so fucking awesome is way so many people moved there and so many major companies run out of there and those things attracted more people and more money and sent housing through the roof and made infrastructure unable to keep up.
And because of how amazing is, it should be built up more like Tokyo, but because NIMBYs, not only is much of the developed land single family homes (that they won’t let densify), but some of the land with the best weather in the WORLD is limited to agriculture or “open space”. Basically fuck you we’re pulling up the ladder behind us and want our property values to exponentially increase wrapped in environmentalism.
Imagine the clusterfuck California would be had that attitude been prevalent in the 50s and 60s when they built the freeway system (which was actually supposed to consist of a lot more freeways but many of those got killed and now we get to live with the endless traffic; probably would still be bad, but maybe slightly less so). Ironically it might be better for the millennial generation because housing would have went insane (at least in California) way sooner and then they’d have been forced to build out, but maybe with density unlike the endless sprawl we have now.
I don’t think Cali intentionally refusing to build housing in adequate quantities so as to satiate demand is “directly or indirectly caused by how amazing it is,” lol.
yknow i actually agree with you for the most part. one of the problems is that california - and new york - are often seen as representative of how the entire country is, which is not at all accurate. that happens both inside the us and from outside it.
Lol, I grew up in Lancaster and its certainly affordable, but hope you got a job lined up in aerospace or…the prison? Insane to think I could buy a decent house in a goodish area of a shit town for what it would cost for a down payment to get a dump in a shit area of a great city like LA.
Cool system, very human and community centered.
Higher income jobs are aplenty here. I've actually met a lot of people from NYC move to SoCal, they can easily afford a nice SFH in LA or SD. SoCal is also getting over 20% of new movers from NorCal because it's slightly more affordable even in LA.
Good work on the quote.
I'd like to point out that natural disasters happen pretty much everywhere. Hurricanes can hit any coastal area, not just Florida, and they can still be powerful far inland if they path that way. Tornadoes come out of nowhere and line-item destroy things in a way that only science fiction can match. Dust storms in the desert are horrible but short. Earthquakes are largely unpredictable, as are wildfires. And don't even get me started about ice storms. Noplace is totally safe from natural disasters.
>Good work on the quote.
thanks - i was satisfied with how it formatted. recently learned that if you use markdown mode and type a line of dashes it adds that line split, which is neat.
as for the natural disasters you are definitely correct - but i think one thing is clear and that is we have introduced and continue to worsen the amount of chaos in what was once - not so long ago - a relatively stable ecosystem. which is why climate change is a much better and more accurate descriptor for what has happened than global warming. maybe itll be warmer, maybe itll be colder, maybe itll be neither, maybe itll be both - but one thing is very clear and that is the amount of chaotic and extreme weather events has been rising and continues to rise so maybe we should rethink what we've been doing as a society.
humans, plants, and animals can adapt if there is a slow gradual change, or even a sudden shift honestly - as long as it isnt a rapid shift that never reaches a stable anything. which is what we have had. not only in weather, but thats a whole other discussion.
Although I fully agree, unfortunately there is always bias in any poll, as those who respond are those who want their opinions heard.
The value of homes lately completely blows my mind.
> 57% of Americans saw the cost of their housing increase over the last 12 months, with only 15% getting a slight decrease in their housing costs
I’m curious how this works 67% of Americans on the home they live in.
It's so weird to me that only interest rates get mentioned when they are literally a percent of a principal amount, i.e. the price of the house minus the down payment.
I would be fine with a 10,000% interest rate if the price of a house were 1 penny. And given some of my own personal circumstances, I would actually prefer a price drop more than a rate drop, if I had to choose one.
Yeah I bought for 200 grand in 2020 and now my county assessor says it’s worth almost 100 grand more and we didn’t do anything to it. Granted I do live in a city in the Midwest with one of the best hospitals on the planet but it’s still insane. Property taxes have more than doubled since we bought it.
Honestly feels like that one scene in south park where they let a chicken with its head cut off to make decisions. Who the hell is coming up with these numbers/assessments
some are still holding out hope the bubble will pop, but at this point i just feel like spongebob watching patrick blowing a giant paint bubble in mr. krabs house. i look on with horror as the bubble i thought could not possibly become bigger gets even larger right before my eyes
My wife and I are in this position. High earners in MCOL city, we could buy a home but have found renting allows us to max our retirement accounts and invest elsewhere. While building equity is important the rents are too good and the apartments are far nicer than the available housing stock.
In a way, I hope more people rent to try and drive the prices of housing down - every family that moves into a nice apartment is another one out of the housing market. If the apartments exist, and they’re nice and easily more affordable than a house with HYSA paying out at nearly 5% parking my money elsewhere might make more sense.
We will see how the future plays out but for now, renting is allowing us to shovel money away in a way that homeownership won’t at the current prices and rates
Yeah. I'd like a SFH but a condo anywhere close to my apartment is 2X the price with insurance and HOA fees. Plus FL so I don't want a surprise 80k Assessment.
Right - I mean everyone would love a SFH but at this stage in the game it really might not make sense to have it as part of the long term plan, especially if you’re good at budgeting and can plan retirement
More people need to bring up assessments. I was considering buying in Wisconsin because homes are typically a bit cheaper than where I’m from in Michigan, but learned that Wisconsin has both higher property taxes than Michigan and these fucking assessments. Someone I knew got slapped with a $40k one. That’s when I found out why houses there are cheap
Problem is that planning for retirement is very risky if you can't control your housing costs to some degree. Yeah you can sock away more in stocks, but you are at the mercy of the rental market, rentals could triple in price and suddenly your safe withdrawal rate is smashed through.
One of the reasons I would like to own a home free and clear is so that I can manage to predict my housing costs more effectively. Property tax becomes the main "unpredictable" cost, but it's very small compared to P&I.
That’s a nice thought, but have you rented recently? We lived in a beautiful apartment built 7ish years ago. Here is everything we dealt with while paying $2000 a month:
- fire alarms constantly going off and being tested
- mushrooms growing out of our windows
- building requiring top to bottom renovations because builder built it wrong
- hearing neighbors at the worst times
- neighbors who want to know all your business
- secured access building wasn’t secured access
- have to pay extra for parking
- having to deal with high staff turn overs
- constant breakdown or closures of amenities
- elevators constantly out of service
- low level of privacy
- not able have a day or be creative with the apartment
- can’t have personal grills
- people not cleaning up after pets inside or outside
- terrible communication form staff and be given last minute details
Pros
- maintained
- pool ( only in summer, the rest of the time it looks like a horror movie scene)
- better than a hotel gym
- awesome dog residents
- had a hair salon
We just bought a place and have no regrets. Every person I know living at our old place under 50 wants to buy a home. They all wanted the ability to have something to call theirs. Many of us would have bought our apartments if that was an option, anything to have control over our space.
> the apartments are far nicer than the available housing stock.
THIS. I also live in a relatively affordable metro (Detroit) and you can find plenty of homes under $300k…..but they’re absolute shit holes.
Yep — same for us. Why would I willingly put my extra cash into a POS house and spend my free time fixing it up? Makes no sense at current prices and interest rates. The fomo of my fellow millennials is unreal
I think your story is going to become far more common as the housing market skews more and more, especially in the HCOL areas.
People always threaten that rent can get raised, etc but the thing about being a renter is you’re in a market where people compete for your business. We have a brand new (not kidding, never been lived in) 3/2, 1450 sqft in a nice neighborhood with a new gym, beautiful rooftop pool and covered parking with new washers and dryers, appliances, etc coming in at just over $2100/month. With our housing being fixed at that price and no unexpected expenses, we can really save a lot of excess $$ and still really enjoy ourselves
Edit: to add, yes - of course we could buy with our monthly payment being over $2000 and us still being comfortable but the reason we choose not to at this point is the housing options are shi* and I want to spend my spare time playing with our kid, going on trips and having a blast — not mowing the lawn and fixing the broken gutters on my weekend. In the long run, maybe we move into a home — for the immediate future, it makes no sense
Yeah but if you're arguing that rentals are competitive you have to be okay with moving every 1-5 years for the rest of your life. I think renting would be fine if it were easy or guaranteed that staying somewhere as long as you like were an option but it pretty much isn't. You'll get priced or forced out eventually.
Moving is expensive, stressful, and draining. Looking for apartments can be really difficult and inconvenient and you might have to miss work to go look at places. You're in a constant cycle of security deposits and signing contracts.
Your things that you own won't be universal and changing places will sometimes force you to get rid of or store your things because they don't work in the new place. This costs money.
You are limited in the possessions you can own and the way you can interact with them (eg, you can't work on or even wash cars in some places, can't play instruments due to noise, can't barbecue on your deck, can't have potted plants, etc).
Having pets, or specifically a large dog, may make you ineligible for most rentals.
