Do you think we will ever have affordable housing again in our lifetime?
Do you think we will ever have affordable housing again in our lifetime?
Considering how crazy expensive accommodations have become the last couple of years, concentrated in the hands of greedy corporations, landlords and how little politicians seem to care about this problem, do you think we will ever experience a real estate market crash that would bring those exorbitant prices back to Earth?
I honestly think were heading for a total societal collapse. If the people with power and resources were the sort that were inclined to use it for good, they would have done it already. Given that we haven't seen this, it's reasonable that this accumulation at the top will continue unabated and that more and more people will fall into poverty and despair.
This is a recipe for revolution, and revolution is largely incompatible with stability, especially in the near term.
I wish this wasn't the case. I suspect this century''s deaths will dwarf last century's.
No. As the effects of climate change become worse, people will migrate to cooler places, which will only push up prices in those places. Poor people will be left to live in uninhabitable and uninsurable areas, while the rich will get to live in comfort.
Climate change is essentially a class struggle, like everything else in life. As long as the 1% don’t have to suffer, nothing will be done. To get the rich to do something about climate change, it will have to affect them directly.
No. Expensive housing is a genie in a bottle.
Once sufficient people have purchased a house at the high price, it would be in their interest for prices to remain high. Corporate entities that buy up houses will actively lobby to make sure housing prices stay high, and the average Joe who paid that much for a house will be happy it stays that way.
I think were closer to seeing people be forced to rent every comoddity they need to live than we are to seeing full home ownership.
I bought an apartment about 15 years ago. I finally finished paying it about 3 years ago, and recently got an offer to move to Ontario. With the current house prices and what I was offered there (about 80k), I could barely make rent for my family. I really wanted to move but had to say no because of stupid absurd rent prices. What’s weird is that if I wanted to rent the place I bought I would not be able to afford it either. This is bullshit.
There are 2 big obstacles we need to overcome. The first is corporate ownership of residential property. This needs to go away.
The second big issue, we need to build higher density housing, and get rid of the enormous parking spaces that take up our downtowns. Not everyone needs a house. And you can absolutely build medium density housing that doesn't feel cramped. Sure, living in an apartment is not perfect, but you are closer to the places you want to go, and public transportation is more feasible. It's a win-win for everyone.
The problem is not affordable housing, there's plenty of that in the US, the problem is getting people to states where housing is affordable without significant drops in quality of life due to lack of access to services and such.
Like, you could buy land in Detroit for the price of a decent car, put a trailer on it and you're already on the property ladder, but you're in Detroit.
I can’t speak to other markets but in California, the housing bubble is in part supported by investment from around the world. Chinese and Russian nouveau rich are buying homes in CA because it’s a safe place to keep their money relative to their other options. They might even just leave them empty and watch them appreciate. It’s disgusting, when people are struggling like hell just to live.
Perhaps the state could regulate this and ban international purchases or empty homes but I highly doubt it since the horse has left the barn decades ago and this would deeply impact many rich people, and those people have influence. It would also tank the home values of many average Americans, which would be deeply unpopular as many of those folks are banking on taking that value with them to Mexico or Ecuador to retire on. So this regulation would be bad for the rich and unpopular at large. It would help the young and the poor, the two chronically underrepresented groups.
So unless we can change the entire world order, I don’t see this wholly going away. Can we make it better? I think so. We need more supply, and it needs to be high density and low cost. Those are not insurmountable. But right now, private developers and the government don’t have what it takes to do anything.
I know someone who works for a low income housing non profit and they manage 8 big apartment buildings that their non profit built or bought and they operate them as homes for low income people. They are funded by philanthropists large and small as well as some public money.
If we could find a way to direct more money to such things, we could make a real impact. Perhaps a wealth tax that goes directly to such housing.
But even then, it’s like MediCal - it will only help those in abject poverty. It wont help my cousin who is making $125k and still can’t afford to buy a home. Middle class will never get help, basically, and this is why you see them moving elsewhere.
No. With climate change more land will be unlivable, there will be more conflicts and more immigration (legal and illegal). Housing will increase because demand is high and supply will shrink further b
No. Not because of overpopulation or such, but because the powers that be have simply discovered how lucrative it is to use housing as a business investment, and the fact that everyone NEEDS housing, no exceptions.
This is essentially a supply problem, so the "supply side" of this equation is the side with all the power. The end.
No.
