10 ms·

This is interesting considering all the empty space available in the US compared with countries like Japan where it is more common to find people in their 30s s

This is interesting considering all the empty space available in the US compared with countries like Japan where it is more common to find people in their 30s still living with their parents even if they are married, and it is not weird at all, it is as normal as you can get considering the space available for housing.

hkmurakami 10y ago
>Japan where it is more common to find people in their 30s still living with their parents even if they are married This is driven chiefly by their confucian societal value system rather than economics though. The wives (who are almost always the ones who have to "move in" to the family) mostly hate the experience. Living with family while single (regardless of age or gender, but especially if you are female, since gender equality in the workplace still has a long way to go) on the other hand is primarily economically driven.
- mc32 10y ago
  You also have the "lost generation" of herbivore men, "parasite-singles" and housebound otakus who contribute to lots of stay-at-home-beyond-the-expiry-(grown)children precipitated by a tepid economy.
- hasenj 10y ago
  I think your are mistaken. Living with one's parents in most parts of the world is just the default thing to do. The whole concept of moving out for no reason at all is super weird and confusing for most cultures, and borders on a sense of abandoning one's parents.
  - mamon 10y ago
    That's true for young and single. Default thing to do when getting married is to move out.
    - hasenj 10y ago
      Not necessarily. At least in Arab countries people used to get married in their parents' home. The wife would move in to the house of the husband's parents.
ekianjo 10y ago
> it is as normal as you can get considering the space available for housing Which is heavily dependent on housing regulations.
toomuchtodo 10y ago
> Why It’s So Hard to Build Affordable Housing: It’s Not Affordable > Developers struggle to break even on rental projects for the poorest Americans. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-26/why-it-s-so-hard-to-build-affordable-housing-it-s-not-affordable https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-26/why-it-s-... This is without even discussing the macroeconomic effects of central banks attempting stimulus by printing money, driving up asset values artificially. http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/08/daily-chart-20 http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/08/daily-c... "WHAT a difference a decade makes. In 2006 house prices in America hit an all-time high, after rising unabated for the previous ten years. The crash that followed brought the entire global financial system to its knees. As our cover leader this week explains, despite efforts to fix the plumbing of the American mortgage market, housing in the United States remains a dangerous menace to the world economy. In the meantime property prices in the country, underpinned by low interest rates, forge ahead. On average, American home prices have recovered nearly all their losses from the 2006 crash, but when adjusted for inflation they are still 20% below the 2006 peak."
- nostrademons 10y ago
  I'm curious where the profits accrue in the real-estate industry. It's a manufacturing industry where we have relatively advanced machinery to build the houses themselves; you'd think that the cost of housing would have dropped the way, say, cars or silicon has. But it hasn't: the price of housing has largely been flat or increased. Usually when this happens, it's because there is some monopoly scarcity in the value-chain that allows the producer at that level to reap large profits, eg. Microsoft and Intel in the desktop software value chain, or Apple in the mobile ecosystem. I'd thought that real-estate developers were that scarcity in the housing value chain, but this article suggests that they struggle to break even. Who is it? Construction and real-estate brokers can make a lot in boom times, but they tend to lose it to the cyclical nature of the real-estate industry, so I don't normally think of them as the ones getting rich. Is it Caterpillar, making the heavy equipment used by construction? Land owners, who can keep land supply off the market? (But then, the price of raw unimproved land basically tracks inflation, indicating a competitive market.) Property managers? Is there artificial scarcity enforced by transportation infrastructure - the article indicated that one of the developer's primary constraints was the need to build near light rail?
bigdubs 10y ago
I don't particularly want to live in the middle of a corn-field though, I want to live near my friends, and live near other stuff that we're all into, which means cities, which means smaller areas.
- mc32 10y ago
  But people don't have to clump only in megacities. They can clump in midsized cities throughout the Midwest and elsewhere. There is no reason there can't be more Portlands or Minneapolises in the Midwest, for example. You take all those 2,500 to 40,000 communities and build around one or the other and soak up the surrounding communities to make bigger and richer communities.
  - sporkenfang 10y ago
    That sounds wonderful. Just as soon as you pry the car culture and suburbs from the hands of the folks who live in say Kansas and enjoy the status quo...
    - nocman 10y ago
      Not everyone who lives in the U. S. wants to live in a city. Are you suggesting we should give up our right to chose where we want to live so you can have more small cities?
      - dublinben 10y ago
        There is every indication that more people would like to live in cities, but can't afford to.
        ArkyBeagle 10y ago
        Pittsburg seems nice enough but seems to be pretty reasonable. Dallas? I'd say very nice, with a mix of suburbs and city spaces and a much nicer set of roads and light rail than was there in the 1980s. Perhaps there is compromise? Perhaps this is really only a real problem in SanFran and NYC. Even NYC has The Bronx and good rail service.
ksec 10y ago
The first thing to solve ANY problem is to recognize there is a problem. So the biggest problem is the government does NOT think there is a problem. And those people should try and work EVEN harder to afford a basic housing or mortgage.
chongli 10y ago
There's lots of empty space in Japan, too. Whole villages are being abandoned to the point where they're taking stops off the train lines. The problem is that only retired people want to live in rural Japan, everybody else goes to the big city to work.
sean_patel 10y ago
> more common to find people in their 30s still living with their parents India also. I visited a few years ago and was totally "wierded out". They call it "Joint family" there. Several cousins and uncles living under the same roof. Lots of drama in the kitchen :)
Shivetya 10y ago
well the Federal government allow owns nearly thirty percent of the land area of the United States, it is particularly high in many Western States which adversely affects availability on the West Coast versus the East. I find the living with parents issue to be an odd one because the period where that wasn't the case doesn't seem to be so long ago. There is a strong push toward independence of self in the US and that may have pushed people to seek their own homes a lot earlier than elsewhere but to sustain that needs a vibrant economy up and down the economic scale. To get back to that would require lessening the burden of regulation and taxation, something never happening in Japan and resulting in their stagnation for decades. You cannot spend borrowed money for so long to get out of the rut
freyir 10y ago
It's normal to live with your parents into your 30s in many countries. Italy, for example. People often wait until they can buy their own house to move out.
- herbst 10y ago
  Exactly. No point in trying to find a cheap place just because when you can actually save the money and move to a great place as soon as it makes sense for you. I dont get the mindset at all. I dont want to live in a shitty small apartment or something shared with strangers just _because_.
  - megablast 10y ago
    You don't like your own independence? Living with other people your own age?
    - herbst 10y ago
      This is exactly the mindset i dont understand. > You don't like your own independence? i dont see how this is in conflict with living with my parents. > Living with other people your own age? Nope. Done that, wont do again. Disclaimer: I dont live with my parents anymore but wouldnt mind going back. My parents are also cool, its respectfully living together, more than i ever had when living with people my age.
      - hobo_mark 10y ago
        You must have had cool parents then, but this is far from being the norm.