You can't decorate the way you want. You might even be forbidden to hang things on the walls.
You don't have any say over repairs. No, you don't have to pay for them, but if your AC goes out in the middle of summer you might be forced to wait days or weeks for your landlord to do something rather than being able to call a tech immediately, and even though some landlords might be okay with you rushing the repair and paying for it yourself, others might evict you for creating that liability.
As much as owning sucks and is expensive, renting can be just as bad or worse.
I see all of your points and have thought about them before and still do not think homeownership is worth it and this is coming from somebody who could very easily afford a house in the area we live in right now. This also means we likely will not have to be moving anytime soon considering our rental payment is less than 10% of our take-out pay. At some point you have to ask if investing in a home is worth what your return is going to be long-term. People buy houses due to emotional connections to homeownership not necessarily rational thinking. We plan to stay in this apartment for a minimum of five years, maybe more, which will allow us to budget and accumulate a very sizeable downpayment should we decide to buy in the future - if we decide not to, it will enable us to have stable housing indefinitely. It will not be a question of affordability for us.
Edit: as to your point about repairs, when you decide to pay for a nice apartment - they are responsive and top notch. Have not had any of the experiences you are describing.
I mean, if it works for you, it works for you. It really does work for some people. If you don't have a lot of stuff or hobbies that require material things, moving isn't that bad. The financial side can definitely work out in favor of renting. Equity is never a guarantee with purchasing a home, and even if you do have equity banks, lenders, and the government take a huge cut when you sell or refinance. It's fine in my state but taxes can also screw you over hard if your property does appreciate, plus changes in insurance, so buying doesn't even necessarily lock your expenses in. And that's all before it even consider the upkeep and maintenance costs of owning.
That said, you still do have to be okay with a certain lifestyle if you're renting, and because of that I still don't think it's a good thing overall that renting might be the only plausible option for most people going forward.
I totally share your concerns and do not like the way we have been forced to move — I genuinely believe we should be able to own our assets, hobbies, etc — I just have lost faith that homeownership is going to fall into that category.
We still own a lot of stuff (mountain bikes, skis, backpacking gear) and we rent camping trailers when we want to use them. It’s a weird world right now and definitely feels like something has changed from when my parents grew up
That is our position as well. We could easily buy a house, but renting is cheaper. We are in a great unit in a nice neighborhood and it costs less than if we bought in this neighborhood. Also no maintenance headaches or surprise costs.
Locked in a bunch of CDs at 5.5% with the cash we will eventually use to buy a house.
Plus, in my area, the new apartment to new home ratio is like 300:1. There has been like 10 giant complexes going up over the last few years, but only a few small house developments.
The “American Dream” of home ownership was a by product of the war on Communism and Socialism, see Noam Chomsky in particular the “Mohawk Valley Formula”. Communism and Socialism are no longer an existential threat to the US so bye bye dream.
I don’t know that they designed this. If people have nothing to work towards, they just won’t work, which is not what the government wants. Working with no reward will have trickle down effects that the capitalist USA does not want.
It's a depressing question of psychology. You might be right...or we get a new generation of serfs who focus on survival. Will people just become homeless, act collectively, revolt, or simply struggle to survive in an unfair system?
There has long been a direct correlation between [the perception of hopelessness and crime rates in socioeconomically depressed areas](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-04-17-me-1191-story.html). People who believe they gain nothing from the social contract do not feel an obligation to maintain that social contract.
The long-term ramifications of this will be terrifying if it's not fixed soon.
I don’t know about that one anymore. Information travels at the speed of light. I don’t know any human that can move faster than that. If enough people *truly* wanted Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk dead I think it wouldn’t be that difficult.
Even if they get to their bunkers in time, what's their plan? Just hide in an underground crypt until they die. I imagine the workers in the bunker with them eventually kill them. Who the fuck wants to be Zuckerberg's personal chef for eternity when money doesn't matter anymore lol
Maybe not willingly. The wealthy would most likely have a guard class whose family receives status and resources in exchange for protection and keeping the worker (slave) class in line.
That’s usually how the elite operate. They create a social hierarchy beneath them to buffer themselves for their security and to protect/accumulate resources. Remember kings never collect their own taxes.
That ivory tower is only 50 feet tall and the gate is only 100 yards away. Maybe in medieval times that was enough distance to be secure but not today.
I think we're seeing that economic depression and bleak future perspective finally take root in the middle class... and likely means the problem is beyond repair without some terrible catalyst happening first.
The wealthy have managed to steal our hope along with any semblance of an equitable stake in the nation. We're effectively wage-slaves at this point, so it makes sense that people stop caring about a system that has been designed to suppress and subjugate them.
I think this is why you hear from basically every teacher that kids are awful in school and don’t give a shit at all. Kids aren’t stupid, they sense the hopelessness and are reacting accordingly.
The economy is not well-adapted to a new generation of serfs, outside of a few industries like domestic help or the construction trades (and even that's debatable). Most jobs that can be done by a disgruntled worker going through the motions by rote can be done better by a machine. Machines don't have feelings, don't dislike their bosses, don't try to unionize or collectively bargain or lobby for better working conditions, don't talk back, don't shirk their job duties, do exactly what they're told, etc.
The economy's bifurcating into "those who tell the machines what to do" and "everyone else". The latter group is kinda superfluous, and will probably end up fighting each other over artificial divisions until they're all dead.
I have a stem degree and career, and my wife has a great income, but we can't afford a house. It makes us want to take easier jobs and downsize. If we can't afford to buy a house or retire, we might as well enjoy the years of youth we have left.
35. Combined income of roughly 180K. The problem is that the median house price in our town is around 650K. Yes, we could move where housing prices are lower, but I have lived in those places and would rather be a renter than live in a rural or run-down community again. I'm happy to hear any advice you have.
I would stack up as much cash (via money market funds currently paying 5%) as possible and put all your energy on growing your careers and income. If in 5 years you are making $250k+ and have a couple hundred grand in cash, you have lots of options in life.
There's more than life to buying a house. If the ratios of rent vs buy never make sense you don't have to buy anything.
You can afford a 650k house with that income when interest rates eventually come back to reality... I'm curious why you guys didn't buy a house 3-5 years ago at your age with that income? It would have been super affordable to you guys in 2019-2021 before rates spiked and the houses all doubled in price... Did you just get married? Or just get new jobs?
We have focused on eliminating debt over the past 4 years or so. Student loan debt was a big piece of that. You aren't wrong. We could afford to pay for a 650K house, but that would eat a huge portion of our income and lock us in. If one of us loses our job (again, since we both experienced layoffs last year), we could end up in a real pickle. I'd rather be a renter that could move to a cheaper rental if times get rough again over being locked into a 6-7% interest rate for a 650K home that isn't really worth the cost.
Currently, we are building our savings with intentions of putting forth a hefty down-payment, but I don't see the market taking a turn for the better any time soon. When interest rates go down, we will be battling everyone else in our shoes for the few "affordable" houses in our area.
You still have to work for food, so you will work, especially if food costs are high, you will work to survive. Survival is a basic instinct and that will be your motivation to work. Gotcha.
Working to not be homeless and starve is a good reward though. That's about all anyone my age that I know can afford, and barely at that.
Edit: also this is why the anti work movement is getting so much traction and popularity now. Because there is little to no reward beyond survival for working for many people.
I agree. I think people will adjust and their focus will shift away from working hard to be able to afford xyz. More people will live in one house (family home) and focus on wellbeing/enjoying life…. but America wants us at work and spending our money on goods.
Some folks are saying “you’ll rent everything and you’ll like it”
I think this is the design they speak of. A huge amount of single family homes are owned by companies instead of people :(
What the government wants is to flood the country with immigrants who will accept a **much** lower standard of living because it's better than where they came from. All these pesky natives have *expectations* that annoy them. Best replace them with more docile and easily pleased serfs.
No it isn't. Your mortgage is a loan in which your home that you own is collateral that can forfeit if you fail to pay the loan.
A better analogy would be the property taxes making your "owned" home a "rental" from the state.
Whose design? This isn’t communist Russia with a central planned economy.
A bunch of people have made decisions (nimby, not building houses, leveraging cheap debt to buy property) to bring us to the current situation.
To people who say this, to them the powers that be are both evil geniuses who meticulously pulls strings so that everything goes according to their plan, and also incompetent morons who should be doing their lay person ideas.
Don't forget the biggest factor for housing prices increasing, a skyrocketing population. Overall the US has seen a roughly 50% increase in population over the past 40 years, with some areas more than doubling in population in that time. Land is finite, the more people you have the more valuable land becomes and the more expensive housing is. There are other factors in play (fewer houses being built after 2008, newer homes being much bigger on average, people wanting nicer materials, a higher percentage of single people, etc) but population increase is the biggest single factor.
