7 ms·

> Now, wealth and growth are completely disconnected. This is, of course, behind much of the populist anger in politics today. Affordable housing in particular

> Now, wealth and growth are completely disconnected. This is, of course, behind much of the populist anger in politics today. Affordable housing in particular has become a rallying cry for millennials who can’t afford to buy homes and start families as early as a previous generation did. I am one of those millennials that is forever priced out of the housing market. And that to a large extent has shifted my political belief away from hard left that I once used to be. Especially seeing how the local mostly leftist politicians in SF have basically helped fuel the crisis even further and basically have done nothing. And many neoliberal leftist economist and media outlets even defending the status quo monetary policy that is clearly behind this wealth divide. To my disappointment though as much of a victim clearly as millennials and GenZ are, their political beliefs don’t acknowledge they want a change. It’s as if they expect the same group of people that are largely behind some of the bad policies causing the wealth disconnect are suddenly going to reverse course. A case in point is SF where they keep voting the same old eggheads who have virtually made it possible for the boomers to retire extremely wealthy at the expense of prices out millennials like me. If you vote for the same people expecting some sort of change will happen then spoiler alert. It won’t.

hyuuu 5y ago
you are priced out of specific locations, not the whole housing market and those people who are pricing you out of those locations, they themselves are also priced out from other certain high priced locations.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- mercy_dude 5y ago
  This the classic “pack your bag and move” type of argument much like “learn to code”. For many this is not an option due to job, family and a host of other things. The point in the article I was highlighting was about prices outpacing growth. And that’s a problem. When you have prices doubling almost every 5-10yrs and no chances of slowing down then why even work?
  - kazen44 5y ago
    Also, in usual capitalistic fashion, it completely removes the human aspect of living somewhere. You belong to a certain community. People are being priced out of their community and social neighbourhood by speculation and rent seeking. This is a deliberate political choice, and it shows, especially if we account for the mass individualisation of (american) society.
    - throwaway984393 5y ago
      I like how when this happens to poor black people, we don't care because we middle-class white people deserve to live wherever we want. When it happens to middle-class white people, suddenly it's unfair.
- closeparen 5y ago
  It's not specific locations, it's cities as a whole. There is so little urbanism in this country. You've got Manhattan, the Loop, and a few dozen downtown blocks across the rest of the top ten. Of course they're going to be insanely expensive. If even one city embraced Manhattanization the way America has embraced sprawl for the last 75 years, you could direct the complainers there. But there isn't one.
ransom1538 5y ago
The wealthy SF landowners are geniuses. They collect billions in rent each year - they suck up all those sweet sweet tech dollars. All they have to do is show up to city meetings and vote down more building (except commercial zoning of course!!). SF landlords are super progressive too (lol) -- they want to keep that "rent control" going. Rent control ensures no new housing, massive demand, no need to renovate, and sky high rental prices.
- nradov 5y ago
  Peter Thiel recognized that problem in 2018 and cut his SF Bay Area investments: "One thing I’ve been thinking about as a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley is the vast majority of the capital I give to the companies is just going to landlords. It’s going to commercial real estate and even more to urban slumlords of one sort or another." https://finance.yahoo.com/news/peter-thiel-vast-majority-capital-give-companies-just-going-landlords-134709786.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/peter-thiel-vast-majority-cap...
- ec109685 5y ago
  Traffic is horrible in the Bay Area. Is the answer really “more people”? If it is, it needs to be coupled with infrastructure investment.
  - Tiktaalik 5y ago
    It's an easily addressable issue. We've had the technology since the 19th century, but just as there are the nimbys disingenuously working hard to their benefit to ensure that new housing for workers isn't created, you have people like Elon Musk and others in the car/oil industry working hard to defeat rapid public transit and other public works.
  - chmod600 5y ago
    The freeway is jammed by people who can't live close to their job and entertainment because of bad housing policy. Restricting the housing supply might very well be the cause of traffic, not the solution to it.
mejutoco 5y ago
