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> Two is that we're highly skewed to a handful of elite metros, whose housing markets are not representative of the country as a whole Right, but what matters

> Two is that we're highly skewed to a handful of elite metros, whose housing markets are not representative of the country as a whole Right, but what matters is the housing price where people are. It doesn't matter what the housing market looks like in South Dakota if I don't want to live there. While houses in South Dakota may be 1/10 the price of houses in NYC (likely cheaper, honestly), they also have 1/10 the population. The notion that the quantity of land somewhere (in this case, quantity for sale) should somehow equate to importance more than the quantity of people is ridiculous. > It's like somebody who works as a back office bookkeeper insisting on buying custom tailored Seville Row suits for his work attire, then complaining that the costs of clothes has gotten out of hand. No, it's like someone who works as a back office bookkeeper in New York City being forced to pay insane amounts in rent while seeing thousands of empty AirBNBs, hotel rooms, etc. and complaining that the cost of living has gotten out of hand. Housing is a necessity, "custom tailored Seville Row suits" are not. And it's simply not feasible for the vast majority of people living paycheck to paycheck to just up and leave to Raleigh like you imply.

ballenf 6y ago
Ok so the change from a decade or two ago is that young people want to live in places they can't afford. In the past they were evidently more content to live in places they could afford. Doesn't really feel like cost of housing is what's changed.
- ng12 6y ago
  I grew up in a small rust belt city. 40 years ago there were reasons to live there: factories with union jobs and an entire local economy built upon them (financial services, a hospital, bustling main street, etc). All that's gone now. It's not that I wouldn't be content like my parents were, it's that it's fundamentally not the same city it was back then.
  - pnutjam 6y ago
    You can't get that through to the parent poster. He only see's spherical cows, not reality.
  - tstewart161 6y ago
    It’s not like the dichotomy is so stark. Like the parent comment said: Raleigh is cheap but still bustling with plenty to do, Richmond, Baltimore, Atlanta, and so on are bustling but not stupid expensive. It’s not just “ghosts town” vs “expensive modern city”
    - Zippogriff 6y ago
      I don't know whether it accounts for the entire "housing's more expensive everywhere" perception, but it sure seems like the only houses that exist near good schools and are cheap on a per-square-foot basis are giant, so still not cheap, thanks to a combination of zoning and developer incentives. It's not like we could live in a significantly smaller house if we wanted to. Another change is that smaller houses have giant rooms. If you want a 4-bedroom in a decent school district (so, around here it'll be 80s construction at the very earliest, probably late-90s or later, or else in one of a couple very rich and expensive areas that have older houses) you're in for a giant house. A 1960s middle-class 4-bedroom probably has about the square footage of a modern 2-bedroom. Sqft./room is way up across the board. Further, floorplans that look nice in a walk-through or in photos but are incredibly wasteful of all that "cheap" square footage are the norm.
- uoaei 6y ago
  In the past they were able to afford the places they wanted to live.
- WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
  > Ok so the change from a decade or two ago is that young people want to live in places they can't afford. It's their own fault for not living where HS graduates can afford - a tent on someone's unmaintained property.
dcolkitt 6y ago
> Right, but what matters is the housing price where people are. We're not talking about houses in the middle of nowhere. These are major urban population centers. The Houston metro area has 7 million people. The Phoenix metro area has 4.9 million people. Tampa metro has 3.1 million people. Houston and Phoenix are both larger than the Bay Area metro is currently. Tampa's just shy of the size of Seattle. Nor is it the case that these are depressed areas with hollowed out job markets and no opportunity. They all have substantially lower unemployment rates than the national average. Well below the Bay Area in fact. All three of these metros have large-scale employers with plenty of high-skilled jobs. All three have economic growth rates and business formation rates far above the national average.
- dylanh 6y ago
  Pretty much everyone I know is being priced out of market in the tampa bay area. Rent under $1k/mo means looking on the extreme periphery and suffering a long commute.
  - WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
    > Pretty much everyone I know is being priced out of market in the Tampa bay area. Rents in the neighboring counties have been climbing steeply for years. If you were looking at an $850/mo property in 2012, expect to pay about $1500/mo for the same place now. source: 30 year Tampa area resident
- choward 6y ago
  > Houston and Phoenix are both larger than the Bay Area metro is currently. Not sure where you're getting that number from. Are you just referring to San Francisco / Oakland (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco%E2%80%93Oakland%E2%80%93Berkeley,_CA_Metropolitan_Statistical_Area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco%E2%80%93Oakland%...)? That completely leaves out San Jose and many other areas. The entire Bay Area is nearly 10 million (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Bay_Area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Bay_Area)
  - 6y ago
ApolloFortyNine 6y ago
>And it's simply not feasible for the vast majority of people living paycheck to paycheck to just up and leave to Raleigh like you imply. There was a time where people would move countries with nothing but what they can carry at a chance of improving their life. At a time where the only way to travel was by boat for weeks and the only way to communicate to relatives was by mail. Now we balk at the idea of moving cities when it's easier than ever before, and we can communicate instantly across the world. To be clear, it's not just "Raleigh" or "South Dakota", it's really any city outside of California + New York. I live in Richmond, an hour and a half from DC, and you can buy 2000 sqft homes for 200k.
- confidantlake 6y ago
  But the economic opportunities are much greater in the DC area than Richmond.
  - tstewart161 6y ago
    But clearly not if you can’t even afford a place to live. Richmond and plenty other cities have TONS of economic opportunities, but not as many as NYC or SF - they’re also much cheaper. Clearly there’s a balance here so the answer isn’t so obviously “there’s a housing crisis because I can’t afford to live in SF”
    - bradlys 6y ago
      Hmm - I think you're misunderstanding (or maybe I am too). There aren't really that many opportunities (AKA - jobs) in Raleigh as in DC. Certain professions are not as common in Raleigh as they are in DC. If you're looking to be a lawyer, DC probably gonna be better. So, it doesn't matter if X region is cheaper if there aren't any jobs there... I mean - I moved to the bay area because that's where so many software engineering jobs are. I didn't move here because I loved the high cost of living. I moved here because there were a lot of jobs and I had an easier time getting a job here than almost anywhere else (ironic - I know). The places that were hiring in "anywhere else" were paying $50k/yr and still not easy to get into.
MattGaiser 6y ago
> if I don't want to live there. But then you are choosing to be poorer. And that can be a valid choice, but it is a choice you are making.
- ianmobbs 6y ago
  That's ridiculous. The expectation of affordable housing, and being unable to move to some random town in South Dakota, comes down to the personal responsibility of "choosing to be poorer"?
- imtringued 6y ago
  People go to those places because they chose to not be poorer.
jimbokun 6y ago
Clothing is a necessity, too. Housing is a necessity, but a large detached house in a specific location, is not.
01100011 6y ago
> what matters is the housing price where people are What matters is where HN commenters are, because they are controlling this discussion. Let's not pretend that upvotes here are representative of the wider population, or that the average populations' opinions are well represented here. No, you did not imply that, I'm not attacking you or anything, but I figured it should be said lest we delude ourselves. > I don't want to live there Isn't it great that the increasing wealth in society gives us the idea that we can pick and choose anywhere in the country to live and then expect to buy a house there? This was not exactly the case for my (grand)parents. My family came from Buffalo, moved to Phoenix, and settled in the Seattle area(long before there were Amazon jobs, when the PNW was a refuge for weirdos). Imagine how silly it would be if the majority of the US population thought they were entitled to a house in a "tier 1" city.