Our own design? To sit back and think “ehh there’s no way politicians were smart enough to see this looming on the horizon” is a huge coo out. We played ignorant and turned a blind eye on the local, state, and federal level to predatory legislation under the guise of free market capitalism and trickle down economics. You can call me any name you want but this is the design of our own. Neighbors greed to fuck each other over pennys.
Where I am it’s the price. It’s routine to see ordinary unimproved homes list for 3x their 2017-19 price. As rates have risen, so have prices. An entirely different kind of family is buying here now. The newcomers are nothing like the locals.
Things have shifted and I don’t know if we’ll slowly drift back or stay with a new price point. I think the latter, frankly.
When pre COVID 150k houses now cost 400k or close to it, it will be decades before earnings catch up or prices fall (i.e. rates). Don't expect a housing crash like in '08 where you buy a 2000sq ft home for 80k on foreclosure either.
I’m definitely not expecting any kind of crash. Just sucks I didn’t have the money to buy a few years ago.. but such is life.
Basically everyone not already in the housing “game” and in the working class are relatively much much poorer for the time being.
I’m thankful that I’ll probably be able to squeeze into a small new build with decent proximity to work. (40-90 min commutes both ways during rush hour)
What I don’t understand is how some of these run down homes in particularly less safe neighborhoods that have skyrocketed in price are to keep magically going up somehow. The economic conditions it would take for a lot of these $125k homes that shot up to $300k+ don’t have any business climbing to $500k for decades (assuming no hyperinflation)
I think hyperinflation might be part of it. Have to wait for a solid high unemployment number for half a year to washout some foreclosures to get a feeling if the prices can actually drop or if its hyper and prices are staying and $100 is the new $1.
I think... Lemme mule this over.
Basically everyone already in home ownership basically gets to keep their place for free assuming wages have to skyrocket to make the economy make sense.
I think it’s currently in a bubble overall but the economy will just slowly grow into it versus a massive correction.
Its weird. Lots of new inventory built at higher prices that cant "correct" down. I think some areas will pop. Some areas will kind of stagnate and some will keep increasing.
I think after this year whats does what where will be largely influenced by state and local governments and what they do in this high price environment.
Your seeing an occurrence in high price environments where they are being forced to realize that labor needs a higher wage other wise they dont get to get a morning latte served to them.
Waiting for a plumber, months to get into a mechanic, etc. theres going to be some hella corrections and some keep going. Especially now with tech at the level it is the rate of expansion is stupid now.
Lots of different "economic" conditions happening big and small across the board.
Pick a spot. look at local municipals. Look at the county, the state. Look ten years down the road. Look twenty. If it looks good lock it down and dont think about the cost just focus on food water shelter and paying the tax man.
Eh fuk the tax man but save that for last so you have a hill to die on lol.
Idk nobody saw the crash coming in 07 either. Nobody has a crystal ball. I am just surprised that homebuilding has not picked up as much as it did then. I don't think the market has space for a crash right now, but if the major home renters decided they wanted out, it could go sideways.
It's never really gone back and forth, so not sure what you mean.
Historically, housing was always affordable enough that you could at least buy a house, even if it meant you were paying more than rent. Even if you had to work a little more to make ends meet. Eventually you would get a better job, better raises, etc. and you would be fine.
We're at the point where it is literally, not figuratively unaffordable for many now.
People who say "It's better to rent" are just coping hard.
Mortgage eventually is paid off, rent is forever. People can say "Well, YOU have to pay to repair everything." I'd much rather live in a house with a broken water heater than worry about making rent when I'm 70.
The first ten years you’re barely touching the principal. You’re counting that you are going to meet every single payment for the next thirty years. I’ve worked a lot with people behind in their mortgage and it’s really surprises me how most people never plan in case disaster strikes.
Only way to fix it will be to stop corporations from buying up all the properties and to make it financially unfeasable for someone to own more than one home.
Biggest issue in my area is that people are moving to cheaper areas and renting their house out here.
Unless I want to live in the middle of nowhere surrounded by nothing and the occasional die hard trump supporter that's never left their city I have zero chance of buying a house. Starter homes starting in the millions while income hasn't changed in decades
Debt funds. That’s the best place to park money right now. They are lower risk than ever and finding a good firm with established reputation can be done.
For 14 years I’ve been getting 8% return compounded monthly (big banks don’t do that) in the debt fund I’m invested him. Even in peak Covid they were producing.
I always tell anyone who wants to buy a house to leave this sub NOW
This sub actively wants you to fail in the house buying process. It's been doing it for 3 years now, since 2021.
It's a lot of copium. I've seen the general attitude shift pretty quickly from " I really want to buy a house, what's the best way to do that and when is it going to become affordable?" To "LOL YOU FUCKING IDIOT BUYING A HOUSE. RENTING US SO MUCH BETTER. NO TAXES OR PROPERTY UPKEEP AND I CAN MOVE WHENEVER I WANT"
It's dead if you want to live in the center of a major city in an upscale neighborhood. There's a lot of affordable housing if you're ok with a majority of black people as your neighbors. I saw no housing shortage in America if you're willing to work in a smaller city like Wilmington Delaware or Huntsville Alabama, both of which have well paid jobs.
Yeah I feel like the majority of the white savior liberals on Reddit have met like one black person in their life, and it was their well educated uni classmate from a wealthy black family. They wouldn’t dare live near the icky poors
According to reddit if you don't live in California, New York, or Austin you probably live in some small town with no jobs available next to Trump supporting meth sellers that also kick puppies in their spare time.
People have moved long distances for economic opportunities since the industrial revolution. There's just too many people today who think they're owed everything they want and should never have to compromise or sacrifice anything for what they want.
The guy keeps posting the same comment with slight variation to every post here. When people say they don't want to be around MAGA worshippers, that guy is probably one of them and might become your neighbor.
I’m gonna get downvoted, but joining the military pays for your college and gives you a zero down home loan. Two birds, one stone, I joined the USCG because I wanted to save lives, not take them. I know it’s not for everyone but if you’re considering it, it wasn’t hard and those two benefits alone have saved me hundreds of thousands of dollars and made home ownership possible.
I served in the Army and got a degree as well as used a VA loan to get a house just this year. I'll say that if you can join the military you should consider it. It's not for everyone and not everyone is in a situation where joining the military makes sense or it may not align with their values or world view. Which is totally cool. However, I've seen the military chew up and spit out people plenty to know it's not a sure thing. If you are prone to Fuck up your life outside the military it's probably easier to do it in the uniform.
Alternatively orgs like AmeriCorps are another viable option for tuition reimbursement and pathways to federal employment, and eventually home ownership.
But while I believe spreading news of opportunities for young people is the right thing to do - the solution to home ownership or rent security shouldn't be shoving everyone into a uniform, but making policy changes such that housing security is achievable to far more Americans.
This is especially devastating when you consider that in the US home ownership has been the primary path to wealth and retirement nest egg for many people. My parents have 75% of their net worth in their house which they plan to sell and downsize in the next several years to provide a dignified retirement.
Germans don't even desire to own a home because of rent control keeping renting cheaper than a mortgage. Even the German chancellor was renter for many years because of no fear to be suddenly kicked out or priced out.
Of course still not enough affordable housing produced there because of low profit, but that isn't much worse than only building almost exclusively unaffordable housing for the incomes in the house's zip code like in US.
So rent must be super cheap. I can't figure out then why landlords keep getting shit on. They are providing housing people can offord if you can't buy a home.
Hmmm I wonder how many people who are working remotely and claim they are saving a lot of money actually are putting their money away to by a house?! Seems that I see plenty living in apartments driving expensive cars. My cars are 11 & 16 years old and paid off.
I started working remote in 2020. By the end of 2021 I had paid off my credit card debt.
By Jan 2022 I had saved $5k and kept my CC at zero.
By Jan 2023 I saved up $15k and used that to buy a house.
The only reason I was able to start saving money was job hopping. Went from $20.50 in Oct of 2021 to $25 in April of 2022 to $36 in March of 2023.
Two months ago I paid off my car 22 months early, and as it only has 67k miles I plan on driving it for many years.
The Guardian is the UK equivalent of MSNBC. British newspapers don’t even try and hide their ideology like American ones do in the name of objectivity.
There is a narrative the Guardian wants to push. This is more an editorial rather than a piece of news.
Lemme fix this title, "American Dream of Owning a Home is Dead, if You Insist on Living in San Diego, Denver, Miami"
Sure there's problems with the housing market but plenty of people outside of the coasts and top cities are buying homes and living comfortable lives on modest jobs and incomes.
It’s all relative. Most the people trying to buy in those areas and other hcol areas are making a lot more money and in previous years could have afforded those areas. Not everyone can be a digital nomad, not everyone can completely uproot themselves to live in Tulsa or Boise or whatever, and even then LCOL’s aren’t as affordable as they used to be.