I am so confused by this use of political labels. I understand your argument, just not the political labels. Not siding with any specific label, I just want to make sense of these labels. I understand that left and right mean very different things in Europe or in the US, for instance. Inequality on access to housing has shifted you away from hard left. And neoliberal leftist economists and media are defending the status quo. What are leftist politicians for you? the Democrat party? What are some examples of neoliberal leftist economists? I cannot think of anything neoliberal that it is not center-right to hard-right. Probably it is because I am not from the US, and would be curious to know. To me, hard left is anarchist/communist and neoliberals are always right/hard-right/center-right depending on how much one likes them :)
- boredtofears 5y ago
  Leftist politics in the US is completely dominated at the moment by a certain brand of zealous progressive agenda that has done very little practically for wealth inequality and is solely focused on specific social issues. It still appears that neoliberal politics still drive most of the meaningful economic agenda on the left. I agree this is not really what people usually consider to be the "hard left", but when you're essentially left with two choices and one of them is leaning so heavily into a particular brand of politics it distorts your view of what "hard left" means compared to typical political ideologies. I think your understanding is generally correct, it's American politics that is tipped a little bit sideways at the moment.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- mercy_dude 5y ago
  Yes I was mostly talking about the US. And at local level. Federal govt can do very little if anything to things such as zoning laws and nor they should. The example I provided was to do with California and it is much like the same way in many other parts of the country. Neoliberal economists would be any mainstream economist who are still living in their la la land thinking QE is done for greater good of middle and working class and lower interest rate has nothing to do with investor class using their inflated market value of assets to borrow more and buy more assets that in turn also keeps going up. Meanwhile credit card interest rates are still averaging 10%+.
qdog 5y ago
CA has prop 13 and we currently have incredibly low mortgage interest rates. SF has an amplified effect, but housing is going up faster than wages pretty much everywhere. Prices are up more than 40% in the desirable cities and town outside of SF (Austin, TX for example). I don't see any simple ways to fix this, interest rate hikes will slow price growth, but payments will still go up. Some incremental changes (additional taxes on empty houses, rezoning, etc.) may have small changes, but do not seem likely to bring down affordability. Any small dip in affordability in the desirable places will likely see more migration there, unless we hit a huge recession, which based on my experience in 2008, still means most of us will miss out, as the price won't dip enough and the major asset holders just get to buy at a discount.
- mercy_dude 5y ago
  > I don't see any simple ways to fix this, interest rate hikes will slow price growth, but payments will still go up. Some incremental changes (additional taxes on empty houses, rezoning, etc.) may have small changes, but do not seem likely to bring down affordability. That’s not how asset owning class uses low interest rate environment in their favor. Say you bought a house in SF in 2010. Well your market value of the house has already doubled if not more. So 5yrs later you borrow against that asset to buy another rental unit in even lower interest rate. Which in turn has doubled. Meanwhile if a first home buyer like me wants to get in I have to not only have 20% down payment, but also clean credit and a secure job. Do I get to use the low interest rate in my favor? Let’s see credit card interest rates are still 10%+.
  - poulsbohemian 5y ago
    >I have to not only have 20% down payment, but also clean credit and a secure job Have you talked to a mortgage broker lately? In my locale, very few first time buyers are going to be in a place where they have to put down 20%. There are so many state programs available for first-time buyers and so many different loan options. I understand you are in SFO, but a lot of the frustrations you are expressing in your posts above are very localized to California and to SFO and don't really match the left/right politics of the rest of the country.
88913527 5y ago
It's less a political delineation and more of a class one. In nearly any city, whether it's left- or right- leaning, there's a class of landowners who intentionally reject rezoning to artificially restrict the supply of homes. If we followed the logic in your comment, a millennial in a southern red city would reject the right, and choose the left, for your reasoning: their conservative leaders failed their ability to get on the housing ladder. Make no mistake, it's about wealthy protecting their wealth. Conservatives and liberals in cities nationwide block the construction of new housing. And it's perfectly rational for people to do so, without it being a judgment of their broader political beliefs. People like their private property and they want it to appreciate. You have to realize that ideal is present in both well-to-do left and right leaning areas.
- mercy_dude 5y ago
