4 ms·

In major cities. So, live outside the city. Or in a smaller city.

by JoeAltmaier 5y ago

stonogo 5y ago
No, it's affecting smaller cities too, as the article explicitly addresses.
- JoeAltmaier 5y ago
  Yes so live outside a smaller city
  - harambae 5y ago
    Housing prices are up in counties in West Virginia where the population is down since the pandemic and still continuing down. Land prices are up in the absolute middle of nowhere Ocotillo Wells desert where it's unimaginably hot much of the year and the only reason anyone has heard of it is dirtbiking. In short, it's up everywhere. Some places more extreme (Phoenix, Boise, Nashville, Austin) than other places.
    - CincinnatiMan 5y ago
      Interesting. What would cause demand to increase literally everywhere? Btw, respect to your username.
      - wbsss4412 5y ago
        Prices are set by the relatively small number of houses that are traded at any one time. This can be either demand or supply driven. Realistically, what’s causing this increase is the large amount of cheap money floating around in the economy at the moment. Something that should change in the near further assuming the Fed stays it’s course in tightening the money supply this year. The other factor at play that should be noted is the shift to WFH, the vast majority of the US population lives within major metro areas, even a small shift to rural areas creates huge spikes in demand. Housing isn’t something that can be scaled up in a small town quickly.
      - digisign 5y ago
        Population growth, nimbys everywhere.
    - SkittyDog 5y ago
      Ocotillo Wells may be a bad example, because it is adjacent to the Salton Sea. There is an ongoing conversation about building the world's largest lithium extraction plant at the Salton Sea, which would massively increase development in tbe surrounding area, and permanently raise land values in Ocotillo Wells (among other towns). I'm not saying you're wrong, just that OW may be a bad example because there is a separate local phenomenon going on.
rasterdog 5y ago
yes everyone needs a 1.25 hour commute to work
- JoeAltmaier 5y ago
  That's a myth. Mine is 15 minutes. All cities are not New York or LA
  - tragictrash 5y ago
    You have to realize that most people's commutes are 30+ mins though, right?
    - jghn 5y ago
      > most peoples commutes are 30+ mins Average commute time is 28 minutes [1] and if I didn't just mess it up from the raw data [2] the median is about 24.5 mins. EDIT: median of the state level means. So it's still possible that "most" people are above these numbers, although it seems unlikely given the outlier bias can be stronger in the high direction. [1] https://getjerry.com/newsroom/how-american-commute-has-changed-over-past-50-years https://getjerry.com/newsroom/how-american-commute-has-chang... [2] https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/united-states/quick-facts/all-states/average-commute-time#table https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/united-states/quick-facts/a...
defterGoose 5y ago
If your idea of 'major cities' is the top 500 cities in the country, I think we need a redefinition to just 'cities'.
Auracle 5y ago
I’m in what most on HN would consider to be a very rural area, with the closest town having a population of 1,000 and a bigger town of 20,000 30 minutes away. Home prices are completely out of whack here too - I would guess they’ve gone up 50% in the past few years. Good luck getting anything like what you want either. I bought my home back in 2011 and my one big thing was that I wanted at least 5 acres, but preferably more. I ended up getting a home in desperate need of updates on 15 acres for 180,000. At the time places fitting that criteria in my budget popped up pretty often. I just did a search in Zillow for anything with more than 5 acres, and all I could find is some farmland, a 40 acre lot that’s mostly swamp for 800,000, and a 12 acre lot that’s somehow split in to 3 pieces for 140,000. Relatively crappy homes in town that were 100k back when I was looking are now north of 250k. Just to compare, my parents bought an amazingly beautiful 60 acre lot back in the late 80s on a truck driver and school bus driver’s salary. They then built a huge brick house on it, though to be fair my dad did a lot of the work himself. My wife and I both have degrees with good paying jobs and there’s no way we’d ever be able to afford anything approaching what they have.
- dcchambers 5y ago
  It sounds like you're not really buying a house, but you're buying space. Acreage is expensive and it will only get more so because it's literally impossible to create more of it. You can build housing vertically and put them as close together as possible. You can't magically make more land. The vast majority of people won't be buying acres of land. Nor should they, it's not sustainable.
  - Auracle 5y ago
    Sure, but there's still plenty of space in the area. We're nowhere close to building vertically. The homes without acreage have all gotten significantly more expensive too. I just looked at a random house in town with a normal sized lot for the area. It's selling for 250k, was last sold in 2020 for 212k, and was sold before that in 2016 for 163k. The listing says it's back on the market with "new kitchen hardware and fresh paint on walls and trim," so no significant updates. A nicer home on the most desired lake in the area - 1.3 million. It last sold in 2007 for 410k. A less nice home on the same lake sold for 730k. In 2011 it sold for 335k. I know all those prices (save the million dollar home) are definitely cheap compared to cities, but the point was that the price increase has been stupid everywhere. There are so few homes on the market in the area it's ridiculous - they're gone instantly.
bobro 5y ago
More accurately, houses are expensive in places where many people want to live. The recommendation would be to buy a house where people dont want to live, which is kinda lame.
- francisofascii 5y ago
  It is lame at first. But then eventually people in a similar situations move in, and you are surrounded by people who wanted to live in major league city, but settled for a minor league city. Then you make friends and your situation is not so bad.
- f1yght 5y ago
  Thank you, the suggestions of "Just move" are wild to me. People create a whole life with friends, kids, family in a location and saying "Just move" to afford a house is ridiculous.
  - earleybird 5y ago
    "Just move" is what humans have done since time immemorial. There are folks who complain and those who act.
anecd0te 5y ago
"Reduce your quality of life and distance yourself from your friends and family, it's cheaper."