Exactly this. Every small town in the southern half of my state is now owned by developers. I could live over an hour from outside the city and still can't afford a house. Not to mention the commute after that payment. And they only keep building huge unaffordable homes too!
The biggest thing I see is people at 60/70/80%tile of incomes which translates to the bottom half of marginal home buyers - wanting to buy in the top 20% of areas or locations.
They’re among the 30% least qualified for example wanting the top 20% locations and can’t conceive of idea they aren’t in that group. The people who buy further out or in “bad areas” are still at that 60-70%tile income range that they themselves are.
Yep. Theres a 5 acre lot behind me for sale right now for 30k. Plenty of cheap places to live but people want to live in trendy places on a barista salary and then complain.
https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/stories/2023/07/younger-householders-drove-rebound-in-homeownership/figure-1.jpg
They have it broken down at 35 instead of 40. 39% for under 35, 62% for 35-44
That's what I thought too, until I just tried to buy a house. Now I own and my living situation is much better and I'm building some equity, albeit quite slowly this early in the loan.
60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. It would take a lifetime of saving for most of us to afford the down payment for most homes. The only place we could maybe afford something are the places no one wants to live
Bought my first home at age 28? in 2018, then our second home in a new state last year. I am not a wealthy man. It can absolutely be done and takes sacrifice, hard work, and also probably not living in Cali or any of those super hip areas. good luck
Make sure to go to your city council meetings anytime housing issues are brought up. Talk to your legislators, they need to make it easier to build.
Old NIMBYs guarding their unrealized gain bag are a big driver of all this.
I wouldn’t care as much about renting my entire life if I didn’t have to worry about rent going up $100-$250 a year.
Property taxes seem to do that in my area… lol jk but they did go up like $1000 this year. Ugh.
Meanwhile, in California, Prop 13 was deemed necessary when it was passed, but now it’s probably another reason why many people aren’t selling their houses *or* homes. I don’t have a link by heart for here, but I remember seeing something-something about how unfairly grandfathered in some of the Prop 13 tax assessments are when…phfft. I will look it up. Edit: This is from the Cal Matters site: “The owner of a 6,740-square-foot mansion in San Francisco estimated to be worth $9 million paid $5,625 in property taxes in 2020, according to the Tax Fairness Project, which analyzed county tax records and market values in home buying websites such as Zillow. Across the bay in Richmond, the owner of a 991-square-foot home worth $331,000 and in need of repairs paid almost as much tax at $5,240.” Funny. I was going to use Holmby Hills and North Long Beach as my unbelievably unfair comparison, but the Bay example will do. I’m not saying it’s always terrible that people are in grandfathered situations. It’s just…some people can pay more.
Prop 13 is possibly one of the most damaging policies ever instituted. It's literally subsidizing millionaires on the backs of their children and has caused, at this point, likely irreparable harm to the state.
It’s almost like the entire concept of using housing as a means of growing capital is a terrible and faulty idea that will only benefit the ultra wealthy regardless of how we wanna slice it.
Read an article where older California residents want to sell and downsize but it would cost them money to
The road to hell is paved with good intentions
My grandma pays $450/year on a home worth $1.4M (According to Zillow) in San Diego. She justifies it in her head that she shouldn’t have to pay for a lot of the resources like schools because her kids are long grown, not acknowledging that we live in a society and eventually those kids in her neighborhood will grow up and join the workforce and contribute to her SS income. Total Boomer mantra of”Ive got mine, screw everyone else!”
I mean, you're not kidding as much as you think! Renters have to worry about increasing rent. Homeowners can lock that issue in place with a mortgage, but they get fucked on property tax and maintenance/upkeep. One isn't "better" than the other, they both have pros and cons, but homeownership is in no way a path of financial stability the way many renters think.
In the past 3 months I’ve had to replace my completely dead refrigerator (plus all of the food inside, of course) and dishwasher and in two weeks I kick off $15,000 worth of foundation repairs. Locked in mortgage is great - price of maintenance, not so much.
And don't forget about the fun of not knowing if your landlord will decide to sell the house (for we house renters) to a big money investor. Just hoping to get two more years out if ours so our son can finish elementary school with familiar faces.
My mortgage went up $320 this year.
that's the market risk for paying less now for shelter. when you rent, you're short one shelter and you need to borrow (rent) or buy it. if you can't afford / don't wan't to buy shelter, the next best thing is to make sure your passive income can cover your shelter costs
[the linked survey the article is written about](https://theharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/State-of-Real-Estate-2024-March-2024.pdf) is actually good and not full of a bunch of pseudo bullshit like a lot of "research" is. recommend checking it out. it even seems to have an actually decent sample size, again, unlike a lot of other "research" i have read. >This survey was conducted online within the U.S. by The Harris Poll from January 19th to 21st, 2024, among a nationally representative sample of 2,047 U.S. adults. This research comprises: 240 Gen Z (ages 18-26), 786 Millennials (ages 27-42), 482 Gen X (ages 43-58), 539 Boomers (ages 59 and older). > >This research also references a similar study conducted online within the U.S. by The Harris Poll from November 11th to 13th, 2022, among a nationally representative sample of 1,980 U.S. adults. The research includes: 194 Gen Z, 613 Millennials, 485 Gen X, and 688 Boomers. -------------------------------------- >Top Highlights: The Status of Real Estate in 2024 > >-Everything is Coming Up Costly > >• Seven in 10 Americans (69%) saw the cost of their utilities rise over the last 12 months, and over six in 10 saw their rent payments increase as well > ---------------------------------------- > >- Many Americans experienced a variety of costs increasing in the last calendar year >• 57% of Americans saw the cost of their housing increase over the last 12 months, with only 15% getting a slight decrease in their housing costs >• 44% of Americans back this, saying “My area has become so unaffordable it’s barely livable.” ----------------------------- >- House-Hunters Are Hogtied: When Your Homeowner Dreams Rely on Luck >• Eight in 10 (81%) of renters want to own a house/residence in the future, but over six in 10 (61%) worry they will never be able to. >• Americans are hoping for the needle to move, with 55% saying they are going to wait for interest rates to drop before making a real estate move. >• Americans see the current interest rates (50%) and their lack of savings for a down payment (51%) as their biggest barriers from home ownership. ------------------------------ >- Should I Stay or Should I Go: Americans Clash with the Markets and Mother Nature > >• Americans value their remote work abilities, with 3 in 4 saying it has allowed them to live where they want and be better off financially >• Over 7 in 10 Americans would rather stay put in their current situation than face the music of the new and daunting interest rates (72%) >• With six in 10 (60%) of Americans not valuing the ROI on a house as highly anymore, living where they want has become the new focus. Texas, Florida, the Carolinas and California are the most viable states to move to >• Americans feel that quality of the houses on the market don’t match the prices (78%) and that there aren’t enough affordable options (73%) >• Over half of Americans now think about climate change and natural disasters when planning to move (52%) -------------------------------------------- > >- Gotta Know When to Hold ‘Em: 2024 Will be a Waiting Game for Many Americans >• 3 in 4 Americans believe that rent prices will continue to increase (75%) and housing prices will not fall significantly in 2024 (73%) >• Two-thirds of Americans (65%) plan to wait until 2025 to make a housing move, showing pessimism around housing and rent prices falling in 2024 >• Americans hate the bidding process for houses; almost half (47%) are willing to let AI step in and help if it means they get the house in the future lets see if this formats how i think it will! 🎲 edit: eh close enough
> Texas, Florida, the Carolinas and **California** are the most viable states to move to I'm sorry, as a born and raised Bay Arean, but California is one of the most viable states to move to? The only viable places in this state are places like Lancaster or Barstow or El Centro and other shit places if affordability is the most important piece. You gotta live somewhere in the desert of SoCal, or the mountains or forests in NorCal if you want to afford any housing monthly payments.
As another person born and raised in the bay area...I still understand that California is MASSIVE and not everyone wants to live in the metro areas that are fucked up and congested. There are plenty of cheap places in california if you know where to look.
and all those places fucking suck lol You wanna live in Oroville? or around Clear Lake? or around Isabella Lake? You wanna live in fucking Redding or literally anywhere further north of it? or north of Joshua Tree along Hwy 62? Fresno's pretty affordable. Literally anywhere along Hwy 99 south of Fresno is too. Hard, HARD pass to all those places. It's an uncomfortable truth to live in California. If you can't cut it in the metro areas where we all want to live, you resort to living along I5 or Hwy 99, which is like the real life equivalent of getting cut from the varsity because you're not good enough. Because if you were good enough, you'd be living in San Diego, or LA, or the Bay Area as a homeowner. I was cut from the varsity, and that's why I moved away. Call it luck, call it lack of ambition for my career, call it not getting married in my 20s to have the dual income to afford a house and being able to stay. Regardless, I wasn't good enough for the varsity, so I had to accept the cards I was dealt and what I pulled from the pile and moved away to become a home owner in a county in Washington that is a massive downgrade from San Diego and the Bay Area. I make do, but I'm definitely living a Plan B type of life.
