4 ms·

Maybe I'm cynical, but as someone who has been struggling to buy a home for 10 years, I think we're fucked. NIMBYism was already a brick wall with trying to con

Maybe I'm cynical, but as someone who has been struggling to buy a home for 10 years, I think we're fucked. NIMBYism was already a brick wall with trying to convince people to allow more houses to be built, because no one will voluntarily agree to something that will cause their house to drop in value. But now it's not just even about your house. Now your 401k might be tied into one of these investment firms that flip houses. So trying to convince a retiring boomer that not only will his house be worth less, but also his retirement fund might dip? Not gonna happen.

csee 5y ago
I am just as cynical that this problem can be resolved, there are too many voters actively voting against housing affordability; mostly homeowners but also a subset of the left who hate property developers and the concrete jungle aesthetic. My main hope is that WFH tech gets so good that living near a city is no longer a competitive advantage.
- torton 5y ago
  A big city location might cease being an advantage for work, but culture/social/dating life is richer in a city and I don't anticipate that materially changing (unless the Metaverse comes along much sooner and better than one would expect)
  - csee 5y ago
    Point taken, but a 1 hour train ride into the city twice a week for social purposes is more manageable. Doing that every working day is the killer.
throwaway6734 5y ago
Move somewhere where there's a lot of housing. I live in Baltimore and there are plenty of sub 200k homes in non-terrible neighborhoods (relatively speaking)
- soylentcola 5y ago
  Curious what neighborhood you ended up in. The "relatively speaking" part is huge in a city where a mile can make the difference between "reasonably decent and can still walk to things sometimes" and "might as well have bought in the county if I have to drive everywhere". And I wasn't just looking in the heart of gentrified neighborhoods either (didn't even bother with Canton/Fells/Hampden/Fed Hill/etc). I was shopping for over a year back in 2017, and even when I found a place in need of some work, a little ways out past the recent renovated flips and dual-income-large-dog-owners, I'd still get beaten by cash offers, even if I put in my offer the day it went on the market. Those "decent spot, but haven't been updated in a while" places are prime picking for flippers and rental property owners, whereas in the past those were how you got a deal and "bought up" into a halfway decent area without mortgaging your life away.
  - throwaway6734 5y ago
    Around Charles village: station north, Barclay, old goucher, Abell, etc. Greenmount is seeing some development now and it's becoming less of a dividing line than it used to be. We picked up a 2 bdrm/1.5 bath for ~190k in 2019. We're within walking/biking distance to a ton of cool restaurants and things to do.
FredPret 5y ago
Millenials are entering peak voting age in huge numbers and will be the driving political force in a few years. We’re 25-40 years old and started outnumbering the Boomers in 2020. Whether said Boomer can be convinced or not will soon be immaterial.
- AdmiralAsshat 5y ago
  Oh, they have ways of combating that. Like gerrymandering, closing voting centers, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if in 10 years they pass laws to take us back to only letting land-owning citizens vote. Anything to keep themselves in power.

csee 5y ago

I am just as cynical that this problem can be resolved, there are too many voters actively voting against housing affordability; mostly homeowners but also a subset of the left who hate property developers and the concrete jungle aesthetic. My main hope is that WFH tech gets so good that living near a city is no longer a competitive advantage.

torton 5y ago
A big city location might cease being an advantage for work, but culture/social/dating life is richer in a city and I don't anticipate that materially changing (unless the Metaverse comes along much sooner and better than one would expect)
- csee 5y ago
  Point taken, but a 1 hour train ride into the city twice a week for social purposes is more manageable. Doing that every working day is the killer.

throwaway6734 5y ago

Move somewhere where there's a lot of housing. I live in Baltimore and there are plenty of sub 200k homes in non-terrible neighborhoods (relatively speaking)

soylentcola 5y ago
Curious what neighborhood you ended up in. The "relatively speaking" part is huge in a city where a mile can make the difference between "reasonably decent and can still walk to things sometimes" and "might as well have bought in the county if I have to drive everywhere". And I wasn't just looking in the heart of gentrified neighborhoods either (didn't even bother with Canton/Fells/Hampden/Fed Hill/etc). I was shopping for over a year back in 2017, and even when I found a place in need of some work, a little ways out past the recent renovated flips and dual-income-large-dog-owners, I'd still get beaten by cash offers, even if I put in my offer the day it went on the market. Those "decent spot, but haven't been updated in a while" places are prime picking for flippers and rental property owners, whereas in the past those were how you got a deal and "bought up" into a halfway decent area without mortgaging your life away.
- throwaway6734 5y ago
  Around Charles village: station north, Barclay, old goucher, Abell, etc. Greenmount is seeing some development now and it's becoming less of a dividing line than it used to be. We picked up a 2 bdrm/1.5 bath for ~190k in 2019. We're within walking/biking distance to a ton of cool restaurants and things to do.

FredPret 5y ago

Millenials are entering peak voting age in huge numbers and will be the driving political force in a few years. We’re 25-40 years old and started outnumbering the Boomers in 2020. Whether said Boomer can be convinced or not will soon be immaterial.

AdmiralAsshat 5y ago
Oh, they have ways of combating that. Like gerrymandering, closing voting centers, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if in 10 years they pass laws to take us back to only letting land-owning citizens vote. Anything to keep themselves in power.