  No you totally missed my point. Places I was giving example as are places where you as a politician literally have to do nothing and you would still be winning elections. So my point was if millennials and GenZ are the victims of the policies or lack thereof and want these politicians to do something, why do they keep voting for them when these same politicians have fueled the price growth and continues to do nothing? The example I gave was SF which happens to be left (much like most of the HCOL cities) but the same would be applicable to right as well. My point is the moment politicians realize they don’t actually have to make any efforts to improve the quality of life for their constituents, and can rather keep them busy driving culture war outrage and making them single issue voters is the moment people as a whole lose. For example I don’t like Joe Manchin or Kristin Synema. But they are hell of a better choice for the people they are serving than Nancy Pelosi or Ted Cruz. Knowing your action can cost you elections is how democracy is supposed to work. > If we followed the logic in your comment, a millennial in a southern red city would reject the right, and choose the left If it means that the right is virtually winning every election cycle and not doing anything to improve their quality of life and major pressing issues, then yes they should. Democracy is all about keeping people in power in check so when it comes to re-election we can vote them Out if they didn’t do a good job. at least in my book.
  - 5y ago
nradov 5y ago
I cannot fathom why Millennials of modest means would ever choose to live in San Francisco. It's a city run by incompetent elitists for the benefit of childless wealthy people. Maybe it shouldn't be that way, but that's the reality and it won't change any time soon. So why subject yourself to that kind of punishment? It's a big country. There are plenty of cities where it's possible to buy a home and start a family on a regular salary. Have you been to Cleveland lately?
- reidjs 5y ago
  Oh sure, we'd all like to flee to the cleev https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfAHbZg_Az0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfAHbZg_Az0 As someone born and raised in the bay area it's not that easy. All my friends and family live here. I have a well paying job that I like here and I like my co workers. I have accepted that for as long as I live in SF, I will have to rent. I will never be able to own a home remotely close to SF or to my office. I don't want to just run to a low COL city and start over. I would rather fight for lower housing prices so that one day I might be able to own a home and start a family where I grew up myself.
  - nradov 5y ago
    Nothing worth doing is easy. My grandparents moved from another continent and left all their friends and family behind in search of a better life. Sometimes you have to leave your comfort zone and take a risk. It's great that you want to fight for lower housing prices. But what happens if you fail? In 30 years if you're still stuck renting a tiny apartment will you have regrets? Pick your battles wisely.
    - tsol 5y ago
      >My grandparents moved from another continent and left all their friends and family behind in search of a better life. Not OP but on the other hand my own parents did that, and that's exactly why I don't want to move away. I'd rather stay close to the family I cherish, my time with them is literally priceless. Luckily housing prices aren't so bad here, but my point stands
908B64B197 5y ago
> Especially seeing how the local mostly leftist politicians in SF have basically helped fuel the crisis even further and basically have done nothing. And many neoliberal leftist economist and media outlets even defending the status quo monetary policy that is clearly behind this wealth divide. I laugh every time I hear that. Especially proposition 13 which is basically age-based redlining.
shrimpx 5y ago
You can buy a decent starter house for under 100k in Mississippi, Missouri, Virginia, Kansas, and a bunch of other places. Real estate is mostly only inflated in top cities and competitive vacation/retirement towns. Look at Laurel and Hattiesburg MS for example. Decent towns with families, schools, breweries, hipster cafés, largely all the jazz people clamor over in expensive towns. And look at the real estate prices over there.
- stocknoob 5y ago
  I don't know if you're joking, but most people in CA don't want to move to places that are still deciding to keep confederate monuments in front of courthouses. https://apnews.com/article/mississippi-referendums-elections-courts-hattiesburg-135408d2e57cce11a45f74eb9f61426f https://apnews.com/article/mississippi-referendums-elections...
  - 01100011 5y ago
    If people in CA and NY don't want to keep being upset that they lost another presidential election then they need to consider moving to a less comfortable state and voting. Liberals concentrate in a few enclaves and then get upset when the rules they have to play by don't give them what they want. The US is arranged to empower the flyover states and complaining about it won't change it.
  - president 5y ago
    I live in CA and have never met a single person who has ever given a single thought to the idea of confederate monuments. This is an idea spawned by a fringe group and amplified by the media for tribal political reasons.
    - wallacoloo 5y ago
      eh, some truth, but media bleeds into IRL. to the contrary, i have met people who care about statues and monuments. perhaps somewhat surprisingly, the number of retirees around me who have initiated discussion around such things (or even taken action like parading/protesting local confederate-related statues) exceeds the number of millennials who have done so. but yes, overall only a small proportion of people i know really care about these things