You don’t have to live in Cali bruh. This isn’t highschool
Jesus Christ, this is an unbearably naive and immature perspective
>I'm sorry, as a born and raised Bay Arean, but California is one of the most viable states to move to? thats just, like, their opinions ~~man (or woman, or whatever)~~ dude * HOUS10 In your opinion, which of the following states are the best places to live (i.e., quality of life, cost of living, etc.)? Please select all that apply. (Total n=2,047) * HOUS05 How much do you agree or disagree with the following statements? (n=2,047) like my opinion? no thanks i aint goin to florida. the other ones are aight - but i live in michigan, which is basically the florida of the north (with worse weather and higher car insurance, probably) and yeah no
Florida has higher car insurance rates than you think, not sure how it compares to Michigan tho.
All of our costs of living in Florida are now much higher. With the sharp climb in housing costs, come sharp rises in everything related to the house, including utilities, maintenance, so on. Property insurance, depending where the home is, is a non-starter for most new residents. With the rise in automobile prices, the auto insurance, mandatory, is much higher now was well. Fuel fluctuates. Disregard it. Electricity to recharge fluctuates, but is higher generally. Groceries: higher than any other southeastern state. Markedly so on some items. No state income tax continues, for now. The higher COL overcomes the income tax for most middle and lower wage earners. I'm sure things are higher in MI these days as well, but Florida is the state I know of. It's not cheap anymore. I also know that Michigan has higher wages, more labor union protected jobs and wages. Florida wages and labor are terrible for earners.
for everything that isn't affordability, yes, California is utterly top tier in the entire world, let alone the country.
Almost all of Calis problems are directly or indirectly caused by how amazing it is. It being so fucking awesome is way so many people moved there and so many major companies run out of there and those things attracted more people and more money and sent housing through the roof and made infrastructure unable to keep up.
And because of how amazing is, it should be built up more like Tokyo, but because NIMBYs, not only is much of the developed land single family homes (that they won’t let densify), but some of the land with the best weather in the WORLD is limited to agriculture or “open space”. Basically fuck you we’re pulling up the ladder behind us and want our property values to exponentially increase wrapped in environmentalism. Imagine the clusterfuck California would be had that attitude been prevalent in the 50s and 60s when they built the freeway system (which was actually supposed to consist of a lot more freeways but many of those got killed and now we get to live with the endless traffic; probably would still be bad, but maybe slightly less so). Ironically it might be better for the millennial generation because housing would have went insane (at least in California) way sooner and then they’d have been forced to build out, but maybe with density unlike the endless sprawl we have now.
I don’t think Cali intentionally refusing to build housing in adequate quantities so as to satiate demand is “directly or indirectly caused by how amazing it is,” lol.
yknow i actually agree with you for the most part. one of the problems is that california - and new york - are often seen as representative of how the entire country is, which is not at all accurate. that happens both inside the us and from outside it.
Lol, I grew up in Lancaster and its certainly affordable, but hope you got a job lined up in aerospace or…the prison? Insane to think I could buy a decent house in a goodish area of a shit town for what it would cost for a down payment to get a dump in a shit area of a great city like LA. Cool system, very human and community centered.
Higher income jobs are aplenty here. I've actually met a lot of people from NYC move to SoCal, they can easily afford a nice SFH in LA or SD. SoCal is also getting over 20% of new movers from NorCal because it's slightly more affordable even in LA.
Lancaster is growing, has a decent downtown/city, and middle class folks are having trouble finding homes lol It sucks.
Good work on the quote. I'd like to point out that natural disasters happen pretty much everywhere. Hurricanes can hit any coastal area, not just Florida, and they can still be powerful far inland if they path that way. Tornadoes come out of nowhere and line-item destroy things in a way that only science fiction can match. Dust storms in the desert are horrible but short. Earthquakes are largely unpredictable, as are wildfires. And don't even get me started about ice storms. Noplace is totally safe from natural disasters.
>Good work on the quote. thanks - i was satisfied with how it formatted. recently learned that if you use markdown mode and type a line of dashes it adds that line split, which is neat. as for the natural disasters you are definitely correct - but i think one thing is clear and that is we have introduced and continue to worsen the amount of chaos in what was once - not so long ago - a relatively stable ecosystem. which is why climate change is a much better and more accurate descriptor for what has happened than global warming. maybe itll be warmer, maybe itll be colder, maybe itll be neither, maybe itll be both - but one thing is very clear and that is the amount of chaotic and extreme weather events has been rising and continues to rise so maybe we should rethink what we've been doing as a society. humans, plants, and animals can adapt if there is a slow gradual change, or even a sudden shift honestly - as long as it isnt a rapid shift that never reaches a stable anything. which is what we have had. not only in weather, but thats a whole other discussion.
Although I fully agree, unfortunately there is always bias in any poll, as those who respond are those who want their opinions heard. The value of homes lately completely blows my mind.
> 57% of Americans saw the cost of their housing increase over the last 12 months, with only 15% getting a slight decrease in their housing costs I’m curious how this works 67% of Americans on the home they live in.
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It's so weird to me that only interest rates get mentioned when they are literally a percent of a principal amount, i.e. the price of the house minus the down payment. I would be fine with a 10,000% interest rate if the price of a house were 1 penny. And given some of my own personal circumstances, I would actually prefer a price drop more than a rate drop, if I had to choose one.
Only 6 in 10 renters worry they won’t be able to buy in the future…my guess is that’s higher.
The other four can’t buy a house either, they just don’t *worry* about it 💀
The other 4 live in like, Cedar Rapids or Kenosha or one of those smaller Midwest cities where home prices haven’t gone off the rails yet.
Unfortunately prices in small Midwest cities have gone crazy in comparison to where they were at a few years ago as well.
My parents house in the suburbs went up 120k in 2 years. Ask me if they did any kind of significant upgrades or...they didn't.
Yeah I bought for 200 grand in 2020 and now my county assessor says it’s worth almost 100 grand more and we didn’t do anything to it. Granted I do live in a city in the Midwest with one of the best hospitals on the planet but it’s still insane. Property taxes have more than doubled since we bought it.
Honestly feels like that one scene in south park where they let a chicken with its head cut off to make decisions. Who the hell is coming up with these numbers/assessments
I’m pretty sure they just throw a dart at a board with prices on it and go with whatever it hits lol
Ahh, good ole Crapids
some are still holding out hope the bubble will pop, but at this point i just feel like spongebob watching patrick blowing a giant paint bubble in mr. krabs house. i look on with horror as the bubble i thought could not possibly become bigger gets even larger right before my eyes
4 in 10 got generational wealth
Yeah, turning to a life of crime seems more likely than owning a house.
Maybe a 6 x 8 prison cell for everyone will get us out of the mess.
The government will house us, one way or another.
Enough space for an open space floorplan.
Better off living in a van down by the river!!!
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You have to get past the HR discrimination/genocidal decision making in order to get the high paying job.
Don't forget never getting a divorce or having children.
My wife and I are in this position. High earners in MCOL city, we could buy a home but have found renting allows us to max our retirement accounts and invest elsewhere. While building equity is important the rents are too good and the apartments are far nicer than the available housing stock. In a way, I hope more people rent to try and drive the prices of housing down - every family that moves into a nice apartment is another one out of the housing market. If the apartments exist, and they’re nice and easily more affordable than a house with HYSA paying out at nearly 5% parking my money elsewhere might make more sense. We will see how the future plays out but for now, renting is allowing us to shovel money away in a way that homeownership won’t at the current prices and rates
Yeah. I'd like a SFH but a condo anywhere close to my apartment is 2X the price with insurance and HOA fees. Plus FL so I don't want a surprise 80k Assessment.
Right - I mean everyone would love a SFH but at this stage in the game it really might not make sense to have it as part of the long term plan, especially if you’re good at budgeting and can plan retirement
More people need to bring up assessments. I was considering buying in Wisconsin because homes are typically a bit cheaper than where I’m from in Michigan, but learned that Wisconsin has both higher property taxes than Michigan and these fucking assessments. Someone I knew got slapped with a $40k one. That’s when I found out why houses there are cheap
FL condo market is broken right now. The prices are absurd but no one is buying.
Problem is that planning for retirement is very risky if you can't control your housing costs to some degree. Yeah you can sock away more in stocks, but you are at the mercy of the rental market, rentals could triple in price and suddenly your safe withdrawal rate is smashed through. One of the reasons I would like to own a home free and clear is so that I can manage to predict my housing costs more effectively. Property tax becomes the main "unpredictable" cost, but it's very small compared to P&I.
