12 ms·

Some very clever and influential people better start finding and implementing real solutions to housing prices right now. If they don't, expect overwhelming sup

Some very clever and influential people better start finding and implementing real solutions to housing prices right now. If they don't, expect overwhelming support from Millennials for massive expansions to public housing and rent control, if not even more draconian measures.

ido 5y ago
Why do you consider the 2 examples you gave “draconian”?
- standardUser 5y ago
  Draconian is a strong word (but cool-sounding) and what I really mean is "antiquated". But they are also somewhat blunt instruments and have historically lead to unwanted consequence. We already have more modern, market-oriented solutions, like vouchers and tax-credit housing, but those have problems too. My bigger point was, Millennials tend to react big when specific issues rise to the forefront, and if there aren't better solution than what is already on the table, we risk people clinging to whatever ideas do exist, which in the realm of housing, are mostly shit ideas.
  - beepbooptheory 5y ago
    Its interesting how often on HN the main problem always ends up being how people will "feel" about the next crisis, and the danger of that feeling itself. It's a weird kind of proxy self-consciousness older generations have on behalf of the economy. Always and forever: "no no, it's not that bad, really!" meanwhile people are very much homeless, whether they are millenials or not, whether they react strongly or not.
- mrfusion 5y ago
  Rent control really doesn’t make sense. If we could make things cheaper by passing a law we’d do it for everything. Rent control won’t work for the same reason a price control for food or cars won’t work. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/rent-control/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/rent-control/
  - standardUser 5y ago
    Some forms of rent stabilization make perfect sense. But most of the policies implemented in big cities are far too restrictive. There is a lot of policy to be explored between "your rent never goes up forever" and "you can't be immediately evicted for no reason". No one wants the latter, but there are better ways to address that, like much longer notices for rent increases, or requiring multi-year lease options.
    - mrfusion 5y ago
      Sounds feasible. I don’t normally think of that as rent control.
    - nradov 5y ago
      San Jose limits annual rent increases to 5%. That seems reasonable (unless inflation gets out of control). Tenants aren't immediately forced out of their homes if the market rate jumps 20% in one year. But landlords can still eventually raise rents to market rates spread out over several years. There's no absolute limit on maximum rent.
      - laverya 5y ago
        If it was inflation + 5%, I'd be fine with that - but a flat 5% limit only works so long as inflation stays low.
        dragonwriter 5y ago
        Technically, it only works if the (notional, I’m not sure this is an actual tracked category) PPI for rental housing is low, general (CPI) inflation may loosely correlate with that, but its not directly relevant.
      - ralph84 5y ago
        Inflation may not be out of control yet, but certainly things like insurance, parts and labor for repairs and maintenance, and HOA dues are already increasing more than 5%/year. And property taxes alone are guaranteed to increase 2%/year in California. Not saying we should feel sorry for landlords, but when some parts of a market have price controls and other parts don't, distortions are inevitable.
- zbrozek 5y ago
  Not the OP, but I'll guess that it's because both of them strongly erode property rights. Another, more freedom-preserving, approach is to make it easier to build build build. Planet Money had a decent introduction a couple years ago.[0] In the current NIMBY climate, my neighbor is struggling with the red tape to repave her driveway. Building a new home around here seems about as improbable as a hobbyist making the first human Mars landing. [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/03/05/700432258/the-return-of-rent-control https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/03/05/700432258/the-...