ksec 5y ago
Not from US, so forgive me. >And that to a large extent has shifted my political belief away from hard left that I once used to be. I thought you would be left because you want government intervention for the housing market? I know SF has some weird rules about something called zoning? But shouldn't you still be on the left side of the spectrum? Could someone ELI5?
- carom 5y ago
  The statement is fairly odd, as someone in the US who cares a lot about housing I did not understand it. They might have become more capitalistic / free market / libertarian, as many of those areas are heavily restricted and deregulation would allow people to build. The available option for "left" in the US is the Democrat party. They are very establishment, very corporate, very status quo. They also still cater to the baby boomers as they are the largest voting block.
  - ksec 5y ago
    > as many of those areas are heavily restricted and deregulation would allow people to build. Thank You that make some sense. >The available option for "left" in the US is the Democrat party. And thanks for the explanation, I always knew it was different between left from EUR and left in US. But your explanation put it in much better prospective.
JamesBarney 5y ago
> And many neoliberal leftist economist and media outlets even defending the status quo monetary policy that is clearly behind this wealth divide. I don't think it's clear at all that loose monetary policy causes a wealth divide. Most evidence points to the fact that the bottom quartile's income is the most sensitive to labor market slack.
danny_codes 5y ago
I don't think this is true whatsoever. Young people are voting for progressives, who are running on platforms of expanded social welfare and reducing wealth/income inequality. I mean look at the last democratic primary super-Tuesday exit polls. Ages 18-29, +46 to Bernie. Ages 30-44 +19 to Bernie. It's not that young people aren't voting for their interests (which in my biased opinion is in the best interest for the country overall), it's that we don't have the numbers yet. I presume the story is similar in local SF politics.
- adam_arthur 5y ago
  Except a lot of the advocated policies increase wealth inequality. E.g. easy monetary policy, bringing back the SALT deduction, NIMBYism, rent control. Where is the strong push to kill exclusionary zoning? Housing problem is very easy to solve by changing zoning laws and allowing free market forces to work. Also by the Fed not inducing FOMO buying sprees by keeping rates artificially low for long periods of time.
vmception 5y ago
SF has done something, heavy rent controls. It’s far from nothing and it also exacerbates the housing crisis. Mostly short term solutions from an empathic, reactionary, and transient voting bloc that does not stay long enough to experience any consequence of their actions.
rank0 5y ago
Why exactly are you forever priced out of the housing market? There’s a ton of excellent homes/units available in the 300k range. There’s more to the country than the bay area. I have no idea why millennials feel they deserve to own property in extremely expensive areas for cheap.
- nly 5y ago
  > I have no idea why millennials feel they deserve to own property in extremely expensive areas for cheap. All areas are more expensive now. Boomers may have suffered other high costs over the decades, and higher interest rates and inflation, but there were folks in London over the last 20-30 years putting mortgage deposits on their credit cards, paying them out of a single annual bonus, or simply putting down nothing. Well paid professionals who bought property in London in the 90s can easily be multi-millionaires now. These people have seen asset appreciation that has almost beaten the global stock market. That's without considering the effects of their leverage. And unlike the stock market those capitals gains are absolutely 100% tax free (on primary residences of unlimited value). Relative to median incomes the average house is now 3x as expensive as it was in the 80s and 90s. Low rates only help if you can get a deposit and a mortgage together to get on the ladder. When houses are 10x median income it's just really really hard to do that, even for the well-paid.
  - rank0 5y ago
    The idea that every area is HCOL is just wrong. You can get property for as little as 3% down. You can rent out extra rooms. It’s remarkable that our generation willingly takes out 6 figure loans for worthless college degrees but can’t save 10k for a down payment on a condo in Atlanta. People spend more money on their homes nowadays. Especially now that remote work is widely accepted.
jjav 5y ago
> I am one of those millennials that is forever priced out of the housing market. > in SF Perhaps you may be priced out of the housing market in SF specifically. That doesn't mean the housing market as a whole. There is cheaper housing elsewhere. I'm GenX, in my 20s I wanted nothing more than to live in NYC. Could never make it happen, too expensive. I was literally priced out forever of the NYC housing market. I gave up on that, moved to California which was back then still a lot cheaper. If you're young, no point in banging your head against the established old money and demand they change for you. Shift targets and build the next great thing/place.