I never wanted to be a homeowner personally, but earlier this year I noticed that four AirBNB's had materialized just on my little block in America, so I bought a condo. I paid $40,000 more than it cost ten years ago, but it's beautiful, I like it, and it gives me the ability to stay where I want to long-term, so here we are.
The Federal Government is not going to act on the forced scarcity of housing, so expect the issue to be handled similar to the way states handled COVID. Some states had good policies. Most had shitty policies, but overall, the outcomes were negative to some degree, and that's almost certainly what will occur with housing over time.
No, at least not in countries (e.g., the USA) that rely on the state to micromanage every aspect of zoning, and which therefore allow NIMBYs to derail progress at every possible step.
In a better world we would draft new laws to throw out our entire zoning system, and start over with something much more flexible at the state or national level- ideally based on the approach Japan uses, which defaults to mixed-use for every building and makes NIMBYism structurally impossible.
We're starting to see prices decrease right now, since high interest rates are holding. The big analytics firms think we will see a return to affordable housing in 2024 as long as the fed continues to raise interest rates. The reality for larger cities is that prices will most likely stabilize and possibly decrease slightly, but never return to reasonable. Lots of people are in 2% mortgages right now on homes with inflated values. Those people are never moving unless life forces them to. So while rising interest should decrease housing affordability and force prices back down, inventory will remain low, keeping prices pretty stable. Areas with abundant inventory should see a return to normalcy, but for big popular cities, this is probably the new normal. Unfortunately nobody has a crystal ball, and we can't be sure of anything. But this is what the experts think.
In 2007, I might have said "no."
I'm trying to get a mortgage atm. Long term disabled / self-employed with low income, got dad as a guarantor, I feel amazed we managed to get a single lender, we now have a mortgage in principle.
I'm also horribly unlucky so I can predict with near-certainty that yes house prices will crash immediately after I'm on the hook at 7.5%, at which point interest rates will also plummet.
Can't put a price on having my own space and not being evicted on the whim of a greedy landlord though (my current situation, 13 years, £70k in rent, not so much as a thank you or goodbye, just off you fuck so I can get someone in paying more).
Fate will decide whether we see this in out lifetime, and it will depend a lot on where you live. Several factors affect these prices, and I probably don't have an exhaustive list but here are some.
There is the boomer bubble. Boomers possess most of the houses. When they die, a lot of house will enter the market. Fortunately for us, heat waves and pandemics should accelerate this process.
There is the financial bubble. Housing earns money, and all actors ensure it stays this way. To solve that, you need to kill housing as a finance product. The most effective solution (and I think the only effective solution) would be ceiling to location prices. And with that, forbid, through taxes or rule, empty houses. Let the landlords deal with market shit. This would instantly crash the market, which is an excellent thing for everyone but people who rent houses or plan to sell their house.
There is the actual market: we usually need more houses, but building too fast would crash the market. So if you let building to the market, it will never build enough for prices to go down. You need a government that will force construction. You also need laws or taxes against empty houses.
A note on empty houses: it is a very important factor because it allows landlords to control the market by removing or releasing houses on the market. The only empty houses that should be allowed should be for repair or hostel.
There is the globalisation, especially planes. Planes make connected cities kind of neighbours, which means their house prices will become similar over time. This means that changes in plane traffic, laws or airports can affect local housing market. It's not such a big deal though.
There is probably more to say about finance. Loans are probably a factor too, but I don't know enough of it, and what I say in the finance part will affect it too, an probably in greater proportion.
Tl;Dr is simple : you need a brave government to apply simple and known solutions to the problem. Landlords will be ruined and that shouldn't be a concern but that will probably be the reason why nothing will be done.
It's just gonna get worse until everything crashes completely in a way that nobody will own anything they can't carry on their back.
I think it is achievable. But someone has to start doing the economic planning to make it happen in each local area.
One approach is to take political control of each city and resolve the problem by applying sufficient government. Either you make enough housing for the people who are there, or you seize enough stuff for the project that people start leaving. But that can be hard to muster the political will to do.
Alternatively, "housing" per se is not unaffordable: at whatever reasonable fraction of a normal wage, there is somewhere on Earth that you could pay to live. Plenty of empty space in small towns scattered across the US, for example. The problem is that you can't actually live there, because you also need to have a job to pay for the housing, which isn't where the housing/empty land is. Also many of these places are so under-served by municipal services as to be practically uninhabitable: you can afford an RV and you can afford an acre of desert with no electric, water, or sewer service, but you cannot combine the two to create acceptable housing.