  - bakuninsbart 5y ago
    Are property rights freedom-preserving? One of the most infuriating bits of my visit to the US West coast was driving up from LA to SF and a lot of the really nice bits of coast not being accessible to the public. There's compromises like germanic Jedermansrecht [0], but overall I think limiting property rights is often a net gain of freedom. I do agree on the problem of NYMBYism though. There's a funny-if-not-so-sad dispute here in Berlin at the moment, where the leftist state government is desperately trying to build public housing while the leftist local government in the district of Lichtenberg is blocking a major developing due to local concern. Sadly I can't find an article in English, but I am sure there are dozens if not hundreds of examples for that. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam
    - reducesuffering 5y ago
      All of the California coastline is public.
      - jcrawfordor 5y ago
        California coast is public up to mean high tide. This is appreciably different from, for example, Oregon where it is public further in (typically to the vegetation line, details are slightly complex). It makes it significantly easier for California property owners to de facto remove public access to beaches, which is very common in some areas. On top of this, CA courts have often been reluctant to enforce public rights to beaches.
- JTbane 5y ago
  Econ 101 says that rent control (in effect a price ceiling) just results in scarcity (people are unable to get ANY housing), rather than actually reducing the cost of housing.
  - Enginerrrd 5y ago
    I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. This is the theoretical prediction based on simple microeconomics. By example, I believe NY rent controls were ineffective to the point where rents outside of controlled areas went higher than they otherwise would have and within rent control areas there was (and is) scarcity of housing.
  - Rebelgecko 5y ago
    It also exacerbates other problems that go hand in hand with urban areas, such as traffic. Most people would rather stay in their rent controlled apartment and drive an hour to work instead of having to move and pay the current market value
bserge 5y ago
That's gonna happen anyway, so as the millennials said, YOLO.
m_ke 5y ago
Simple solution would be to put a property and sales tax ramp on additional homes. Make landlords who own N homes pay 1.5^N the normal rate.
- corpdronejuly 5y ago
  The issue then becomes silly games with shell corporations hiding how many homes people own, which pushes homes into the hands of larger landlords who can afford to pay someone to play those silly games.
  - m_ke 5y ago
    Make it pass through to the shareholders.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - soperj 5y ago
    Don't allow corps to own housing.
    - kadomony 5y ago
      This is what pisses me off the most. America's housing is being sold to the wealthy, who then just turn around and siphon the rest of the wealth out of the middle-class and younger generations by forcing them into renting because the barrier to break into homeownership simply eclipses them.
      - m_ke 5y ago
        There's a whole cottage industry of house hackers now thanks to biggerpockets who specialize in BRRRing, as in buying, doing minor renovations, raising rents and then cash out refinancing to have money for the next downpayment.
- 5y ago
alex_sf 5y ago
Millenial homeownership is almost at 50% this year. The people priced out are the loudest, but it's not overwhelmingly common in most parts of the US.
- Miner49er 5y ago
  That's still way lower then older generations.
  - ac29 5y ago
    Of course it is, Millennials are as young as 25 this year. Its doubtful many can afford a house just a few years out of college (and even more doubtful if they didnt go to college). Even those that can may not be ready to settle down and commit to such a large purchase.
    - Miner49er 5y ago
      Yeah, but it's still also lower then it was for the older generations when they were at the same age.
      - djrogers 5y ago
        citation?
        Miner49er 5y ago
        https://www.apartmentlist.com/research/homeownership-by-generation https://www.apartmentlist.com/research/homeownership-by-gene...