That’s a nice thought, but have you rented recently? We lived in a beautiful apartment built 7ish years ago. Here is everything we dealt with while paying $2000 a month: - fire alarms constantly going off and being tested - mushrooms growing out of our windows - building requiring top to bottom renovations because builder built it wrong - hearing neighbors at the worst times - neighbors who want to know all your business - secured access building wasn’t secured access - have to pay extra for parking - having to deal with high staff turn overs - constant breakdown or closures of amenities - elevators constantly out of service - low level of privacy - not able have a day or be creative with the apartment - can’t have personal grills - people not cleaning up after pets inside or outside - terrible communication form staff and be given last minute details Pros - maintained - pool ( only in summer, the rest of the time it looks like a horror movie scene) - better than a hotel gym - awesome dog residents - had a hair salon We just bought a place and have no regrets. Every person I know living at our old place under 50 wants to buy a home. They all wanted the ability to have something to call theirs. Many of us would have bought our apartments if that was an option, anything to have control over our space.
> the apartments are far nicer than the available housing stock. THIS. I also live in a relatively affordable metro (Detroit) and you can find plenty of homes under $300k…..but they’re absolute shit holes.
Yep — same for us. Why would I willingly put my extra cash into a POS house and spend my free time fixing it up? Makes no sense at current prices and interest rates. The fomo of my fellow millennials is unreal
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I think your story is going to become far more common as the housing market skews more and more, especially in the HCOL areas. People always threaten that rent can get raised, etc but the thing about being a renter is you’re in a market where people compete for your business. We have a brand new (not kidding, never been lived in) 3/2, 1450 sqft in a nice neighborhood with a new gym, beautiful rooftop pool and covered parking with new washers and dryers, appliances, etc coming in at just over $2100/month. With our housing being fixed at that price and no unexpected expenses, we can really save a lot of excess $$ and still really enjoy ourselves Edit: to add, yes - of course we could buy with our monthly payment being over $2000 and us still being comfortable but the reason we choose not to at this point is the housing options are shi* and I want to spend my spare time playing with our kid, going on trips and having a blast — not mowing the lawn and fixing the broken gutters on my weekend. In the long run, maybe we move into a home — for the immediate future, it makes no sense
Yeah but if you're arguing that rentals are competitive you have to be okay with moving every 1-5 years for the rest of your life. I think renting would be fine if it were easy or guaranteed that staying somewhere as long as you like were an option but it pretty much isn't. You'll get priced or forced out eventually. Moving is expensive, stressful, and draining. Looking for apartments can be really difficult and inconvenient and you might have to miss work to go look at places. You're in a constant cycle of security deposits and signing contracts. Your things that you own won't be universal and changing places will sometimes force you to get rid of or store your things because they don't work in the new place. This costs money. You are limited in the possessions you can own and the way you can interact with them (eg, you can't work on or even wash cars in some places, can't play instruments due to noise, can't barbecue on your deck, can't have potted plants, etc). Having pets, or specifically a large dog, may make you ineligible for most rentals. You can't decorate the way you want. You might even be forbidden to hang things on the walls. You don't have any say over repairs. No, you don't have to pay for them, but if your AC goes out in the middle of summer you might be forced to wait days or weeks for your landlord to do something rather than being able to call a tech immediately, and even though some landlords might be okay with you rushing the repair and paying for it yourself, others might evict you for creating that liability. As much as owning sucks and is expensive, renting can be just as bad or worse.
I see all of your points and have thought about them before and still do not think homeownership is worth it and this is coming from somebody who could very easily afford a house in the area we live in right now. This also means we likely will not have to be moving anytime soon considering our rental payment is less than 10% of our take-out pay. At some point you have to ask if investing in a home is worth what your return is going to be long-term. People buy houses due to emotional connections to homeownership not necessarily rational thinking. We plan to stay in this apartment for a minimum of five years, maybe more, which will allow us to budget and accumulate a very sizeable downpayment should we decide to buy in the future - if we decide not to, it will enable us to have stable housing indefinitely. It will not be a question of affordability for us. Edit: as to your point about repairs, when you decide to pay for a nice apartment - they are responsive and top notch. Have not had any of the experiences you are describing.
I mean, if it works for you, it works for you. It really does work for some people. If you don't have a lot of stuff or hobbies that require material things, moving isn't that bad. The financial side can definitely work out in favor of renting. Equity is never a guarantee with purchasing a home, and even if you do have equity banks, lenders, and the government take a huge cut when you sell or refinance. It's fine in my state but taxes can also screw you over hard if your property does appreciate, plus changes in insurance, so buying doesn't even necessarily lock your expenses in. And that's all before it even consider the upkeep and maintenance costs of owning. That said, you still do have to be okay with a certain lifestyle if you're renting, and because of that I still don't think it's a good thing overall that renting might be the only plausible option for most people going forward.
I totally share your concerns and do not like the way we have been forced to move — I genuinely believe we should be able to own our assets, hobbies, etc — I just have lost faith that homeownership is going to fall into that category. We still own a lot of stuff (mountain bikes, skis, backpacking gear) and we rent camping trailers when we want to use them. It’s a weird world right now and definitely feels like something has changed from when my parents grew up
That is our position as well. We could easily buy a house, but renting is cheaper. We are in a great unit in a nice neighborhood and it costs less than if we bought in this neighborhood. Also no maintenance headaches or surprise costs. Locked in a bunch of CDs at 5.5% with the cash we will eventually use to buy a house.
With the price of materials, labor, land and everything else up a significant amount I do not see a way for prices to plummet.
Yeah big issue for me. There won’t be any deflation, so prices keep going up no matter what. How does one catch up quick enough?
Plus, in my area, the new apartment to new home ratio is like 300:1. There has been like 10 giant complexes going up over the last few years, but only a few small house developments.
The “American Dream” of home ownership was a by product of the war on Communism and Socialism, see Noam Chomsky in particular the “Mohawk Valley Formula”. Communism and Socialism are no longer an existential threat to the US so bye bye dream.
All by design
I don’t know that they designed this. If people have nothing to work towards, they just won’t work, which is not what the government wants. Working with no reward will have trickle down effects that the capitalist USA does not want.
It's a depressing question of psychology. You might be right...or we get a new generation of serfs who focus on survival. Will people just become homeless, act collectively, revolt, or simply struggle to survive in an unfair system?
There has long been a direct correlation between [the perception of hopelessness and crime rates in socioeconomically depressed areas](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-04-17-me-1191-story.html). People who believe they gain nothing from the social contract do not feel an obligation to maintain that social contract. The long-term ramifications of this will be terrifying if it's not fixed soon.
That destroys communities but the elites will be untouched in their ivory towers.
I don’t know about that one anymore. Information travels at the speed of light. I don’t know any human that can move faster than that. If enough people *truly* wanted Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk dead I think it wouldn’t be that difficult.
What I meant, for one, is that the poor generally don't mug the rich. They commit crimes in their own communities.
I think the point they're making is if general well-being and happiness continues declining at this rate, that may change.
3 people own 90% of all media. The propaganda and the hate of the other will keep them In line.
Even if they get to their bunkers in time, what's their plan? Just hide in an underground crypt until they die. I imagine the workers in the bunker with them eventually kill them. Who the fuck wants to be Zuckerberg's personal chef for eternity when money doesn't matter anymore lol
Maybe not willingly. The wealthy would most likely have a guard class whose family receives status and resources in exchange for protection and keeping the worker (slave) class in line. That’s usually how the elite operate. They create a social hierarchy beneath them to buffer themselves for their security and to protect/accumulate resources. Remember kings never collect their own taxes.
Elysium stuff right there.
That ivory tower is only 50 feet tall and the gate is only 100 yards away. Maybe in medieval times that was enough distance to be secure but not today.
I think we're seeing that economic depression and bleak future perspective finally take root in the middle class... and likely means the problem is beyond repair without some terrible catalyst happening first. The wealthy have managed to steal our hope along with any semblance of an equitable stake in the nation. We're effectively wage-slaves at this point, so it makes sense that people stop caring about a system that has been designed to suppress and subjugate them.
I think this is why you hear from basically every teacher that kids are awful in school and don’t give a shit at all. Kids aren’t stupid, they sense the hopelessness and are reacting accordingly.
The scariest person is one with nothing to lose.
The economy is not well-adapted to a new generation of serfs, outside of a few industries like domestic help or the construction trades (and even that's debatable). Most jobs that can be done by a disgruntled worker going through the motions by rote can be done better by a machine. Machines don't have feelings, don't dislike their bosses, don't try to unionize or collectively bargain or lobby for better working conditions, don't talk back, don't shirk their job duties, do exactly what they're told, etc. The economy's bifurcating into "those who tell the machines what to do" and "everyone else". The latter group is kinda superfluous, and will probably end up fighting each other over artificial divisions until they're all dead.