If the people who control the cities where the work and services are are unwilling to accommodate residents, then work and services need to be organized in places not under the control of these malicious actors. Ideally with new mechanisms in place to prevent the same failure modes from reoccurring.
In Australia, they are bringing in a shared equity program that has given me hope. Roll on 2024...
If we have affordable housing, that would lower the prices for landlords, and we can't have the leeches hurt
Straight up house prices? Yes.
As soon as people start thinking prices can only go up, housing has dropped. Over and over.
Affordable overall, including insurance and maintenance? No, we have never had that, and probably never will.
People talking about societal collapse here, look at the past. It was worse. We have come forward not backwards, overall. Sure it looks dire, but really, would you rather live in the past? Like maybe, if you are a rich white guy, but if so you are probably doing ok now too.
Yes. Housing prices have always crashed about once a decade, ore or less. Also prices tend to plateau for 10-15 years until Incomes catch up. I don’t see why this won’t continue to happen
The only difference is this time we have clear lack of supply, along with impediments to building more housing in places people want to live. There’s a profit incentive to building more and I wouldn’t bet against overcoming those obstacles. Money always wins
Not without changes in zoning codes, so no.
Unless there's a massive crash or a bubble pops, leading to a significant recession (unlike what we're currently in... Far more severe, and probably more severe than ever before).... No.
It may come down, and kind of ebb and flow a bit, but "affordable" isn't going to be a word used to describe where prices go from here.
Also, we definitely are in a time of great inflation, which is causing recession-like things to happen. If there's a recession at all right now, it's being manufactured by artificially inflated prices by greedy companies, more than anything else. This would be a good thing if "trickle down" economics existed (it doesn't).... So instead, everyone at the bottom is slowly dying while billionaire bank accounts gain a few more percentage points. When the system snaps from the massive disparagy between the ultra rich and the poor, if the system doesn't entirely collapse at that point, then we'll be in yet another unprecedented, once-in-a lifetime event, like we've never seen before. All of the millennial generation will groan and roll their eyes about it happening yet again.
Millennials, and by proxy gen z, have been so completely fucked by all the ultra rare events that have happened over the past two decades... A housing crash, a pandemic, a recession or two, now out of control inflation and insane race wars heating up. I feel like the entire generation is so burned out from it all that if aliens showed up tomorrow, it would barely be a footnote in most people's daily lives. Honestly, anything an alien race did, like taking over the world, would probably be an improvement. Even death at this point, seems more appealing than a lifetime of indentured servitude in an unfair system designed from the ground up to force the "poor" into positions they don't want, doing things they don't enjoy, just to make enough to live. That's not enough to make most of the generation suicidal, but I don't think many people would give a shit either way at this point. Moreso if you don't have dependents.
There is affordable housing now, just not where you are. Lots of places that are high end now were at one time undesirable low rent places. Brooklyn and the West Side of Hollywood are both communities that originally drew people because of low quality, low cost of living accommodations.
Look to the rust belt cities that didn't fully collapse to lead the charge. Detroit is stabilizing while still having low rent areas. Maybe Some places in Ohio and Buffalo NY as well.
You can buy a full on house in Rochester NY for under 40k but you may not want to live there.
Barring a calamity, nice places with high rents sort of stay that way. I can't imagine high cost of loving areas like Boston, Denver , Hawaii or Miami going down for anything other than an asteroid. Prices are high in places that people want to live.
I believe there are, and will be. Over 20 years ago, I moved to Dallas, TX area for the same reasons - to get away from unaffordable housing in the west and east coast. At the time, I found Dallas to have a good housing price to income ratio.
But in doing so (moving to Dallas), I may have also potentially taken a big (lifetime) pay cut. I graduated from a top ComSci school, but in moving to Dallas, I put myself outside of the market of the emerging FAANG companies in the west coast.
I think now there are still medium size cities where you may find a good balance of cost to value and quality of life. It really depends on your career goals and life goals. There's always a trade off. I believe right now, the midwest is a good value, if you can stand the winters there :)
I'm not sure. I don't really believe things will get better, as they only seem to get worse as time passes. I'm a 3rd worlder...
No.