      - Thorrez 5y ago
        Older generations also went to college less frequently, so had less student debt and were able to start buying houses sooner.
  - itake 5y ago
tempfs 5y ago
1. Residential homes are no longer allowed to be 'investment properties' aka every person(or married couple) can own exactly one house. Corporate entities except for Banks(even then can only own it for the time it takes to sell it in the case of foreclosure) can't either. 2. Only actual Americans can own property in America. Single-fam, multi-fam, land,etc. doesn't matter. Exactly no one needs to rent houses if mulit-fam exists and actual houses aren't speculative instruments or places where foreign nationals hide their money.
- JamesBarney 5y ago
  1. Just bans people from renting houses to other people. This reduces the supply of rentable houses to 0. Reduces the supply of rentable stock in general. And very slightly marginally reduces the price of houses. 2. Can corporations still own commercial property? And can foreigners own corporations ?
- lastofthemojito 5y ago
  Even "simple" solutions like those you've proposed so often wind up having unintended consequences. For your first proposal, I wonder about folks buying a house through an LLC or trust as folks often do to protect their privacy. Are we banning that? I also wonder about inheritance - if I own a house and my parents die, leaving me their house, how long do I have to sell one to be "in compliance?". Maybe their house needs work and I'd like to spend a few months or a year fixing it up to maximize what it'll sell for. Is that ok? And speaking of timing - I remember during the wave of foreclosures after the last housing bubble, banks kept a lot of houses off the market for a while to moderate prices, rather than listing everything at once and panicking the market further. Seems like banks ought to have some leeway to maximize their return (e.g. if a house has a pool and is foreclosed on in the late fall, maybe they judge that waiting until spring would get a better response from buyers).
- jakemoshenko 5y ago
  Where do you expect rental housing stock to come from in this scenario?
- simonsarris 5y ago
mistrial9 5y ago
California "small house" duplexes are being built at this moment, by the thousands.. maybe permits, maybe not.. just saying what I see
loeg 5y ago
The solution is to build more housing. California has historically been terrible about that but SB9 and 10 are significant steps in the right direction.
- tharne 5y ago
  It consistently shocks me how rarely this is brought up as a solution. Price of something too high? Increase the supply.
  - noneeeed 5y ago
    It's been so frustrating watching people celebrating UK governments who have repeatedly failed to really tackle the supply side issues while propping up the demand side with tweaks that just increase the prices. The most amazing example of this was the stamp-duty holiday to help stimulate the market for a few months during covid. The maximum you could save was £15k. The average house price increased during that time by about £16k...
    - russx2 5y ago
      They were still likely benefiting to be fair. Remember stamp duty is paid externally to the mortgage so it effectively comes off your deposit, not your loan.
  - cryptoz 5y ago
    This is brought up all the time. There is frequently huge opposition from locals anywhere regarding increasing housing supply.
    - toxik 5y ago
      And many times rightly so, living next door to a long construction project is a mistake I will only make once in my life. Utter insanity to be woken up by literal bombs going off in the bedrock.
    - loeg 5y ago
topspin 5y ago
"better start finding and implementing real solutions to housing prices right now" They can't. Providing supply will suffer the wrath of BANANA/CAVE/NIMBY anywhere you dream of living. Constraining demand will either get you voted out of office or devastate your political network or both, depending on which policy you attempt. You're competing with a whole planet full of people that want to live here and have more means than you. Seek property where demand is lower and development isn't effectively outlawed. Forget any livable cities or high population states. For 99% of you that means living far away from your preferred locale among people you probably loath. If that's not acceptable then keep renting or live in a van. The good news is many of you can work remote. That is an affordance you can leverage to great benefit.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Doches 5y ago