hyuuu 5y ago

you are priced out of specific locations, not the whole housing market and those people who are pricing you out of those locations, they themselves are also priced out from other certain high priced locations.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mercy_dude 5y ago
This the classic “pack your bag and move” type of argument much like “learn to code”. For many this is not an option due to job, family and a host of other things. The point in the article I was highlighting was about prices outpacing growth. And that’s a problem. When you have prices doubling almost every 5-10yrs and no chances of slowing down then why even work?
- kazen44 5y ago
  Also, in usual capitalistic fashion, it completely removes the human aspect of living somewhere. You belong to a certain community. People are being priced out of their community and social neighbourhood by speculation and rent seeking. This is a deliberate political choice, and it shows, especially if we account for the mass individualisation of (american) society.
  - throwaway984393 5y ago
    I like how when this happens to poor black people, we don't care because we middle-class white people deserve to live wherever we want. When it happens to middle-class white people, suddenly it's unfair.
closeparen 5y ago
It's not specific locations, it's cities as a whole. There is so little urbanism in this country. You've got Manhattan, the Loop, and a few dozen downtown blocks across the rest of the top ten. Of course they're going to be insanely expensive. If even one city embraced Manhattanization the way America has embraced sprawl for the last 75 years, you could direct the complainers there. But there isn't one.

ransom1538 5y ago

The wealthy SF landowners are geniuses. They collect billions in rent each year - they suck up all those sweet sweet tech dollars. All they have to do is show up to city meetings and vote down more building (except commercial zoning of course!!). SF landlords are super progressive too (lol) -- they want to keep that "rent control" going. Rent control ensures no new housing, massive demand, no need to renovate, and sky high rental prices.

nradov 5y ago
Peter Thiel recognized that problem in 2018 and cut his SF Bay Area investments: "One thing I’ve been thinking about as a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley is the vast majority of the capital I give to the companies is just going to landlords. It’s going to commercial real estate and even more to urban slumlords of one sort or another." https://finance.yahoo.com/news/peter-thiel-vast-majority-capital-give-companies-just-going-landlords-134709786.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/peter-thiel-vast-majority-cap...
ec109685 5y ago
Traffic is horrible in the Bay Area. Is the answer really “more people”? If it is, it needs to be coupled with infrastructure investment.
- Tiktaalik 5y ago
  It's an easily addressable issue. We've had the technology since the 19th century, but just as there are the nimbys disingenuously working hard to their benefit to ensure that new housing for workers isn't created, you have people like Elon Musk and others in the car/oil industry working hard to defeat rapid public transit and other public works.
- chmod600 5y ago
  The freeway is jammed by people who can't live close to their job and entertainment because of bad housing policy. Restricting the housing supply might very well be the cause of traffic, not the solution to it.

mejutoco 5y ago

I am so confused by this use of political labels. I understand your argument, just not the political labels. Not siding with any specific label, I just want to make sense of these labels. I understand that left and right mean very different things in Europe or in the US, for instance. Inequality on access to housing has shifted you away from hard left. And neoliberal leftist economists and media are defending the status quo. What are leftist politicians for you? the Democrat party? What are some examples of neoliberal leftist economists? I cannot think of anything neoliberal that it is not center-right to hard-right. Probably it is because I am not from the US, and would be curious to know. To me, hard left is anarchist/communist and neoliberals are always right/hard-right/center-right depending on how much one likes them :)

boredtofears 5y ago
Leftist politics in the US is completely dominated at the moment by a certain brand of zealous progressive agenda that has done very little practically for wealth inequality and is solely focused on specific social issues. It still appears that neoliberal politics still drive most of the meaningful economic agenda on the left. I agree this is not really what people usually consider to be the "hard left", but when you're essentially left with two choices and one of them is leaning so heavily into a particular brand of politics it distorts your view of what "hard left" means compared to typical political ideologies. I think your understanding is generally correct, it's American politics that is tipped a little bit sideways at the moment.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
mercy_dude 5y ago
Yes I was mostly talking about the US. And at local level. Federal govt can do very little if anything to things such as zoning laws and nor they should. The example I provided was to do with California and it is much like the same way in many other parts of the country. Neoliberal economists would be any mainstream economist who are still living in their la la land thinking QE is done for greater good of middle and working class and lower interest rate has nothing to do with investor class using their inflated market value of assets to borrow more and buy more assets that in turn also keeps going up. Meanwhile credit card interest rates are still averaging 10%+.

qdog 5y ago

CA has prop 13 and we currently have incredibly low mortgage interest rates. SF has an amplified effect, but housing is going up faster than wages pretty much everywhere. Prices are up more than 40% in the desirable cities and town outside of SF (Austin, TX for example). I don't see any simple ways to fix this, interest rate hikes will slow price growth, but payments will still go up. Some incremental changes (additional taxes on empty houses, rezoning, etc.) may have small changes, but do not seem likely to bring down affordability. Any small dip in affordability in the desirable places will likely see more migration there, unless we hit a huge recession, which based on my experience in 2008, still means most of us will miss out, as the price won't dip enough and the major asset holders just get to buy at a discount.

mercy_dude 5y ago
> I don't see any simple ways to fix this, interest rate hikes will slow price growth, but payments will still go up. Some incremental changes (additional taxes on empty houses, rezoning, etc.) may have small changes, but do not seem likely to bring down affordability. That’s not how asset owning class uses low interest rate environment in their favor. Say you bought a house in SF in 2010. Well your market value of the house has already doubled if not more. So 5yrs later you borrow against that asset to buy another rental unit in even lower interest rate. Which in turn has doubled. Meanwhile if a first home buyer like me wants to get in I have to not only have 20% down payment, but also clean credit and a secure job. Do I get to use the low interest rate in my favor? Let’s see credit card interest rates are still 10%+.
- poulsbohemian 5y ago
  >I have to not only have 20% down payment, but also clean credit and a secure job Have you talked to a mortgage broker lately? In my locale, very few first time buyers are going to be in a place where they have to put down 20%. There are so many state programs available for first-time buyers and so many different loan options. I understand you are in SFO, but a lot of the frustrations you are expressing in your posts above are very localized to California and to SFO and don't really match the left/right politics of the rest of the country.

88913527 5y ago

It's less a political delineation and more of a class one. In nearly any city, whether it's left- or right- leaning, there's a class of landowners who intentionally reject rezoning to artificially restrict the supply of homes. If we followed the logic in your comment, a millennial in a southern red city would reject the right, and choose the left, for your reasoning: their conservative leaders failed their ability to get on the housing ladder. Make no mistake, it's about wealthy protecting their wealth. Conservatives and liberals in cities nationwide block the construction of new housing. And it's perfectly rational for people to do so, without it being a judgment of their broader political beliefs. People like their private property and they want it to appreciate. You have to realize that ideal is present in both well-to-do left and right leaning areas.

mercy_dude 5y ago
No you totally missed my point. Places I was giving example as are places where you as a politician literally have to do nothing and you would still be winning elections. So my point was if millennials and GenZ are the victims of the policies or lack thereof and want these politicians to do something, why do they keep voting for them when these same politicians have fueled the price growth and continues to do nothing? The example I gave was SF which happens to be left (much like most of the HCOL cities) but the same would be applicable to right as well. My point is the moment politicians realize they don’t actually have to make any efforts to improve the quality of life for their constituents, and can rather keep them busy driving culture war outrage and making them single issue voters is the moment people as a whole lose. For example I don’t like Joe Manchin or Kristin Synema. But they are hell of a better choice for the people they are serving than Nancy Pelosi or Ted Cruz. Knowing your action can cost you elections is how democracy is supposed to work. > If we followed the logic in your comment, a millennial in a southern red city would reject the right, and choose the left If it means that the right is virtually winning every election cycle and not doing anything to improve their quality of life and major pressing issues, then yes they should. Democracy is all about keeping people in power in check so when it comes to re-election we can vote them Out if they didn’t do a good job. at least in my book.
- 5y ago

nradov 5y ago

I cannot fathom why Millennials of modest means would ever choose to live in San Francisco. It's a city run by incompetent elitists for the benefit of childless wealthy people. Maybe it shouldn't be that way, but that's the reality and it won't change any time soon. So why subject yourself to that kind of punishment? It's a big country. There are plenty of cities where it's possible to buy a home and start a family on a regular salary. Have you been to Cleveland lately?

reidjs 5y ago
Oh sure, we'd all like to flee to the cleev https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfAHbZg_Az0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfAHbZg_Az0 As someone born and raised in the bay area it's not that easy. All my friends and family live here. I have a well paying job that I like here and I like my co workers. I have accepted that for as long as I live in SF, I will have to rent. I will never be able to own a home remotely close to SF or to my office. I don't want to just run to a low COL city and start over. I would rather fight for lower housing prices so that one day I might be able to own a home and start a family where I grew up myself.
- nradov 5y ago
  Nothing worth doing is easy. My grandparents moved from another continent and left all their friends and family behind in search of a better life. Sometimes you have to leave your comfort zone and take a risk. It's great that you want to fight for lower housing prices. But what happens if you fail? In 30 years if you're still stuck renting a tiny apartment will you have regrets? Pick your battles wisely.
  - tsol 5y ago
    >My grandparents moved from another continent and left all their friends and family behind in search of a better life. Not OP but on the other hand my own parents did that, and that's exactly why I don't want to move away. I'd rather stay close to the family I cherish, my time with them is literally priceless. Luckily housing prices aren't so bad here, but my point stands

908B64B197 5y ago

> Especially seeing how the local mostly leftist politicians in SF have basically helped fuel the crisis even further and basically have done nothing. And many neoliberal leftist economist and media outlets even defending the status quo monetary policy that is clearly behind this wealth divide. I laugh every time I hear that. Especially proposition 13 which is basically age-based redlining.

shrimpx 5y ago

You can buy a decent starter house for under 100k in Mississippi, Missouri, Virginia, Kansas, and a bunch of other places. Real estate is mostly only inflated in top cities and competitive vacation/retirement towns. Look at Laurel and Hattiesburg MS for example. Decent towns with families, schools, breweries, hipster cafés, largely all the jazz people clamor over in expensive towns. And look at the real estate prices over there.

stocknoob 5y ago
I don't know if you're joking, but most people in CA don't want to move to places that are still deciding to keep confederate monuments in front of courthouses. https://apnews.com/article/mississippi-referendums-elections-courts-hattiesburg-135408d2e57cce11a45f74eb9f61426f https://apnews.com/article/mississippi-referendums-elections...
- 01100011 5y ago
  If people in CA and NY don't want to keep being upset that they lost another presidential election then they need to consider moving to a less comfortable state and voting. Liberals concentrate in a few enclaves and then get upset when the rules they have to play by don't give them what they want. The US is arranged to empower the flyover states and complaining about it won't change it.
- president 5y ago
  I live in CA and have never met a single person who has ever given a single thought to the idea of confederate monuments. This is an idea spawned by a fringe group and amplified by the media for tribal political reasons.
  - wallacoloo 5y ago
    eh, some truth, but media bleeds into IRL. to the contrary, i have met people who care about statues and monuments. perhaps somewhat surprisingly, the number of retirees around me who have initiated discussion around such things (or even taken action like parading/protesting local confederate-related statues) exceeds the number of millennials who have done so. but yes, overall only a small proportion of people i know really care about these things

ksec 5y ago

Not from US, so forgive me. >And that to a large extent has shifted my political belief away from hard left that I once used to be. I thought you would be left because you want government intervention for the housing market? I know SF has some weird rules about something called zoning? But shouldn't you still be on the left side of the spectrum? Could someone ELI5?