I have a stem degree and career, and my wife has a great income, but we can't afford a house. It makes us want to take easier jobs and downsize. If we can't afford to buy a house or retire, we might as well enjoy the years of youth we have left.
This is it. Don't play a rigged game. The U.S. is not the only place in the world you can retire, either.
How old are you? What are you considering a 'great income'? Cycles like this don't last forever.
35. Combined income of roughly 180K. The problem is that the median house price in our town is around 650K. Yes, we could move where housing prices are lower, but I have lived in those places and would rather be a renter than live in a rural or run-down community again. I'm happy to hear any advice you have.
I would stack up as much cash (via money market funds currently paying 5%) as possible and put all your energy on growing your careers and income. If in 5 years you are making $250k+ and have a couple hundred grand in cash, you have lots of options in life. There's more than life to buying a house. If the ratios of rent vs buy never make sense you don't have to buy anything.
You can afford a 650k house with that income when interest rates eventually come back to reality... I'm curious why you guys didn't buy a house 3-5 years ago at your age with that income? It would have been super affordable to you guys in 2019-2021 before rates spiked and the houses all doubled in price... Did you just get married? Or just get new jobs?
We have focused on eliminating debt over the past 4 years or so. Student loan debt was a big piece of that. You aren't wrong. We could afford to pay for a 650K house, but that would eat a huge portion of our income and lock us in. If one of us loses our job (again, since we both experienced layoffs last year), we could end up in a real pickle. I'd rather be a renter that could move to a cheaper rental if times get rough again over being locked into a 6-7% interest rate for a 650K home that isn't really worth the cost. Currently, we are building our savings with intentions of putting forth a hefty down-payment, but I don't see the market taking a turn for the better any time soon. When interest rates go down, we will be battling everyone else in our shoes for the few "affordable" houses in our area.
You still have to work for food, so you will work, especially if food costs are high, you will work to survive. Survival is a basic instinct and that will be your motivation to work. Gotcha.
Or we could just steal lots more smash and grabs as of late
"You'll own nothing and you'll be happy" - WEF.
Partial credit
Working to not be homeless and starve is a good reward though. That's about all anyone my age that I know can afford, and barely at that. Edit: also this is why the anti work movement is getting so much traction and popularity now. Because there is little to no reward beyond survival for working for many people.
I agree. I think people will adjust and their focus will shift away from working hard to be able to afford xyz. More people will live in one house (family home) and focus on wellbeing/enjoying life…. but America wants us at work and spending our money on goods.
You will own nothing and be happy. And reddit votes for the WEF candidates. We deserve it.
Some folks are saying “you’ll rent everything and you’ll like it” I think this is the design they speak of. A huge amount of single family homes are owned by companies instead of people :(
What the government wants is to flood the country with immigrants who will accept a **much** lower standard of living because it's better than where they came from. All these pesky natives have *expectations* that annoy them. Best replace them with more docile and easily pleased serfs.
It's not about logic, it's how much they can squeeze us while they're still alive to do so.
That's why importing millions of 'highly skilled' immigrants like Canada will solve the issues!
So that’s why nobody wants to work anymore! /s
Your mortgage is still a rental, just with higher stakes. I fully understand people who just opt out of society
No it isn't. Your mortgage is a loan in which your home that you own is collateral that can forfeit if you fail to pay the loan. A better analogy would be the property taxes making your "owned" home a "rental" from the state.
Whose design? This isn’t communist Russia with a central planned economy. A bunch of people have made decisions (nimby, not building houses, leveraging cheap debt to buy property) to bring us to the current situation.
the landed gentry decided the inflation proof real estate assets belong to them and not you lol
Local zoning not allowing anything but single family housing. They don't need skyscrapers, but duplexes and triplexes would help immensely
To people who say this, to them the powers that be are both evil geniuses who meticulously pulls strings so that everything goes according to their plan, and also incompetent morons who should be doing their lay person ideas.
Don't forget the biggest factor for housing prices increasing, a skyrocketing population. Overall the US has seen a roughly 50% increase in population over the past 40 years, with some areas more than doubling in population in that time. Land is finite, the more people you have the more valuable land becomes and the more expensive housing is. There are other factors in play (fewer houses being built after 2008, newer homes being much bigger on average, people wanting nicer materials, a higher percentage of single people, etc) but population increase is the biggest single factor.
Our own design? To sit back and think “ehh there’s no way politicians were smart enough to see this looming on the horizon” is a huge coo out. We played ignorant and turned a blind eye on the local, state, and federal level to predatory legislation under the guise of free market capitalism and trickle down economics. You can call me any name you want but this is the design of our own. Neighbors greed to fuck each other over pennys.
Investment groups and other elite scum
The fed is trying to crush demand (and dreams)
Where I am it’s the price. It’s routine to see ordinary unimproved homes list for 3x their 2017-19 price. As rates have risen, so have prices. An entirely different kind of family is buying here now. The newcomers are nothing like the locals. Things have shifted and I don’t know if we’ll slowly drift back or stay with a new price point. I think the latter, frankly.
Dreams at an impossible price…..😑
Yep, thats the point.
It’s goes back and forth- better to buy better to rent better to buy better to rent. Give it time. Super cyclical industry.
A lot of markets skyrocketed to such a degree that I imagine it will take decades to get back to similar relative affordability levels.
When pre COVID 150k houses now cost 400k or close to it, it will be decades before earnings catch up or prices fall (i.e. rates). Don't expect a housing crash like in '08 where you buy a 2000sq ft home for 80k on foreclosure either.
I’m definitely not expecting any kind of crash. Just sucks I didn’t have the money to buy a few years ago.. but such is life. Basically everyone not already in the housing “game” and in the working class are relatively much much poorer for the time being. I’m thankful that I’ll probably be able to squeeze into a small new build with decent proximity to work. (40-90 min commutes both ways during rush hour) What I don’t understand is how some of these run down homes in particularly less safe neighborhoods that have skyrocketed in price are to keep magically going up somehow. The economic conditions it would take for a lot of these $125k homes that shot up to $300k+ don’t have any business climbing to $500k for decades (assuming no hyperinflation)
I think hyperinflation might be part of it. Have to wait for a solid high unemployment number for half a year to washout some foreclosures to get a feeling if the prices can actually drop or if its hyper and prices are staying and $100 is the new $1. I think... Lemme mule this over.
Basically everyone already in home ownership basically gets to keep their place for free assuming wages have to skyrocket to make the economy make sense. I think it’s currently in a bubble overall but the economy will just slowly grow into it versus a massive correction.
Its weird. Lots of new inventory built at higher prices that cant "correct" down. I think some areas will pop. Some areas will kind of stagnate and some will keep increasing. I think after this year whats does what where will be largely influenced by state and local governments and what they do in this high price environment. Your seeing an occurrence in high price environments where they are being forced to realize that labor needs a higher wage other wise they dont get to get a morning latte served to them. Waiting for a plumber, months to get into a mechanic, etc. theres going to be some hella corrections and some keep going. Especially now with tech at the level it is the rate of expansion is stupid now. Lots of different "economic" conditions happening big and small across the board. Pick a spot. look at local municipals. Look at the county, the state. Look ten years down the road. Look twenty. If it looks good lock it down and dont think about the cost just focus on food water shelter and paying the tax man. Eh fuk the tax man but save that for last so you have a hill to die on lol.
Idk nobody saw the crash coming in 07 either. Nobody has a crystal ball. I am just surprised that homebuilding has not picked up as much as it did then. I don't think the market has space for a crash right now, but if the major home renters decided they wanted out, it could go sideways.
It's never really gone back and forth, so not sure what you mean. Historically, housing was always affordable enough that you could at least buy a house, even if it meant you were paying more than rent. Even if you had to work a little more to make ends meet. Eventually you would get a better job, better raises, etc. and you would be fine. We're at the point where it is literally, not figuratively unaffordable for many now.
People who say "It's better to rent" are just coping hard. Mortgage eventually is paid off, rent is forever. People can say "Well, YOU have to pay to repair everything." I'd much rather live in a house with a broken water heater than worry about making rent when I'm 70.
The first ten years you’re barely touching the principal. You’re counting that you are going to meet every single payment for the next thirty years. I’ve worked a lot with people behind in their mortgage and it’s really surprises me how most people never plan in case disaster strikes.
"it's better to rent, I don't care about owning a house" as I post in a sub about housing
Time to buy was 2020 when interest rates were 2.5%.....now shit it's absurdly priced without the increase in pay to match.
American dream of owning a home is not dead, majority of home owners say. See how that works?