  > For 99% of you that means living far away from your preferred locale among people you probably loath. Parent comment is vitriolic but not actually wrong. Myself, I take great comfort in the idea of huge swaths of liberal, well-educated millennials and xennials migrating out of coastal cities and into small towns across the South and Midwest. Can you work remotely? Want to own your own home on a multi-acre lot for $100k, and live in a place with sunshine and warm weather nine months out of the year? Sure, you'll end up living in the most conservative parts of deeply red states -- but try it. Live among people you disagree with -- we're all still Americans, it'll be OK -- and if enough of your friends and fellow Ivy alumns make the jump you'd be surprised how easily you could turn Texas or Georgia nicely purple. We've got to end the big sort, at any cost. And the hilarious difference in cost of living is probably our last, best hope.
  - rjbwork 5y ago
    I was ready to buy an estate in the Georgia mountains earlier this year - then I saw the internet connection options. Then I looked up how much it would cost me to get a decent wired connection out there. Totally unviable for tech workers to live in most of the solid red areas of the country strictly due internet capabilities, or lack thereof.
tov247 5y ago
The solutions are political not technical. Housing needs to be something that isn't used primarily to make money. Cooperatives, Vienna-style PPPs, and a society where if your house price doesn't constantly increase you can afford to retire.
CountDrewku 5y ago
The solution is to leave cities that aren't affordable. Sorry, but you may not get to live beach-side or be in walking distance from your hipster coffee joint in downtown SF. I really think a lot of the problem is our generation grew up watching too many movies and they just think it's normal to live in some high end condo in Manhattan while working for Enterprise Rent-A-Car. That's not realistic.
- hiram112 5y ago
  Yeah a lot of older millennials grew up on shows like Friends. We were disappointed in our mid-20s when we discovered our entry-level job wouldn't afford that large condo in downtown SF or Manhattan. But it has got out of hand. I earn 90% more than most full time workers. And like 50%+ of "households" out there, it's just me, so no dual income. And I don't think it's appropriate to expect 40 year olds to still live with a bunch of roommates like they did when they're 22. Forget the 2K ft^2 apartment in Manhattan or Mission District, I can't even afford the starter home out in Jersey or East Bay or Beltway DC. These aren't the mythical "McMansions" that everybody always uses to deflect from the affordability crisis - these are the exact same properties on tiny lots that a single-earning non-college-educated factory worker or postman or paper pusher could easily afford for his family in previous generations. And if I - earning 2x-3x more than most workers - can't afford these basic homes, how the hell does everyone else who earns the median income of $60K do it?
  - CountDrewku 5y ago
    >And if I - earning 2x-3x more than most workers - can't afford these basic homes, how the hell does everyone else who earns the median income of $60K do it? By living in a rural area or not on the coasts. >And I don't think it's appropriate to expect 40 year olds to still live with a bunch of roommates like they did when they're 22. I guess that depends on your culture. It's pretty normal to have multiple families or roommates in other countries. The only legit way I can see to fixing some of these issues is to ensure you do not let investors outside of your country buy up property. China is notorious for this. Secondly maybe you limit companies like Blackrock as well. I really dislike the idea of rent control. I don't think people that own a few properties should be punished and pushed out of the market. This just leads to larger corporations owning everything.