ballenf 6y ago

Ok so the change from a decade or two ago is that young people want to live in places they can't afford. In the past they were evidently more content to live in places they could afford. Doesn't really feel like cost of housing is what's changed.

ng12 6y ago
I grew up in a small rust belt city. 40 years ago there were reasons to live there: factories with union jobs and an entire local economy built upon them (financial services, a hospital, bustling main street, etc). All that's gone now. It's not that I wouldn't be content like my parents were, it's that it's fundamentally not the same city it was back then.
- pnutjam 6y ago
  You can't get that through to the parent poster. He only see's spherical cows, not reality.
- tstewart161 6y ago
  It’s not like the dichotomy is so stark. Like the parent comment said: Raleigh is cheap but still bustling with plenty to do, Richmond, Baltimore, Atlanta, and so on are bustling but not stupid expensive. It’s not just “ghosts town” vs “expensive modern city”
  - Zippogriff 6y ago
    I don't know whether it accounts for the entire "housing's more expensive everywhere" perception, but it sure seems like the only houses that exist near good schools and are cheap on a per-square-foot basis are giant, so still not cheap, thanks to a combination of zoning and developer incentives. It's not like we could live in a significantly smaller house if we wanted to. Another change is that smaller houses have giant rooms. If you want a 4-bedroom in a decent school district (so, around here it'll be 80s construction at the very earliest, probably late-90s or later, or else in one of a couple very rich and expensive areas that have older houses) you're in for a giant house. A 1960s middle-class 4-bedroom probably has about the square footage of a modern 2-bedroom. Sqft./room is way up across the board. Further, floorplans that look nice in a walk-through or in photos but are incredibly wasteful of all that "cheap" square footage are the norm.
uoaei 6y ago
In the past they were able to afford the places they wanted to live.
WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
> Ok so the change from a decade or two ago is that young people want to live in places they can't afford. It's their own fault for not living where HS graduates can afford - a tent on someone's unmaintained property.

