8 ms·

It's really underselling the problem to characterize the problem as "affecting a handful of metro areas". It's not a handful. We're not just talking about SF a

It's really underselling the problem to characterize the problem as "affecting a handful of metro areas". It's not a handful. We're not just talking about SF and NY. Housing prices are increasing much faster than wages at nearly all the large cities in the US. And, it's not just affecting people in those cities. People across the country used to find their upwards mobility in our country's most important centers of industry, research, education, etc. Now they can't.

rayiner 7y ago
That’s not true: https://fm-static.cnbc.com/awsmedia/chart/2018/9/16/HowMuchIncomeMap.1539745214652.png https://fm-static.cnbc.com/awsmedia/chart/2018/9/16/HowMuchI.... That’s a map of how much you have to make to buy a median house. Outside SF, Seattle, DC, NYC, LA, San Diego, and Boston, housing is affordable. In large cities ranging from Houston to Nashville to Buffalo to Atlanta, the income required to buy a typical house is below the median income for the metro area.
- maxsilver 7y ago
  > That’s not true. (howmuch.net map) I assume their methodology is technically mathematically correct, but I can tell you from experience, the ~"$45k/yr" number for Michigan is not accurate -- most people can not close on a home in livable condition (in a city with jobs) for that salary. That would require a closing price of only ~$120k, which is probably still possible in a few specific suburb/exurbs, and is easily possible in dying small towns, but is not happening for most people in any employable urban area in Michigan. If howmuch is using "average home closing price" for that calculation, that metric is very skewed -- in Michigan, that's dragged down artificially low by investor-purchase shenanigans, extreme abuse of Brownfield Tax credits or Income/Property Tax Abatement zones, Land Bank purchases and resales, "Just $1 in Detroit" homes that need $150k+ of work to be habitable, or have $50k of backowed-taxes attached to them, and more. We have people who make 50% more than median salary, who are still getting outbid by private equity firms that make all-cash zero-contingency offers. We have people with above-median salary who are struggling with housing insecurity. This is not just a "poor person" problem, a solid chunk of the middle-class are suffering here, even in our supposedly "low-cost-of-living" markets. If you haven't purchased a house in the last 4 years, you might not realize just how fundamentally broken housing is, even in bumblefudge nowhere midwest cities. As far as I can tell, our conventional housing metrics simply are not accurately capturing the size or severity of this problem.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    If we’re going to go with anecdata—there are tons of houses in my county (in Maryland) in the $300,000 range. The median income is about $90,000 and the unemployment rate is 2.8%. I bought a house three years ago, and my neighbors are all entirely normal people. Move an hour west to DC, and you basically have to make $250,000+ to afford a crappy house in a decent school district. But that’s a DC problem, not a national problem.
- shawndrost 7y ago
  Your refutation doesn't address my statement, and I think you continue to undersell the problem. I said housing prices are growing much faster than wages in nearly all of the largest US cities. You responded saying that things are affordable in most cities, citing your map. But to take in example where I have ties, 38% of NOLA pays >50% of income towards housing, up from 24% in 2004 [1]. "Affordable" is in the eye of the beholder, but I have ties in NOLA and I know housing prices are a top issue in politics and daily life. Those numbers are for Orleans parish, but a) the same trend is true for the broader metro area, and b) if people now have to move to Abita Springs to afford "New Orleans", then my broader point (that it's becoming harder for people to come up by moving to the country's power centers) still seems pertinent. [1] https://www.datacenterresearch.org/data-resources/who-lives-in-new-orleans-now/#housing-costs-and-affordability,-housing-stock,-and-commuting https://www.datacenterresearch.org/data-resources/who-lives-...
roenxi 7y ago
> Housing prices are increasing much faster than wages at nearly all the large cities in the US. I need no convincing that it is a crisis, but the crisis is probably more linked to government monetary policy than housing. The huge amount of money being created [0] hasn't appeared in the consumer inflation statistics/wage growth [1] so it must be going in to inflating asset prices. [0] https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/money-supply-m2 https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/money-supply-m2 [1] https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

rayiner 7y ago

That’s not true: https://fm-static.cnbc.com/awsmedia/chart/2018/9/16/HowMuchIncomeMap.1539745214652.png https://fm-static.cnbc.com/awsmedia/chart/2018/9/16/HowMuchI.... That’s a map of how much you have to make to buy a median house. Outside SF, Seattle, DC, NYC, LA, San Diego, and Boston, housing is affordable. In large cities ranging from Houston to Nashville to Buffalo to Atlanta, the income required to buy a typical house is below the median income for the metro area.

maxsilver 7y ago
> That’s not true. (howmuch.net map) I assume their methodology is technically mathematically correct, but I can tell you from experience, the ~"$45k/yr" number for Michigan is not accurate -- most people can not close on a home in livable condition (in a city with jobs) for that salary. That would require a closing price of only ~$120k, which is probably still possible in a few specific suburb/exurbs, and is easily possible in dying small towns, but is not happening for most people in any employable urban area in Michigan. If howmuch is using "average home closing price" for that calculation, that metric is very skewed -- in Michigan, that's dragged down artificially low by investor-purchase shenanigans, extreme abuse of Brownfield Tax credits or Income/Property Tax Abatement zones, Land Bank purchases and resales, "Just $1 in Detroit" homes that need $150k+ of work to be habitable, or have $50k of backowed-taxes attached to them, and more. We have people who make 50% more than median salary, who are still getting outbid by private equity firms that make all-cash zero-contingency offers. We have people with above-median salary who are struggling with housing insecurity. This is not just a "poor person" problem, a solid chunk of the middle-class are suffering here, even in our supposedly "low-cost-of-living" markets. If you haven't purchased a house in the last 4 years, you might not realize just how fundamentally broken housing is, even in bumblefudge nowhere midwest cities. As far as I can tell, our conventional housing metrics simply are not accurately capturing the size or severity of this problem.
- rayiner 7y ago
  If we’re going to go with anecdata—there are tons of houses in my county (in Maryland) in the $300,000 range. The median income is about $90,000 and the unemployment rate is 2.8%. I bought a house three years ago, and my neighbors are all entirely normal people. Move an hour west to DC, and you basically have to make $250,000+ to afford a crappy house in a decent school district. But that’s a DC problem, not a national problem.
shawndrost 7y ago
Your refutation doesn't address my statement, and I think you continue to undersell the problem. I said housing prices are growing much faster than wages in nearly all of the largest US cities. You responded saying that things are affordable in most cities, citing your map. But to take in example where I have ties, 38% of NOLA pays >50% of income towards housing, up from 24% in 2004 [1]. "Affordable" is in the eye of the beholder, but I have ties in NOLA and I know housing prices are a top issue in politics and daily life. Those numbers are for Orleans parish, but a) the same trend is true for the broader metro area, and b) if people now have to move to Abita Springs to afford "New Orleans", then my broader point (that it's becoming harder for people to come up by moving to the country's power centers) still seems pertinent. [1] https://www.datacenterresearch.org/data-resources/who-lives-in-new-orleans-now/#housing-costs-and-affordability,-housing-stock,-and-commuting https://www.datacenterresearch.org/data-resources/who-lives-...

roenxi 7y ago

> Housing prices are increasing much faster than wages at nearly all the large cities in the US. I need no convincing that it is a crisis, but the crisis is probably more linked to government monetary policy than housing. The huge amount of money being created [0] hasn't appeared in the consumer inflation statistics/wage growth [1] so it must be going in to inflating asset prices. [0] https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/money-supply-m2 https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/money-supply-m2 [1] https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm