6 ms·

Housing costs, which are proportional to average population income, force us to compete in a Red Queen's race - everyone's earnings have to catch up with others

Housing costs, which are proportional to average population income, force us to compete in a Red Queen's race - everyone's earnings have to catch up with others'.

082349872349872 4y ago
There are other, more hedonic treadmills as well. Aluminium used to be expensive enough to make fancy tableware from, but now that it is dirt cheap, people want to buy iPhones instead. I hope there are some among us who (cf Carnegie) might view building the equivalent of libraries as a positional good?
- jrpt 4y ago
  An iPhone every few years is a very insignificant cost compared to a house.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    Cars are a significant one. Most people spend way more than they have to on cars for luxury features they don’t need for transport. Personally I opted for no car even though I can easily afford it. It’s a huge amount saved and honestly the lifestyle of walking to places is nicer anyway.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      Living somewhere I didn't need a car would be way more expensive for me than owning a car--even if I didn't care about the lack of mobility.
      - Gigachad 4y ago
        That wasn't how it worked out for me. The average cost of a car in Australia a few years ago was $10,000/year factoring in everything with the car value depreciation. This is much worse now with the increase in fuel and car values. Your increase in rent would have to be over $200AUD/week to be more expensive than owning a car. Not to mention the fact you benefit from living in a much more desirable area and everything else that comes with.
        ghaff 4y ago
        It depends. I live in an exurb of a major US metro on the East Coast. It's hard to compare costs directly as I own a house but anything remotely equivalent in the city on public transit lines would be much pricier. As for desirable? Well I have forest trails right out of my house. Don't care that much about walking to cafes and restaurants.
  - lossolo 4y ago
    It's about keeping up with joneses more than an specific item like iPhone, which is just an example of this phenomenon.
brailsafe 4y ago
What decade do you live in where housing costs are proportional to the average population's income? Asking for a friend.
- HPsquared 4y ago
  Monthly rents and mortgage payments are proportional to disposable incomes, pretty much by definition. People competitively bid up the prices in terms of what they can each afford.
  - brailsafe 4y ago
    I think it's more closely related to scarcity and how much someone's mortgage can be subsidized by monthly rents, and a lack of choice for renters to have other options. I don't think a lot of mortgage holders would be able to realistically pay their mortages if they weren't renting their basement out, and I know a lot of people who have houses now wouldn't be able to buy them because their salaries are wildly inadequate for servicing what they'd list for. But generally you're right if that dynamic weren't so insane. A 1 bdr condo in my city would cost an overall ~$4000 for a really old condo in a shitty building, and there's <9% of people on record in the country who'd be able to afford that without a ton of pressure, and the only people I know that own anything more than that absolutely couldn't pay for it without renting our all of their rooms. I guess it's still proportional in the sense that eventually renters will literally just have no money left
  - srveale 4y ago
    House price to income ratio is increasing, meaning price is not proportional to income, pretty much by definition.
    - HPsquared 4y ago
      It depends on the definition of "housing costs". Monthly payments determine whether something is possible on a given income. Total cost is more a question of whether it's a good deal or not.
  - 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
candiddevmike 4y ago
I blame bullshit jobs and management. I can be productive with less than 40 hours, I can't be a manager/PM/VP's butler if I'm away from my computer.
lotsofpulp 4y ago
Then why are there rich and poor sides of a town? In many cases, people earning high incomes spend extra time to drive past lower priced housing to get to their higher priced housing. No one forced them to pay more than the minimum for housing.
- kiba 4y ago
  No one forced them to pay more than the minimum for housing. Not all land in a given area are equal in their attribute and there's fundamental scarcity in desirable lands. The richest presumably purchases houses in locations that has the most amenities, while everybody scrambles for the rest.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    Hence it is not housing costs “forcing” people to compete, it is people’s desire to have more than others. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, it is very well possible the lower priced housing has unacceptable attributes, but that leads to different causal factors.
    - kiba 4y ago
      Where you live also determine access to jobs, educations, and other opportunities. Cities are more valuable for this reason. It is also determined by housing supply in a given location and transportation policies, how we decided that homes are investments which increases exclusionary NIMBY behaviors. It is not merely 'desire to have more' than the other that determine the cost of living.
    - dropit_sphere 4y ago
      lower-priced housing often has unacceptable attributes simply by virtue being lower-priced, as crime rates and schools are worse.
- marmadukester39 4y ago
  Its because of the schools. Since we in the US tied school funding to property taxes, getting your kid a good education if you arent truly wealthy enough to pay for private schools (now 30kish per kid per year) means living near other better off people , or sacrificing your kids future and perhaps their safey.
akgerber 4y ago
Housing costs are a basket of the cost of the housing unit itself and land costs. Regulation limiting how densely housing may be built atop land, when this limit is lower than the number of housing units demanded, is what causes the Red Queen's race dynamic.
- torben-friis 4y ago
  Land is still limited (given an interest in low distance to a hub) and density is physically limited as well, regardless of regulation.
  - HPsquared 4y ago
    Hubs can be built, though.
ZainRiz 4y ago
Housing can be very cheap if you're willing to live in a small town. It feels expensive only when people want to cluster around the same, limited number of areas. If you're not tied by an employer, then you can be way more flexible about how you spend your housing budget
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > It feels expensive only when people want to cluster around the same, limited number of areas. Yes, it is cheaper to live where fewer people want to live. But, usually, there are reasons fewer people want to live there.
  - yamazakiwi 4y ago
    Most adults are tied to an employer unfortunately
    - Gigachad 4y ago
      I work remote and chose to buy an apartment in a highrise. There is so much more to life than just working. Being close to everything improves so much. It’s hard to explain how good life is when you live within walking distance of friends and can spontaneously decide to go to the cafe for breakfast rather than having to schedule an event days in advance so people can transport in.
      - twelve40 4y ago
        I've been thinking about this recently. I have friends who happily move out to pretty remote places, like the Pocono mountains or remote parts of Koh Phangan, etc, none of which is walkable and typically requires a 1+hr trip on a car or a scooter. Yet, they seem to have no problem socializing and having over tons of friends and partners. I guess it depends on charisma or something? If your friends or tinder dates think it's totally worth heading out to boondocks every time. I'm more with you, really want to be in the middle of things and everything walkable, but I have seen very sociable people thrive without that.
lossolo 4y ago
It's not housing costs for most societies in developed countries, it's keeping up with joneses, which constantly change the meaning of "standard way of living". 1000 years ago most people would kill to live in standard of currently developed countries poverty level.

Housing costs, which are proportional to average population income, force us to compete in a Red Queen's race - everyone's earnings have to catch up with others'.

082349872349872 4y ago

There are other, more hedonic treadmills as well. Aluminium used to be expensive enough to make fancy tableware from, but now that it is dirt cheap, people want to buy iPhones instead. I hope there are some among us who (cf Carnegie) might view building the equivalent of libraries as a positional good?

jrpt 4y ago
An iPhone every few years is a very insignificant cost compared to a house.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  Cars are a significant one. Most people spend way more than they have to on cars for luxury features they don’t need for transport. Personally I opted for no car even though I can easily afford it. It’s a huge amount saved and honestly the lifestyle of walking to places is nicer anyway.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Living somewhere I didn't need a car would be way more expensive for me than owning a car--even if I didn't care about the lack of mobility.
    - Gigachad 4y ago
      That wasn't how it worked out for me. The average cost of a car in Australia a few years ago was $10,000/year factoring in everything with the car value depreciation. This is much worse now with the increase in fuel and car values. Your increase in rent would have to be over $200AUD/week to be more expensive than owning a car. Not to mention the fact you benefit from living in a much more desirable area and everything else that comes with.
      - ghaff 4y ago
        It depends. I live in an exurb of a major US metro on the East Coast. It's hard to compare costs directly as I own a house but anything remotely equivalent in the city on public transit lines would be much pricier. As for desirable? Well I have forest trails right out of my house. Don't care that much about walking to cafes and restaurants.
- lossolo 4y ago
  It's about keeping up with joneses more than an specific item like iPhone, which is just an example of this phenomenon.

brailsafe 4y ago

What decade do you live in where housing costs are proportional to the average population's income? Asking for a friend.