carom 5y ago
The statement is fairly odd, as someone in the US who cares a lot about housing I did not understand it. They might have become more capitalistic / free market / libertarian, as many of those areas are heavily restricted and deregulation would allow people to build. The available option for "left" in the US is the Democrat party. They are very establishment, very corporate, very status quo. They also still cater to the baby boomers as they are the largest voting block.
- ksec 5y ago
  > as many of those areas are heavily restricted and deregulation would allow people to build. Thank You that make some sense. >The available option for "left" in the US is the Democrat party. And thanks for the explanation, I always knew it was different between left from EUR and left in US. But your explanation put it in much better prospective.

JamesBarney 5y ago

> And many neoliberal leftist economist and media outlets even defending the status quo monetary policy that is clearly behind this wealth divide. I don't think it's clear at all that loose monetary policy causes a wealth divide. Most evidence points to the fact that the bottom quartile's income is the most sensitive to labor market slack.

danny_codes 5y ago

I don't think this is true whatsoever. Young people are voting for progressives, who are running on platforms of expanded social welfare and reducing wealth/income inequality. I mean look at the last democratic primary super-Tuesday exit polls. Ages 18-29, +46 to Bernie. Ages 30-44 +19 to Bernie. It's not that young people aren't voting for their interests (which in my biased opinion is in the best interest for the country overall), it's that we don't have the numbers yet. I presume the story is similar in local SF politics.

adam_arthur 5y ago
Except a lot of the advocated policies increase wealth inequality. E.g. easy monetary policy, bringing back the SALT deduction, NIMBYism, rent control. Where is the strong push to kill exclusionary zoning? Housing problem is very easy to solve by changing zoning laws and allowing free market forces to work. Also by the Fed not inducing FOMO buying sprees by keeping rates artificially low for long periods of time.

vmception 5y ago

SF has done something, heavy rent controls. It’s far from nothing and it also exacerbates the housing crisis. Mostly short term solutions from an empathic, reactionary, and transient voting bloc that does not stay long enough to experience any consequence of their actions.

rank0 5y ago

Why exactly are you forever priced out of the housing market? There’s a ton of excellent homes/units available in the 300k range. There’s more to the country than the bay area. I have no idea why millennials feel they deserve to own property in extremely expensive areas for cheap.

nly 5y ago
> I have no idea why millennials feel they deserve to own property in extremely expensive areas for cheap. All areas are more expensive now. Boomers may have suffered other high costs over the decades, and higher interest rates and inflation, but there were folks in London over the last 20-30 years putting mortgage deposits on their credit cards, paying them out of a single annual bonus, or simply putting down nothing. Well paid professionals who bought property in London in the 90s can easily be multi-millionaires now. These people have seen asset appreciation that has almost beaten the global stock market. That's without considering the effects of their leverage. And unlike the stock market those capitals gains are absolutely 100% tax free (on primary residences of unlimited value). Relative to median incomes the average house is now 3x as expensive as it was in the 80s and 90s. Low rates only help if you can get a deposit and a mortgage together to get on the ladder. When houses are 10x median income it's just really really hard to do that, even for the well-paid.
- rank0 5y ago
  The idea that every area is HCOL is just wrong. You can get property for as little as 3% down. You can rent out extra rooms. It’s remarkable that our generation willingly takes out 6 figure loans for worthless college degrees but can’t save 10k for a down payment on a condo in Atlanta. People spend more money on their homes nowadays. Especially now that remote work is widely accepted.

jjav 5y ago

> I am one of those millennials that is forever priced out of the housing market. > in SF Perhaps you may be priced out of the housing market in SF specifically. That doesn't mean the housing market as a whole. There is cheaper housing elsewhere. I'm GenX, in my 20s I wanted nothing more than to live in NYC. Could never make it happen, too expensive. I was literally priced out forever of the NYC housing market. I gave up on that, moved to California which was back then still a lot cheaper. If you're young, no point in banging your head against the established old money and demand they change for you. Shift targets and build the next great thing/place.