hkmurakami 10y ago

>Japan where it is more common to find people in their 30s still living with their parents even if they are married This is driven chiefly by their confucian societal value system rather than economics though. The wives (who are almost always the ones who have to "move in" to the family) mostly hate the experience. Living with family while single (regardless of age or gender, but especially if you are female, since gender equality in the workplace still has a long way to go) on the other hand is primarily economically driven.

mc32 10y ago
You also have the "lost generation" of herbivore men, "parasite-singles" and housebound otakus who contribute to lots of stay-at-home-beyond-the-expiry-(grown)children precipitated by a tepid economy.
hasenj 10y ago
I think your are mistaken. Living with one's parents in most parts of the world is just the default thing to do. The whole concept of moving out for no reason at all is super weird and confusing for most cultures, and borders on a sense of abandoning one's parents.
- mamon 10y ago
  That's true for young and single. Default thing to do when getting married is to move out.
  - hasenj 10y ago
    Not necessarily. At least in Arab countries people used to get married in their parents' home. The wife would move in to the house of the husband's parents.

ekianjo 10y ago

> it is as normal as you can get considering the space available for housing Which is heavily dependent on housing regulations.

toomuchtodo 10y ago

> Why It’s So Hard to Build Affordable Housing: It’s Not Affordable > Developers struggle to break even on rental projects for the poorest Americans. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-26/why-it-s-so-hard-to-build-affordable-housing-it-s-not-affordable https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-26/why-it-s-... This is without even discussing the macroeconomic effects of central banks attempting stimulus by printing money, driving up asset values artificially. http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/08/daily-chart-20 http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/08/daily-c... "WHAT a difference a decade makes. In 2006 house prices in America hit an all-time high, after rising unabated for the previous ten years. The crash that followed brought the entire global financial system to its knees. As our cover leader this week explains, despite efforts to fix the plumbing of the American mortgage market, housing in the United States remains a dangerous menace to the world economy. In the meantime property prices in the country, underpinned by low interest rates, forge ahead. On average, American home prices have recovered nearly all their losses from the 2006 crash, but when adjusted for inflation they are still 20% below the 2006 peak."

