5 ms·

Every time this topic comes up I come back to some basic maths. My parents were, in the late 70s and early 80s, able to buy a detached house in a suburb reasona

Every time this topic comes up I come back to some basic maths. My parents were, in the late 70s and early 80s, able to buy a detached house in a suburb reasonably near public transport to the CBD on their combined teachers salaries with a mortgage repayment at around 35% of their wages. My partner and I are, on paper at least, earning multiples of that even accounting for official inflation figures and we’re left renting around twice as far away from the city for around the same portion of income. At some point the realisation has to occur that a house 50 miles from anything is not worth $1m and the only reason they can currently sell for that is existing home owners can leverage that asset to buy them. There will eventually be no more existing home owners to sell to and the market should logically come back to sanity, or at least I very much hope it will. That or I’ll be moving my family to a more affordable location overseas creating the same effect for their own first home buyers as I take up a property that would have been used by a local. What happens after a few cycles of that I wonder...

lukevp 7y ago
Where do you live that a house is $1m 50 miles from everything? The valley? You don't have to go overseas for affordable housing. Most of the Midwest is extremely cheap. Heck, I live about 20 miles from downtown Austin and 30 miles from the main tech area and my house is under $250k, and Austin has a booming tech sector. Houston and Dallas are some of the largest cities in the US, have a lot of tech, and are similarly affordable.
- hestipod 7y ago
  Having to live somewhere where you hate the culture, politics, climate, geography is soul killing. The Midwest is cheap because it doesn't offer the benefits the expensive places do. Most people are here because they were born here. I never met anyone who chose to move here for any reason other than economic or family obligation. They convince themselves its great for a time because their dollar goes a lot farther, but the reality sets in soon enough. People from amazing places don't dream of a grey/beige house in a suburb in Kansas, or having to drive hours into some Iowan "town" to get to even something terrible like strip malls and big box stores, they don't have post cards of these places on their walls and don't visit them on holiday. You can usually find a place that's cheaper than where you are, but it's cheaper for a reason.
  - squish78 7y ago
    It might be inconceivable to the HN demographic but some people truly enjoy the small town/ rural lifestyle
    - hestipod 7y ago
      There is small town rural life within an hour of any big coastal city. You don't have to move to the homogeneous middle of the country for that. Suggesting people move from a popular place to middle America for a good quality of life is disingenuous in my view because its predicated entirely on the fact that it's "cheaper". Their lives aren't going to be "richer"...only their bank account for a time, but even that will fade as salary and opportunity are less as well. Yes some people enjoy being surrounded only by their race, religion, and politics so that outweighs the losses of accessibility, culture, and experience...and frankly most of the ones who have never experienced anything else don't even know what they are missing...getting away from that gave me the only good parts of my life personally. Once again...people don't put photos or postcards of Topeka or Little Rock or some town nobody knows of in the vast sameness of the Midwest on their dream walls. There is a reason for that.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - selimthegrim 7y ago
        I believe Branson, MO, Memphis and Nashville, TN, and Fayetteville, AR would like a word with you.
      - mjparrott 7y ago
        There are nice places to live that aren't on a postcard
      - 420codebro 7y ago
        Your opinion stinks like a smelly asshole. By your logic anything more than 100 miles inland is shit. Thank god people like you are mocked mercilessly when out of earshot.
scarface74 7y ago
The US is a big place with lots of metropolitan areas where you can buy a house in the near suburbs for much less. I’m in Atlanta and our 5/3-1/2 3100 square foot house brand new build in 2016 was $330K. We both live and work in the burbs. Depending on traffic, it would take us less than an hour to get to downtown/midtown/Buckhead if we needed to. It’s just so many people on HN think that they have to live in the west coast or NYC.
pitaj 7y ago
> the only reason they can currently sell for that is existing home owners can leverage that asset to buy them. Yes, stuff sells for what people are willing to pay for it. The main reason housing is so expensive is that supply cannot meet demand because of onerous government policies. Height restrictions, zoning rules, building permits, NIMBYism, etc are not allowing the market to respond to demand.
systemtest 7y ago
The problem is that your example is anecdotal. I am 31 and have no problem buying the exact same house my parents did at 31. On a single income, just like my father.

lukevp 7y ago

Where do you live that a house is $1m 50 miles from everything? The valley? You don't have to go overseas for affordable housing. Most of the Midwest is extremely cheap. Heck, I live about 20 miles from downtown Austin and 30 miles from the main tech area and my house is under $250k, and Austin has a booming tech sector. Houston and Dallas are some of the largest cities in the US, have a lot of tech, and are similarly affordable.

hestipod 7y ago
Having to live somewhere where you hate the culture, politics, climate, geography is soul killing. The Midwest is cheap because it doesn't offer the benefits the expensive places do. Most people are here because they were born here. I never met anyone who chose to move here for any reason other than economic or family obligation. They convince themselves its great for a time because their dollar goes a lot farther, but the reality sets in soon enough. People from amazing places don't dream of a grey/beige house in a suburb in Kansas, or having to drive hours into some Iowan "town" to get to even something terrible like strip malls and big box stores, they don't have post cards of these places on their walls and don't visit them on holiday. You can usually find a place that's cheaper than where you are, but it's cheaper for a reason.
- squish78 7y ago
  It might be inconceivable to the HN demographic but some people truly enjoy the small town/ rural lifestyle
  - hestipod 7y ago
    There is small town rural life within an hour of any big coastal city. You don't have to move to the homogeneous middle of the country for that. Suggesting people move from a popular place to middle America for a good quality of life is disingenuous in my view because its predicated entirely on the fact that it's "cheaper". Their lives aren't going to be "richer"...only their bank account for a time, but even that will fade as salary and opportunity are less as well. Yes some people enjoy being surrounded only by their race, religion, and politics so that outweighs the losses of accessibility, culture, and experience...and frankly most of the ones who have never experienced anything else don't even know what they are missing...getting away from that gave me the only good parts of my life personally. Once again...people don't put photos or postcards of Topeka or Little Rock or some town nobody knows of in the vast sameness of the Midwest on their dream walls. There is a reason for that.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - selimthegrim 7y ago
      I believe Branson, MO, Memphis and Nashville, TN, and Fayetteville, AR would like a word with you.
    - mjparrott 7y ago
      There are nice places to live that aren't on a postcard
    - 420codebro 7y ago
      Your opinion stinks like a smelly asshole. By your logic anything more than 100 miles inland is shit. Thank god people like you are mocked mercilessly when out of earshot.

scarface74 7y ago

The US is a big place with lots of metropolitan areas where you can buy a house in the near suburbs for much less. I’m in Atlanta and our 5/3-1/2 3100 square foot house brand new build in 2016 was $330K. We both live and work in the burbs. Depending on traffic, it would take us less than an hour to get to downtown/midtown/Buckhead if we needed to. It’s just so many people on HN think that they have to live in the west coast or NYC.

pitaj 7y ago

> the only reason they can currently sell for that is existing home owners can leverage that asset to buy them. Yes, stuff sells for what people are willing to pay for it. The main reason housing is so expensive is that supply cannot meet demand because of onerous government policies. Height restrictions, zoning rules, building permits, NIMBYism, etc are not allowing the market to respond to demand.

systemtest 7y ago

The problem is that your example is anecdotal. I am 31 and have no problem buying the exact same house my parents did at 31. On a single income, just like my father.