dcolkitt 6y ago

> Right, but what matters is the housing price where people are. We're not talking about houses in the middle of nowhere. These are major urban population centers. The Houston metro area has 7 million people. The Phoenix metro area has 4.9 million people. Tampa metro has 3.1 million people. Houston and Phoenix are both larger than the Bay Area metro is currently. Tampa's just shy of the size of Seattle. Nor is it the case that these are depressed areas with hollowed out job markets and no opportunity. They all have substantially lower unemployment rates than the national average. Well below the Bay Area in fact. All three of these metros have large-scale employers with plenty of high-skilled jobs. All three have economic growth rates and business formation rates far above the national average.

dylanh 6y ago
Pretty much everyone I know is being priced out of market in the tampa bay area. Rent under $1k/mo means looking on the extreme periphery and suffering a long commute.
- WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
  > Pretty much everyone I know is being priced out of market in the Tampa bay area. Rents in the neighboring counties have been climbing steeply for years. If you were looking at an $850/mo property in 2012, expect to pay about $1500/mo for the same place now. source: 30 year Tampa area resident
choward 6y ago
> Houston and Phoenix are both larger than the Bay Area metro is currently. Not sure where you're getting that number from. Are you just referring to San Francisco / Oakland (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco%E2%80%93Oakland%E2%80%93Berkeley,_CA_Metropolitan_Statistical_Area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco%E2%80%93Oakland%...)? That completely leaves out San Jose and many other areas. The entire Bay Area is nearly 10 million (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Bay_Area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Bay_Area)
- 6y ago

ApolloFortyNine 6y ago

>And it's simply not feasible for the vast majority of people living paycheck to paycheck to just up and leave to Raleigh like you imply. There was a time where people would move countries with nothing but what they can carry at a chance of improving their life. At a time where the only way to travel was by boat for weeks and the only way to communicate to relatives was by mail. Now we balk at the idea of moving cities when it's easier than ever before, and we can communicate instantly across the world. To be clear, it's not just "Raleigh" or "South Dakota", it's really any city outside of California + New York. I live in Richmond, an hour and a half from DC, and you can buy 2000 sqft homes for 200k.

confidantlake 6y ago
But the economic opportunities are much greater in the DC area than Richmond.
- tstewart161 6y ago
  But clearly not if you can’t even afford a place to live. Richmond and plenty other cities have TONS of economic opportunities, but not as many as NYC or SF - they’re also much cheaper. Clearly there’s a balance here so the answer isn’t so obviously “there’s a housing crisis because I can’t afford to live in SF”
  - bradlys 6y ago
    Hmm - I think you're misunderstanding (or maybe I am too). There aren't really that many opportunities (AKA - jobs) in Raleigh as in DC. Certain professions are not as common in Raleigh as they are in DC. If you're looking to be a lawyer, DC probably gonna be better. So, it doesn't matter if X region is cheaper if there aren't any jobs there... I mean - I moved to the bay area because that's where so many software engineering jobs are. I didn't move here because I loved the high cost of living. I moved here because there were a lot of jobs and I had an easier time getting a job here than almost anywhere else (ironic - I know). The places that were hiring in "anywhere else" were paying $50k/yr and still not easy to get into.

MattGaiser 6y ago

> if I don't want to live there. But then you are choosing to be poorer. And that can be a valid choice, but it is a choice you are making.

ianmobbs 6y ago
That's ridiculous. The expectation of affordable housing, and being unable to move to some random town in South Dakota, comes down to the personal responsibility of "choosing to be poorer"?
imtringued 6y ago
People go to those places because they chose to not be poorer.

jimbokun 6y ago

Clothing is a necessity, too. Housing is a necessity, but a large detached house in a specific location, is not.

01100011 6y ago

> what matters is the housing price where people are What matters is where HN commenters are, because they are controlling this discussion. Let's not pretend that upvotes here are representative of the wider population, or that the average populations' opinions are well represented here. No, you did not imply that, I'm not attacking you or anything, but I figured it should be said lest we delude ourselves. > I don't want to live there Isn't it great that the increasing wealth in society gives us the idea that we can pick and choose anywhere in the country to live and then expect to buy a house there? This was not exactly the case for my (grand)parents. My family came from Buffalo, moved to Phoenix, and settled in the Seattle area(long before there were Amazon jobs, when the PNW was a refuge for weirdos). Imagine how silly it would be if the majority of the US population thought they were entitled to a house in a "tier 1" city.