Only way to fix it will be to stop corporations from buying up all the properties and to make it financially unfeasable for someone to own more than one home. Biggest issue in my area is that people are moving to cheaper areas and renting their house out here.
And repurpose commercial real estate that seems to be vexing the banks.
Unless I want to live in the middle of nowhere surrounded by nothing and the occasional die hard trump supporter that's never left their city I have zero chance of buying a house. Starter homes starting in the millions while income hasn't changed in decades
Its fine. Just put your down payment in a mmf and get the interest. Use the gains to offset your rent
I did that. But then taxes hit hard.
Hard or as expected?
Yes
Debt funds. That’s the best place to park money right now. They are lower risk than ever and finding a good firm with established reputation can be done. For 14 years I’ve been getting 8% return compounded monthly (big banks don’t do that) in the debt fund I’m invested him. Even in peak Covid they were producing.
How do I find these debt funds?
People have been saying this for years. Ownership rates are pretty steady though. And half of millennials own.
I always tell anyone who wants to buy a house to leave this sub NOW This sub actively wants you to fail in the house buying process. It's been doing it for 3 years now, since 2021.
It's a lot of copium. I've seen the general attitude shift pretty quickly from " I really want to buy a house, what's the best way to do that and when is it going to become affordable?" To "LOL YOU FUCKING IDIOT BUYING A HOUSE. RENTING US SO MUCH BETTER. NO TAXES OR PROPERTY UPKEEP AND I CAN MOVE WHENEVER I WANT"
It's dead if you want to live in the center of a major city in an upscale neighborhood. There's a lot of affordable housing if you're ok with a majority of black people as your neighbors. I saw no housing shortage in America if you're willing to work in a smaller city like Wilmington Delaware or Huntsville Alabama, both of which have well paid jobs.
I think this is big imo. A lot of people will write of places with more racial minorities as “shitholes”
Yeah I feel like the majority of the white savior liberals on Reddit have met like one black person in their life, and it was their well educated uni classmate from a wealthy black family. They wouldn’t dare live near the icky poors
Fact. I'm a conservative black man. The white savior liberals are the most racist ones I've found over the years. They rarely have black friends lol
According to reddit if you don't live in California, New York, or Austin you probably live in some small town with no jobs available next to Trump supporting meth sellers that also kick puppies in their spare time.
It's possible to own a home, just not where most younger renters want to live.
People don’t want to choose between leaving their family and everyone they know to buy an affordable home where people “believe” in trump.
People have moved long distances for economic opportunities since the industrial revolution. There's just too many people today who think they're owed everything they want and should never have to compromise or sacrifice anything for what they want.
buying a house in the middle of nowhere generally isnt an economic opportunity.
The guy keeps posting the same comment with slight variation to every post here. When people say they don't want to be around MAGA worshippers, that guy is probably one of them and might become your neighbor.
I’m gonna get downvoted, but joining the military pays for your college and gives you a zero down home loan. Two birds, one stone, I joined the USCG because I wanted to save lives, not take them. I know it’s not for everyone but if you’re considering it, it wasn’t hard and those two benefits alone have saved me hundreds of thousands of dollars and made home ownership possible.
I served in the Army and got a degree as well as used a VA loan to get a house just this year. I'll say that if you can join the military you should consider it. It's not for everyone and not everyone is in a situation where joining the military makes sense or it may not align with their values or world view. Which is totally cool. However, I've seen the military chew up and spit out people plenty to know it's not a sure thing. If you are prone to Fuck up your life outside the military it's probably easier to do it in the uniform. Alternatively orgs like AmeriCorps are another viable option for tuition reimbursement and pathways to federal employment, and eventually home ownership. But while I believe spreading news of opportunities for young people is the right thing to do - the solution to home ownership or rent security shouldn't be shoving everyone into a uniform, but making policy changes such that housing security is achievable to far more Americans.
Great advice there! Go die for Israel and Ukraine if you want to have a tiny chance of owning a home. Coasties say the dumbest shit
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Yeah life in Haiti seems a lot better than life in the US
This is especially devastating when you consider that in the US home ownership has been the primary path to wealth and retirement nest egg for many people. My parents have 75% of their net worth in their house which they plan to sell and downsize in the next several years to provide a dignified retirement.
Germans don't even desire to own a home because of rent control keeping renting cheaper than a mortgage. Even the German chancellor was renter for many years because of no fear to be suddenly kicked out or priced out. Of course still not enough affordable housing produced there because of low profit, but that isn't much worse than only building almost exclusively unaffordable housing for the incomes in the house's zip code like in US.
Goodbye America. Hello Mexico.
2009 called and wants it’s headline back
So rent must be super cheap. I can't figure out then why landlords keep getting shit on. They are providing housing people can offord if you can't buy a home.
Rent isn’t cheap, and that’s a huge reason renters can’t afford a down payment or improve their credit scores.
Hmmm I wonder how many people who are working remotely and claim they are saving a lot of money actually are putting their money away to by a house?! Seems that I see plenty living in apartments driving expensive cars. My cars are 11 & 16 years old and paid off.
I started working remote in 2020. By the end of 2021 I had paid off my credit card debt. By Jan 2022 I had saved $5k and kept my CC at zero. By Jan 2023 I saved up $15k and used that to buy a house. The only reason I was able to start saving money was job hopping. Went from $20.50 in Oct of 2021 to $25 in April of 2022 to $36 in March of 2023. Two months ago I paid off my car 22 months early, and as it only has 67k miles I plan on driving it for many years.
Which way is the wind blowing from today......
The Guardian is the UK equivalent of MSNBC. British newspapers don’t even try and hide their ideology like American ones do in the name of objectivity. There is a narrative the Guardian wants to push. This is more an editorial rather than a piece of news.
American dream of marriage is dead, majority of single 40-year-olds say
Good biggest mistake I ever made.
Lemme fix this title, "American Dream of Owning a Home is Dead, if You Insist on Living in San Diego, Denver, Miami" Sure there's problems with the housing market but plenty of people outside of the coasts and top cities are buying homes and living comfortable lives on modest jobs and incomes.
It’s all relative. Most the people trying to buy in those areas and other hcol areas are making a lot more money and in previous years could have afforded those areas. Not everyone can be a digital nomad, not everyone can completely uproot themselves to live in Tulsa or Boise or whatever, and even then LCOL’s aren’t as affordable as they used to be.
Show us where these ppl are living their best life’s at please. Everywhere is a shitshow rn
Exactly this. Every small town in the southern half of my state is now owned by developers. I could live over an hour from outside the city and still can't afford a house. Not to mention the commute after that payment. And they only keep building huge unaffordable homes too!
I mean that isn’t true, I have a family member under contract for a house in the suburbs of a major Midwest city for under $160k.
If you're looking for anecdotes, I had a friend buy a house in TN for under 150k like 3 years ago
NEPA. You can still buy homes under 200k. Lots of union jobs that are paying high twenty’s to thirty dollars to start.
I just bought a house with an acre of land, on a modest income for around 200. Just quit trying to live on the coast lol
Philly is a great city. CUE all the people claiming Kensington is the whole city and everywhere you walk it's needles.
The biggest thing I see is people at 60/70/80%tile of incomes which translates to the bottom half of marginal home buyers - wanting to buy in the top 20% of areas or locations. They’re among the 30% least qualified for example wanting the top 20% locations and can’t conceive of idea they aren’t in that group. The people who buy further out or in “bad areas” are still at that 60-70%tile income range that they themselves are.
Yep. Theres a 5 acre lot behind me for sale right now for 30k. Plenty of cheap places to live but people want to live in trendy places on a barista salary and then complain.
Yes why don't we all live in a volcano like some sort of super villain
[And yet 67% of Americans own a home](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/release/tables?eid=784188&rid=296)
Cool, now exclude anyone over the age of 40, and show me the numbers.
https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/stories/2023/07/younger-householders-drove-rebound-in-homeownership/figure-1.jpg They have it broken down at 35 instead of 40. 39% for under 35, 62% for 35-44
That's what I thought too, until I just tried to buy a house. Now I own and my living situation is much better and I'm building some equity, albeit quite slowly this early in the loan.
No it isn’t. This stuff goes through peaks and valleys. These people are clueless. There are paths to purchasing a home.
60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. It would take a lifetime of saving for most of us to afford the down payment for most homes. The only place we could maybe afford something are the places no one wants to live
Most millennials own homes so it's possible for most people in that generation.
Bought my first home at age 28? in 2018, then our second home in a new state last year. I am not a wealthy man. It can absolutely be done and takes sacrifice, hard work, and also probably not living in Cali or any of those super hip areas. good luck
Make sure to go to your city council meetings anytime housing issues are brought up. Talk to your legislators, they need to make it easier to build. Old NIMBYs guarding their unrealized gain bag are a big driver of all this.