In major cities. So, live outside the city. Or in a smaller city.

stonogo 5y ago

No, it's affecting smaller cities too, as the article explicitly addresses.

JoeAltmaier 5y ago
Yes so live outside a smaller city
- harambae 5y ago
  Housing prices are up in counties in West Virginia where the population is down since the pandemic and still continuing down. Land prices are up in the absolute middle of nowhere Ocotillo Wells desert where it's unimaginably hot much of the year and the only reason anyone has heard of it is dirtbiking. In short, it's up everywhere. Some places more extreme (Phoenix, Boise, Nashville, Austin) than other places.
  - CincinnatiMan 5y ago
    Interesting. What would cause demand to increase literally everywhere? Btw, respect to your username.
    - wbsss4412 5y ago
      Prices are set by the relatively small number of houses that are traded at any one time. This can be either demand or supply driven. Realistically, what’s causing this increase is the large amount of cheap money floating around in the economy at the moment. Something that should change in the near further assuming the Fed stays it’s course in tightening the money supply this year. The other factor at play that should be noted is the shift to WFH, the vast majority of the US population lives within major metro areas, even a small shift to rural areas creates huge spikes in demand. Housing isn’t something that can be scaled up in a small town quickly.
    - digisign 5y ago
      Population growth, nimbys everywhere.
  - SkittyDog 5y ago
    Ocotillo Wells may be a bad example, because it is adjacent to the Salton Sea. There is an ongoing conversation about building the world's largest lithium extraction plant at the Salton Sea, which would massively increase development in tbe surrounding area, and permanently raise land values in Ocotillo Wells (among other towns). I'm not saying you're wrong, just that OW may be a bad example because there is a separate local phenomenon going on.

rasterdog 5y ago

yes everyone needs a 1.25 hour commute to work

JoeAltmaier 5y ago
That's a myth. Mine is 15 minutes. All cities are not New York or LA
- tragictrash 5y ago
  You have to realize that most people's commutes are 30+ mins though, right?
  - jghn 5y ago
    > most peoples commutes are 30+ mins Average commute time is 28 minutes [1] and if I didn't just mess it up from the raw data [2] the median is about 24.5 mins. EDIT: median of the state level means. So it's still possible that "most" people are above these numbers, although it seems unlikely given the outlier bias can be stronger in the high direction. [1] https://getjerry.com/newsroom/how-american-commute-has-changed-over-past-50-years https://getjerry.com/newsroom/how-american-commute-has-chang... [2] https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/united-states/quick-facts/all-states/average-commute-time#table https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/united-states/quick-facts/a...

defterGoose 5y ago

If your idea of 'major cities' is the top 500 cities in the country, I think we need a redefinition to just 'cities'.

Auracle 5y ago

I’m in what most on HN would consider to be a very rural area, with the closest town having a population of 1,000 and a bigger town of 20,000 30 minutes away. Home prices are completely out of whack here too - I would guess they’ve gone up 50% in the past few years. Good luck getting anything like what you want either. I bought my home back in 2011 and my one big thing was that I wanted at least 5 acres, but preferably more. I ended up getting a home in desperate need of updates on 15 acres for 180,000. At the time places fitting that criteria in my budget popped up pretty often. I just did a search in Zillow for anything with more than 5 acres, and all I could find is some farmland, a 40 acre lot that’s mostly swamp for 800,000, and a 12 acre lot that’s somehow split in to 3 pieces for 140,000. Relatively crappy homes in town that were 100k back when I was looking are now north of 250k. Just to compare, my parents bought an amazingly beautiful 60 acre lot back in the late 80s on a truck driver and school bus driver’s salary. They then built a huge brick house on it, though to be fair my dad did a lot of the work himself. My wife and I both have degrees with good paying jobs and there’s no way we’d ever be able to afford anything approaching what they have.

dcchambers 5y ago
It sounds like you're not really buying a house, but you're buying space. Acreage is expensive and it will only get more so because it's literally impossible to create more of it. You can build housing vertically and put them as close together as possible. You can't magically make more land. The vast majority of people won't be buying acres of land. Nor should they, it's not sustainable.
- Auracle 5y ago
  Sure, but there's still plenty of space in the area. We're nowhere close to building vertically. The homes without acreage have all gotten significantly more expensive too. I just looked at a random house in town with a normal sized lot for the area. It's selling for 250k, was last sold in 2020 for 212k, and was sold before that in 2016 for 163k. The listing says it's back on the market with "new kitchen hardware and fresh paint on walls and trim," so no significant updates. A nicer home on the most desired lake in the area - 1.3 million. It last sold in 2007 for 410k. A less nice home on the same lake sold for 730k. In 2011 it sold for 335k. I know all those prices (save the million dollar home) are definitely cheap compared to cities, but the point was that the price increase has been stupid everywhere. There are so few homes on the market in the area it's ridiculous - they're gone instantly.

bobro 5y ago

More accurately, houses are expensive in places where many people want to live. The recommendation would be to buy a house where people dont want to live, which is kinda lame.

francisofascii 5y ago
It is lame at first. But then eventually people in a similar situations move in, and you are surrounded by people who wanted to live in major league city, but settled for a minor league city. Then you make friends and your situation is not so bad.
f1yght 5y ago
Thank you, the suggestions of "Just move" are wild to me. People create a whole life with friends, kids, family in a location and saying "Just move" to afford a house is ridiculous.
- earleybird 5y ago
  "Just move" is what humans have done since time immemorial. There are folks who complain and those who act.

anecd0te 5y ago

"Reduce your quality of life and distance yourself from your friends and family, it's cheaper."