ido 5y ago

Why do you consider the 2 examples you gave “draconian”?

standardUser 5y ago
Draconian is a strong word (but cool-sounding) and what I really mean is "antiquated". But they are also somewhat blunt instruments and have historically lead to unwanted consequence. We already have more modern, market-oriented solutions, like vouchers and tax-credit housing, but those have problems too. My bigger point was, Millennials tend to react big when specific issues rise to the forefront, and if there aren't better solution than what is already on the table, we risk people clinging to whatever ideas do exist, which in the realm of housing, are mostly shit ideas.
- beepbooptheory 5y ago
  Its interesting how often on HN the main problem always ends up being how people will "feel" about the next crisis, and the danger of that feeling itself. It's a weird kind of proxy self-consciousness older generations have on behalf of the economy. Always and forever: "no no, it's not that bad, really!" meanwhile people are very much homeless, whether they are millenials or not, whether they react strongly or not.
mrfusion 5y ago
Rent control really doesn’t make sense. If we could make things cheaper by passing a law we’d do it for everything. Rent control won’t work for the same reason a price control for food or cars won’t work. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/rent-control/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/rent-control/
- standardUser 5y ago
  Some forms of rent stabilization make perfect sense. But most of the policies implemented in big cities are far too restrictive. There is a lot of policy to be explored between "your rent never goes up forever" and "you can't be immediately evicted for no reason". No one wants the latter, but there are better ways to address that, like much longer notices for rent increases, or requiring multi-year lease options.
  - mrfusion 5y ago
    Sounds feasible. I don’t normally think of that as rent control.
  - nradov 5y ago
    San Jose limits annual rent increases to 5%. That seems reasonable (unless inflation gets out of control). Tenants aren't immediately forced out of their homes if the market rate jumps 20% in one year. But landlords can still eventually raise rents to market rates spread out over several years. There's no absolute limit on maximum rent.
    - laverya 5y ago
      If it was inflation + 5%, I'd be fine with that - but a flat 5% limit only works so long as inflation stays low.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        Technically, it only works if the (notional, I’m not sure this is an actual tracked category) PPI for rental housing is low, general (CPI) inflation may loosely correlate with that, but its not directly relevant.
    - ralph84 5y ago
      Inflation may not be out of control yet, but certainly things like insurance, parts and labor for repairs and maintenance, and HOA dues are already increasing more than 5%/year. And property taxes alone are guaranteed to increase 2%/year in California. Not saying we should feel sorry for landlords, but when some parts of a market have price controls and other parts don't, distortions are inevitable.
zbrozek 5y ago
Not the OP, but I'll guess that it's because both of them strongly erode property rights. Another, more freedom-preserving, approach is to make it easier to build build build. Planet Money had a decent introduction a couple years ago.[0] In the current NIMBY climate, my neighbor is struggling with the red tape to repave her driveway. Building a new home around here seems about as improbable as a hobbyist making the first human Mars landing. [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/03/05/700432258/the-return-of-rent-control https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/03/05/700432258/the-...
- bakuninsbart 5y ago
  Are property rights freedom-preserving? One of the most infuriating bits of my visit to the US West coast was driving up from LA to SF and a lot of the really nice bits of coast not being accessible to the public. There's compromises like germanic Jedermansrecht [0], but overall I think limiting property rights is often a net gain of freedom. I do agree on the problem of NYMBYism though. There's a funny-if-not-so-sad dispute here in Berlin at the moment, where the leftist state government is desperately trying to build public housing while the leftist local government in the district of Lichtenberg is blocking a major developing due to local concern. Sadly I can't find an article in English, but I am sure there are dozens if not hundreds of examples for that. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam
  - reducesuffering 5y ago
    All of the California coastline is public.
    - jcrawfordor 5y ago
      California coast is public up to mean high tide. This is appreciably different from, for example, Oregon where it is public further in (typically to the vegetation line, details are slightly complex). It makes it significantly easier for California property owners to de facto remove public access to beaches, which is very common in some areas. On top of this, CA courts have often been reluctant to enforce public rights to beaches.
JTbane 5y ago
Econ 101 says that rent control (in effect a price ceiling) just results in scarcity (people are unable to get ANY housing), rather than actually reducing the cost of housing.
- Enginerrrd 5y ago
  I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. This is the theoretical prediction based on simple microeconomics. By example, I believe NY rent controls were ineffective to the point where rents outside of controlled areas went higher than they otherwise would have and within rent control areas there was (and is) scarcity of housing.
- Rebelgecko 5y ago
  It also exacerbates other problems that go hand in hand with urban areas, such as traffic. Most people would rather stay in their rent controlled apartment and drive an hour to work instead of having to move and pay the current market value

bserge 5y ago

That's gonna happen anyway, so as the millennials said, YOLO.

m_ke 5y ago

Simple solution would be to put a property and sales tax ramp on additional homes. Make landlords who own N homes pay 1.5^N the normal rate.

corpdronejuly 5y ago
The issue then becomes silly games with shell corporations hiding how many homes people own, which pushes homes into the hands of larger landlords who can afford to pay someone to play those silly games.
- m_ke 5y ago
  Make it pass through to the shareholders.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- soperj 5y ago
  Don't allow corps to own housing.
  - kadomony 5y ago
    This is what pisses me off the most. America's housing is being sold to the wealthy, who then just turn around and siphon the rest of the wealth out of the middle-class and younger generations by forcing them into renting because the barrier to break into homeownership simply eclipses them.
    - m_ke 5y ago
      There's a whole cottage industry of house hackers now thanks to biggerpockets who specialize in BRRRing, as in buying, doing minor renovations, raising rents and then cash out refinancing to have money for the next downpayment.
5y ago

alex_sf 5y ago

Millenial homeownership is almost at 50% this year. The people priced out are the loudest, but it's not overwhelmingly common in most parts of the US.