No I don't think there will be a crash. I think we might see legislation meant to help affordability become a topic in the 2028 presidential race, when Trump and Biden are definitely out of it so there's a cluster of low-education populist voters in swing states who become swing voters, and the replacement options are decades younger and they will want fresh ideas to be at The forefront of their campaigns.
Yes. And I think soon. Student loan repayments will force people to make tough choices. I think people got into very large mortgages because they could afford it without the student loans, and likely expected rates to drop before the loans restarted.
Those people will probably have to move, possibly short selling the home (where the bank takes your home and sells it for what it can get, clearing your debt in the process even if it's less than your mortgage).
This kind of stuff happened in 2008, and I just saw a graph showing housing slightly less affordable now than then.
No. We won't be able to solve the problem because we refuse to believe that viable solutions are any more complicated than "put person in house".
Yes and the best thing you can do is get ready for it. Don't give up and wait for something to happen before you start preparing. Save your money now and when prices drop you're ready to strike and get what you want quickly
Depends if the next pandemic kills 50% of the world's population.
It's all based on supply and demand. There is not enough housing for everyone to have one at a price they can afford. The price depends entirely on what the wealthiest buyers are prepared to pay, or rather what a bank is prepared to lend them. It is nothing to do with how much the land or bricks and mortar are worth.
The only way you'll get a price drop is if the amount of properties go up or the demand drops.
We've had long periods of <1% interest rates. We've normalised 40 year mortgages. We've invented "shared ownership" schemes and "help for first time buyers". None of this has bought the prices down. It's done the opposite and blown them into the stratosphere.
In a democracy, it usually requires a majority of people to feel the same. Right now, in almost every Western country, most people live in owner-occupied housing. Most people are perfectly happy for prices to keep going up. So they’re fine with high migration and slow building. Slowly, the number of owner-occupied homes is decreasing, but we are decades away from the flip. When it happens, it’s going to be extremely destructive. Generations have and will have been locked out of home ownership. There will be all kinds of punitive taxes on property.
When climate change gets bad enough that the world goes mad max there will be plenty of houses to choose from. That's assuming the SHTF in your lifetime and you survive.
Aside from that, no.
Eventually we are going to realize that not everyone is going to be able to have a big yard and a big house with 3 cars each. Something has to give and I think it is going to be zoning laws. So while people might be able to afford "housing" again at some point in the next 50 years it is going to be more like a shack than a house.
Narp.
Either the housing market will crash after some new laws are applied that specifically target landlords.
Or the price of buying houses will catch up with the cost of building them.
When either of those will happen, I do not know.
No in this capitalism situation there is no more chance with the actually prices to own an house.
Not in time for people looking to buy soon. I think eventually it may happen but it might take decades.
I’m hopeful
Yes. Once we have coordinating unions and global strikes, we make the rules.
There are still countries with affordable housing like here I bought an apartment for 90 000 euros a few years ago. I was renting it before for 450 euros. It's in the capital next to a park.
As for the places where people can't afford a home: I think climate change will take care of that. Once we get events where death without a home is guaranteed the math will change and people will just break into and squat in the empty homes. Once that becomes popular enough something has to change or a whole lot of people will die when evicted, I don't think any country can handle that PR disaster.
I mean we are seeing the results right now of decades of exponential growth. Take a house that costs $100,000 and increase prices from 3-10% per year every year for ten twenty forty years whatever and boom, same house now costs a million bucks. It's not surprising to me at all. Idk how to fix it but it's not surprising.
Yes but it depends what country you are in. Many countries are not controlled by greedy landlords.
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this is lemmy what do you think they will answer
We bought the house next door 🚪 because we knew by the time our kids get to be adults they prolly won't be able to afford it. My kids are 6 n 10 ATM. We air BNB out the property n do everything our selves. Ik ppl that are land lords as well n they did it for their retirement. Quit hating on small "mom n pop " landlords. It's investors that buy out n flip or buy out several houses out at once n got management companies you should be hating on. Not all landlords suck or are greedy k**ts IMHO.
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Not unless you liberals accept socialism is the only way forward
No, unless there is a thanos-snap, then everything like housing, energy, and climate change will resolve automatically. But if humans keep on breeding like bunnies and outsmart things like aids, ebola, and even covid, overpopulation will put a lot more people in misery.
Every problem we solve only gives the opportunity for population growth... until the earth can't sustain us anymore.
It sounds cruel and that is why a lot of people won't admit this.
No. Stop hoping and take the houses instead.