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The article also says “Millennials buying their first home today are likely to pay 39% more than baby boomers who bought their first home in the 1980s”. Real e

The article also says “Millennials buying their first home today are likely to pay 39% more than baby boomers who bought their first home in the 1980s”. Real estate inflation has been dramatic over the last several decades. If there were really a glut of old people attempting to offload their paid-off homes on the market, the prices might drop to more historically normal levels... I’m not sure how the statistics actually work out but if single or married people are staying in oversized homes for longer without kids, it does seem like that could affect the supply of homes for families with children. I know the UK had a controversy over a “bedroom tax” that tried to address this issue.

lotsofpulp 7y ago
There’s a glut of homes for sale, in places with either no economic prospects or low desirability to live. More and more higher income people competing with each other in less and less land area = higher sale prices.
- brewdad 7y ago
  This. My Dad's home in a lagging industrial town in the Upper Midwest is probably only worth about 1.5x what he paid for it 40 years ago. He has well over an acre and the house is in great shape. No one wants to move there though, so housing prices are depressed. He'd like to move, but would have to take on a mortgage in his 70s, so he'll stay put and my sibling and I will sell it for whatever we can get when he passes.
alibarber 7y ago
The "bedroom tax" only applies (applied? - I don't know what the actual status is) to state-subsidised/social housing.
landcoctos 7y ago
>The article also says “Millennials buying their first home today are likely to pay 39% more than baby boomers who bought their first home in the 1980s”. Interest rates were much much higher in the 1980s. So it's probably a wash and/or even less now.
- baldeagle 7y ago
  Interest rates can be refi'd at a lower rate, but the amount you paid on the day you purchase it can never be bought down (there is inflation, which can reduce your debt load, but only if wages go up as well. We're seeing real estate and consumer goods increasing and most non-tech wages stagnating. Don't even get me started on the gig economy).

lotsofpulp 7y ago

There’s a glut of homes for sale, in places with either no economic prospects or low desirability to live. More and more higher income people competing with each other in less and less land area = higher sale prices.

brewdad 7y ago
This. My Dad's home in a lagging industrial town in the Upper Midwest is probably only worth about 1.5x what he paid for it 40 years ago. He has well over an acre and the house is in great shape. No one wants to move there though, so housing prices are depressed. He'd like to move, but would have to take on a mortgage in his 70s, so he'll stay put and my sibling and I will sell it for whatever we can get when he passes.

alibarber 7y ago

The "bedroom tax" only applies (applied? - I don't know what the actual status is) to state-subsidised/social housing.

landcoctos 7y ago

>The article also says “Millennials buying their first home today are likely to pay 39% more than baby boomers who bought their first home in the 1980s”. Interest rates were much much higher in the 1980s. So it's probably a wash and/or even less now.

baldeagle 7y ago
Interest rates can be refi'd at a lower rate, but the amount you paid on the day you purchase it can never be bought down (there is inflation, which can reduce your debt load, but only if wages go up as well. We're seeing real estate and consumer goods increasing and most non-tech wages stagnating. Don't even get me started on the gig economy).