Miner49er 5y ago
That's still way lower then older generations.
- ac29 5y ago
  Of course it is, Millennials are as young as 25 this year. Its doubtful many can afford a house just a few years out of college (and even more doubtful if they didnt go to college). Even those that can may not be ready to settle down and commit to such a large purchase.
  - Miner49er 5y ago
    Yeah, but it's still also lower then it was for the older generations when they were at the same age.
    - djrogers 5y ago
      citation?
      - Miner49er 5y ago
        https://www.apartmentlist.com/research/homeownership-by-generation https://www.apartmentlist.com/research/homeownership-by-gene...
    - Thorrez 5y ago
      Older generations also went to college less frequently, so had less student debt and were able to start buying houses sooner.
- itake 5y ago

tempfs 5y ago

1. Residential homes are no longer allowed to be 'investment properties' aka every person(or married couple) can own exactly one house. Corporate entities except for Banks(even then can only own it for the time it takes to sell it in the case of foreclosure) can't either. 2. Only actual Americans can own property in America. Single-fam, multi-fam, land,etc. doesn't matter. Exactly no one needs to rent houses if mulit-fam exists and actual houses aren't speculative instruments or places where foreign nationals hide their money.

JamesBarney 5y ago
1. Just bans people from renting houses to other people. This reduces the supply of rentable houses to 0. Reduces the supply of rentable stock in general. And very slightly marginally reduces the price of houses. 2. Can corporations still own commercial property? And can foreigners own corporations ?
lastofthemojito 5y ago
Even "simple" solutions like those you've proposed so often wind up having unintended consequences. For your first proposal, I wonder about folks buying a house through an LLC or trust as folks often do to protect their privacy. Are we banning that? I also wonder about inheritance - if I own a house and my parents die, leaving me their house, how long do I have to sell one to be "in compliance?". Maybe their house needs work and I'd like to spend a few months or a year fixing it up to maximize what it'll sell for. Is that ok? And speaking of timing - I remember during the wave of foreclosures after the last housing bubble, banks kept a lot of houses off the market for a while to moderate prices, rather than listing everything at once and panicking the market further. Seems like banks ought to have some leeway to maximize their return (e.g. if a house has a pool and is foreclosed on in the late fall, maybe they judge that waiting until spring would get a better response from buyers).
jakemoshenko 5y ago
Where do you expect rental housing stock to come from in this scenario?
simonsarris 5y ago

mistrial9 5y ago

California "small house" duplexes are being built at this moment, by the thousands.. maybe permits, maybe not.. just saying what I see

loeg 5y ago

The solution is to build more housing. California has historically been terrible about that but SB9 and 10 are significant steps in the right direction.

tharne 5y ago
It consistently shocks me how rarely this is brought up as a solution. Price of something too high? Increase the supply.
- noneeeed 5y ago
  It's been so frustrating watching people celebrating UK governments who have repeatedly failed to really tackle the supply side issues while propping up the demand side with tweaks that just increase the prices. The most amazing example of this was the stamp-duty holiday to help stimulate the market for a few months during covid. The maximum you could save was £15k. The average house price increased during that time by about £16k...
  - russx2 5y ago
    They were still likely benefiting to be fair. Remember stamp duty is paid externally to the mortgage so it effectively comes off your deposit, not your loan.
- cryptoz 5y ago
  This is brought up all the time. There is frequently huge opposition from locals anywhere regarding increasing housing supply.
  - toxik 5y ago
    And many times rightly so, living next door to a long construction project is a mistake I will only make once in my life. Utter insanity to be woken up by literal bombs going off in the bedrock.
  - loeg 5y ago