nostrademons 10y ago
I'm curious where the profits accrue in the real-estate industry. It's a manufacturing industry where we have relatively advanced machinery to build the houses themselves; you'd think that the cost of housing would have dropped the way, say, cars or silicon has. But it hasn't: the price of housing has largely been flat or increased. Usually when this happens, it's because there is some monopoly scarcity in the value-chain that allows the producer at that level to reap large profits, eg. Microsoft and Intel in the desktop software value chain, or Apple in the mobile ecosystem. I'd thought that real-estate developers were that scarcity in the housing value chain, but this article suggests that they struggle to break even. Who is it? Construction and real-estate brokers can make a lot in boom times, but they tend to lose it to the cyclical nature of the real-estate industry, so I don't normally think of them as the ones getting rich. Is it Caterpillar, making the heavy equipment used by construction? Land owners, who can keep land supply off the market? (But then, the price of raw unimproved land basically tracks inflation, indicating a competitive market.) Property managers? Is there artificial scarcity enforced by transportation infrastructure - the article indicated that one of the developer's primary constraints was the need to build near light rail?

bigdubs 10y ago

I don't particularly want to live in the middle of a corn-field though, I want to live near my friends, and live near other stuff that we're all into, which means cities, which means smaller areas.

mc32 10y ago
But people don't have to clump only in megacities. They can clump in midsized cities throughout the Midwest and elsewhere. There is no reason there can't be more Portlands or Minneapolises in the Midwest, for example. You take all those 2,500 to 40,000 communities and build around one or the other and soak up the surrounding communities to make bigger and richer communities.
- sporkenfang 10y ago
  That sounds wonderful. Just as soon as you pry the car culture and suburbs from the hands of the folks who live in say Kansas and enjoy the status quo...
  - nocman 10y ago
    Not everyone who lives in the U. S. wants to live in a city. Are you suggesting we should give up our right to chose where we want to live so you can have more small cities?
    - dublinben 10y ago
      There is every indication that more people would like to live in cities, but can't afford to.
      - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
        Pittsburg seems nice enough but seems to be pretty reasonable. Dallas? I'd say very nice, with a mix of suburbs and city spaces and a much nicer set of roads and light rail than was there in the 1980s. Perhaps there is compromise? Perhaps this is really only a real problem in SanFran and NYC. Even NYC has The Bronx and good rail service.

ksec 10y ago

The first thing to solve ANY problem is to recognize there is a problem. So the biggest problem is the government does NOT think there is a problem. And those people should try and work EVEN harder to afford a basic housing or mortgage.

chongli 10y ago

There's lots of empty space in Japan, too. Whole villages are being abandoned to the point where they're taking stops off the train lines. The problem is that only retired people want to live in rural Japan, everybody else goes to the big city to work.

sean_patel 10y ago

> more common to find people in their 30s still living with their parents India also. I visited a few years ago and was totally "wierded out". They call it "Joint family" there. Several cousins and uncles living under the same roof. Lots of drama in the kitchen :)

Shivetya 10y ago

well the Federal government allow owns nearly thirty percent of the land area of the United States, it is particularly high in many Western States which adversely affects availability on the West Coast versus the East. I find the living with parents issue to be an odd one because the period where that wasn't the case doesn't seem to be so long ago. There is a strong push toward independence of self in the US and that may have pushed people to seek their own homes a lot earlier than elsewhere but to sustain that needs a vibrant economy up and down the economic scale. To get back to that would require lessening the burden of regulation and taxation, something never happening in Japan and resulting in their stagnation for decades. You cannot spend borrowed money for so long to get out of the rut

freyir 10y ago

It's normal to live with your parents into your 30s in many countries. Italy, for example. People often wait until they can buy their own house to move out.

herbst 10y ago
Exactly. No point in trying to find a cheap place just because when you can actually save the money and move to a great place as soon as it makes sense for you. I dont get the mindset at all. I dont want to live in a shitty small apartment or something shared with strangers just _because_.
- megablast 10y ago
  You don't like your own independence? Living with other people your own age?
  - herbst 10y ago
    This is exactly the mindset i dont understand. > You don't like your own independence? i dont see how this is in conflict with living with my parents. > Living with other people your own age? Nope. Done that, wont do again. Disclaimer: I dont live with my parents anymore but wouldnt mind going back. My parents are also cool, its respectfully living together, more than i ever had when living with people my age.
    - hobo_mark 10y ago
      You must have had cool parents then, but this is far from being the norm.