HPsquared 4y ago
Monthly rents and mortgage payments are proportional to disposable incomes, pretty much by definition. People competitively bid up the prices in terms of what they can each afford.
- brailsafe 4y ago
  I think it's more closely related to scarcity and how much someone's mortgage can be subsidized by monthly rents, and a lack of choice for renters to have other options. I don't think a lot of mortgage holders would be able to realistically pay their mortages if they weren't renting their basement out, and I know a lot of people who have houses now wouldn't be able to buy them because their salaries are wildly inadequate for servicing what they'd list for. But generally you're right if that dynamic weren't so insane. A 1 bdr condo in my city would cost an overall ~$4000 for a really old condo in a shitty building, and there's <9% of people on record in the country who'd be able to afford that without a ton of pressure, and the only people I know that own anything more than that absolutely couldn't pay for it without renting our all of their rooms. I guess it's still proportional in the sense that eventually renters will literally just have no money left
- srveale 4y ago
  House price to income ratio is increasing, meaning price is not proportional to income, pretty much by definition.
  - HPsquared 4y ago
    It depends on the definition of "housing costs". Monthly payments determine whether something is possible on a given income. Total cost is more a question of whether it's a good deal or not.
- 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

candiddevmike 4y ago

I blame bullshit jobs and management. I can be productive with less than 40 hours, I can't be a manager/PM/VP's butler if I'm away from my computer.

lotsofpulp 4y ago

Then why are there rich and poor sides of a town? In many cases, people earning high incomes spend extra time to drive past lower priced housing to get to their higher priced housing. No one forced them to pay more than the minimum for housing.

kiba 4y ago
No one forced them to pay more than the minimum for housing. Not all land in a given area are equal in their attribute and there's fundamental scarcity in desirable lands. The richest presumably purchases houses in locations that has the most amenities, while everybody scrambles for the rest.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  Hence it is not housing costs “forcing” people to compete, it is people’s desire to have more than others. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, it is very well possible the lower priced housing has unacceptable attributes, but that leads to different causal factors.
  - kiba 4y ago
    Where you live also determine access to jobs, educations, and other opportunities. Cities are more valuable for this reason. It is also determined by housing supply in a given location and transportation policies, how we decided that homes are investments which increases exclusionary NIMBY behaviors. It is not merely 'desire to have more' than the other that determine the cost of living.
  - dropit_sphere 4y ago
    lower-priced housing often has unacceptable attributes simply by virtue being lower-priced, as crime rates and schools are worse.
marmadukester39 4y ago
Its because of the schools. Since we in the US tied school funding to property taxes, getting your kid a good education if you arent truly wealthy enough to pay for private schools (now 30kish per kid per year) means living near other better off people , or sacrificing your kids future and perhaps their safey.

akgerber 4y ago

Housing costs are a basket of the cost of the housing unit itself and land costs. Regulation limiting how densely housing may be built atop land, when this limit is lower than the number of housing units demanded, is what causes the Red Queen's race dynamic.

torben-friis 4y ago
Land is still limited (given an interest in low distance to a hub) and density is physically limited as well, regardless of regulation.
- HPsquared 4y ago
  Hubs can be built, though.

ZainRiz 4y ago

Housing can be very cheap if you're willing to live in a small town. It feels expensive only when people want to cluster around the same, limited number of areas. If you're not tied by an employer, then you can be way more flexible about how you spend your housing budget

dragonwriter 4y ago
> It feels expensive only when people want to cluster around the same, limited number of areas. Yes, it is cheaper to live where fewer people want to live. But, usually, there are reasons fewer people want to live there.
- yamazakiwi 4y ago
  Most adults are tied to an employer unfortunately
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    I work remote and chose to buy an apartment in a highrise. There is so much more to life than just working. Being close to everything improves so much. It’s hard to explain how good life is when you live within walking distance of friends and can spontaneously decide to go to the cafe for breakfast rather than having to schedule an event days in advance so people can transport in.
    - twelve40 4y ago
      I've been thinking about this recently. I have friends who happily move out to pretty remote places, like the Pocono mountains or remote parts of Koh Phangan, etc, none of which is walkable and typically requires a 1+hr trip on a car or a scooter. Yet, they seem to have no problem socializing and having over tons of friends and partners. I guess it depends on charisma or something? If your friends or tinder dates think it's totally worth heading out to boondocks every time. I'm more with you, really want to be in the middle of things and everything walkable, but I have seen very sociable people thrive without that.

lossolo 4y ago

It's not housing costs for most societies in developed countries, it's keeping up with joneses, which constantly change the meaning of "standard way of living". 1000 years ago most people would kill to live in standard of currently developed countries poverty level.