topspin 5y ago

"better start finding and implementing real solutions to housing prices right now" They can't. Providing supply will suffer the wrath of BANANA/CAVE/NIMBY anywhere you dream of living. Constraining demand will either get you voted out of office or devastate your political network or both, depending on which policy you attempt. You're competing with a whole planet full of people that want to live here and have more means than you. Seek property where demand is lower and development isn't effectively outlawed. Forget any livable cities or high population states. For 99% of you that means living far away from your preferred locale among people you probably loath. If that's not acceptable then keep renting or live in a van. The good news is many of you can work remote. That is an affordance you can leverage to great benefit.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Doches 5y ago
> For 99% of you that means living far away from your preferred locale among people you probably loath. Parent comment is vitriolic but not actually wrong. Myself, I take great comfort in the idea of huge swaths of liberal, well-educated millennials and xennials migrating out of coastal cities and into small towns across the South and Midwest. Can you work remotely? Want to own your own home on a multi-acre lot for $100k, and live in a place with sunshine and warm weather nine months out of the year? Sure, you'll end up living in the most conservative parts of deeply red states -- but try it. Live among people you disagree with -- we're all still Americans, it'll be OK -- and if enough of your friends and fellow Ivy alumns make the jump you'd be surprised how easily you could turn Texas or Georgia nicely purple. We've got to end the big sort, at any cost. And the hilarious difference in cost of living is probably our last, best hope.
- rjbwork 5y ago
  I was ready to buy an estate in the Georgia mountains earlier this year - then I saw the internet connection options. Then I looked up how much it would cost me to get a decent wired connection out there. Totally unviable for tech workers to live in most of the solid red areas of the country strictly due internet capabilities, or lack thereof.

tov247 5y ago

The solutions are political not technical. Housing needs to be something that isn't used primarily to make money. Cooperatives, Vienna-style PPPs, and a society where if your house price doesn't constantly increase you can afford to retire.

CountDrewku 5y ago

The solution is to leave cities that aren't affordable. Sorry, but you may not get to live beach-side or be in walking distance from your hipster coffee joint in downtown SF. I really think a lot of the problem is our generation grew up watching too many movies and they just think it's normal to live in some high end condo in Manhattan while working for Enterprise Rent-A-Car. That's not realistic.

hiram112 5y ago
Yeah a lot of older millennials grew up on shows like Friends. We were disappointed in our mid-20s when we discovered our entry-level job wouldn't afford that large condo in downtown SF or Manhattan. But it has got out of hand. I earn 90% more than most full time workers. And like 50%+ of "households" out there, it's just me, so no dual income. And I don't think it's appropriate to expect 40 year olds to still live with a bunch of roommates like they did when they're 22. Forget the 2K ft^2 apartment in Manhattan or Mission District, I can't even afford the starter home out in Jersey or East Bay or Beltway DC. These aren't the mythical "McMansions" that everybody always uses to deflect from the affordability crisis - these are the exact same properties on tiny lots that a single-earning non-college-educated factory worker or postman or paper pusher could easily afford for his family in previous generations. And if I - earning 2x-3x more than most workers - can't afford these basic homes, how the hell does everyone else who earns the median income of $60K do it?
- CountDrewku 5y ago
  >And if I - earning 2x-3x more than most workers - can't afford these basic homes, how the hell does everyone else who earns the median income of $60K do it? By living in a rural area or not on the coasts. >And I don't think it's appropriate to expect 40 year olds to still live with a bunch of roommates like they did when they're 22. I guess that depends on your culture. It's pretty normal to have multiple families or roommates in other countries. The only legit way I can see to fixing some of these issues is to ensure you do not let investors outside of your country buy up property. China is notorious for this. Secondly maybe you limit companies like Blackrock as well. I really dislike the idea of rent control. I don't think people that own a few properties should be punished and pushed out of the market. This just leads to larger corporations owning everything.