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If housing demand was going down then housing prices would be going down. That's not what we see except in certain markets such as Detroit.

dragonwriter 8y ago
> If housing demand was going down then housing prices would be going down. Assuming supply (in the economic sense) was constant; if supply was dropping, then prices could go up even with demand dropping.
- WhompingWindows 8y ago
  I don't know if you're expert, but I'm curious: What's the push/pull balance between destruction/abandonment of old homes vs. construction of new homes vs. constant habitation of the existing homes? I guess I'm asking is the effective amount of houses on the market stable, decreasing, or increasing? Also, relative to number of people looking for homes, what's the situation?
floatingatoll 8y ago
There are a lot of assumptions coded into this, not the least of which being “mortgage lenders only approve applicants with sufficient wages”, which has repeatedly been proven false over the years. Our housing market is not as rational as your statement implies.
- Symmetry 8y ago
  Huh? The only thing I'm assuming is that sellers try to get the highest price possible and buyers try to get the lowest. If the existence of loans made buyers stop caring about the price of homes then it would be relevant but everybody I've seen homebuying still cares deeply about the price despite paying for it by loan.
  - floatingatoll 8y ago
    Is the subset of people interested _at all_ in homebuying growing, stagnant, or shrinking? I assert that homebuyers in the newest growth segment that can produce homebuyers (born in 1990 or later) are a steadily decreasing population, something Zillow fails at all to consider as a possible cause, even as NYT and WaPo publish articles showing that same generation as destitute compared to their parents at that age. (FHA loans require two yesrs of continuous employment and of average wage earned throughout that time. Working for Instacart and Uber, as many of them do, will not likely qualify as either employment or sufficient average wage.)
    - Symmetry 8y ago
      That would seem possible on its face but if it were true I'd expect that having fewer people trying to buy homes would cause home prices to fall. And they very much have not been falling. The absolute number of houses in the US isn't shrinking so if prices are rising the number of people looking for houses is increasing or they're each willing to pay more money for the best houses or something like that.
      - floatingatoll 8y ago
        Would your expectations hold true if the absolute number of people buying an additional home each year is increasing? Is it?

dragonwriter 8y ago

> If housing demand was going down then housing prices would be going down. Assuming supply (in the economic sense) was constant; if supply was dropping, then prices could go up even with demand dropping.

WhompingWindows 8y ago
I don't know if you're expert, but I'm curious: What's the push/pull balance between destruction/abandonment of old homes vs. construction of new homes vs. constant habitation of the existing homes? I guess I'm asking is the effective amount of houses on the market stable, decreasing, or increasing? Also, relative to number of people looking for homes, what's the situation?

floatingatoll 8y ago

There are a lot of assumptions coded into this, not the least of which being “mortgage lenders only approve applicants with sufficient wages”, which has repeatedly been proven false over the years. Our housing market is not as rational as your statement implies.

Symmetry 8y ago
Huh? The only thing I'm assuming is that sellers try to get the highest price possible and buyers try to get the lowest. If the existence of loans made buyers stop caring about the price of homes then it would be relevant but everybody I've seen homebuying still cares deeply about the price despite paying for it by loan.
- floatingatoll 8y ago
  Is the subset of people interested _at all_ in homebuying growing, stagnant, or shrinking? I assert that homebuyers in the newest growth segment that can produce homebuyers (born in 1990 or later) are a steadily decreasing population, something Zillow fails at all to consider as a possible cause, even as NYT and WaPo publish articles showing that same generation as destitute compared to their parents at that age. (FHA loans require two yesrs of continuous employment and of average wage earned throughout that time. Working for Instacart and Uber, as many of them do, will not likely qualify as either employment or sufficient average wage.)
  - Symmetry 8y ago
    That would seem possible on its face but if it were true I'd expect that having fewer people trying to buy homes would cause home prices to fall. And they very much have not been falling. The absolute number of houses in the US isn't shrinking so if prices are rising the number of people looking for houses is increasing or they're each willing to pay more money for the best houses or something like that.
    - floatingatoll 8y ago
      Would your expectations hold true if the absolute number of people buying an additional home each year is increasing? Is it?