5 ms·

Not Northern Europe, but Czech Resident here. There has been an explosion in house prices here, a truly wild one. I bought my place for 3.6m CZK about 7 years b

by smcl 4y ago

Not Northern Europe, but Czech Resident here. There has been an explosion in house prices here, a truly wild one. I bought my place for 3.6m CZK about 7 years back and according to a recent valuation practices is "worth" nearly double this now. It is fucking wild, and tbh I kind of hate it.

chrisco255 4y ago
In US markets, prices have basically tripled from what they were 7-9 years ago.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  That is not accurate, though in some specific regions it may be true. Overall, prices right now are just a little above twice what they were at the low point in 2012 [0]. From 7-9 years ago, even at the high point we were less than double. [0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CSUSHPINSA https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CSUSHPINSA
- legitster 4y ago
  Uh... big asterisk here depending on where you live.
  - betaby 4y ago
    Is it? It 'feels' like true for places where most of the population lives.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      Almost certainly not true of where I live in the western exurbs/suburbs of Boston. Maybe in the city though even that seems high.
    - chrisco255 4y ago
      It's true for places that people are actually moving to, like Florida, where prices literally tripled, and Texas, where it's more like 2.5x (but higher in metro regions like Austin): https://www.statista.com/statistics/1100168/single-family-home-prices-florida/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1100168/single-family-ho... https://www.noradarealestate.com/blog/texas-housing-market/ https://www.noradarealestate.com/blog/texas-housing-market/ But across the country the median is more than double from what it was.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
ajsnigrutin 4y ago
How much new housing is being built there? I'm from slovenia, former yugoslavia, and the situation here is the same, making it practically impossible for an average couple to buy anything here (and we're worrying about the demographics, lol). Back in yugoslav times, government built large apartment building complexes, by basically finding an empty field at the end of the city, saying "this is a city, farms should be outside the city, not within it", and building a complex of apartment buildings, and then another, and then a school/kindergarden, and then two or three more. And by complex I mean literally tens of 5+ story apartment buildings. Since it was socialism, those apartments would be rented out to workers by the government. On the other hand, people who wanted a house (instead of an apartment) could buy a plot of land, and build houses themselves... and i mean literally themselves... some of them would even dig the basement level by themselves, ask friends for help, every friday after work go to a buildng materials store, fill up their car with a few bags of cement and bricks, lay a layer of two down, and then wait for the next weekend. Fascade, insulation, sometimes even the upper floor could wait for better times, while people moved into the ground floor. Dealing with permits and papers was a thing "to deal with later". Then came independence, the government didn't want to deal with so many apartments and sold them to renters for a price of a mid-range car. And the current generations? Fucked. Like totally. A field right next to the roundway around the city? Sure [1]. Next to highrises? Sure [2]. New large apartment complexes? Nope. want to buy a few houses and build a larger apartment building? You better literally be friends with the mayor, since zoning doesn't allow more than two-floor two-apartment buildings. Want to build on an empty field? Nope, zoning doesn't allow it. People complain we literally need tens of thousands of new apartments, and all that's being built is ~4 "luxury" apartment buildings in relatively shitty locations (but still better than nothing) and every now and then someone gets a blessing from the mayor to build a 6-8 apartment building in a place where an old house once was. ...and then those apartments are bought up for way above what they're worth by people who then rent them out via airbnb. What if you're magically somehow able to aquire some land where it's allowed to build stuff? Permits and other papers take years. Want to build yourself? Nope, no way. Want friends to help? If they're not licenced contractors and giving out receipts, they're considered as working illegaly and inspections check those things a lot. Add to this some NIMBYism, where the neigbor complains if you're building a house there, and the situation is even worse. And public housing? The government built one complex of those, and the build-price was higher than retail price a few years before it was built (like 2800eur/m^2)... because well, government and corruption. So yeah... In the end, this is how you get revolutions and terrorism... You're a good worker, save money, save 10k eur in a year (a lot for most), and the apartments you were looking at are 30k more than last year. Why bother? People have nothing left to lose, because the average rent is above average pensions, so without something huge changing soon, a lot of people will be homeless and literally without anything to lose anymore. [1] https://goo.gl/maps/iL7962VtEzThwgAb8 https://goo.gl/maps/iL7962VtEzThwgAb8 [2] https://goo.gl/maps/6Do3W3KWXWKpxw1DA https://goo.gl/maps/6Do3W3KWXWKpxw1DA
the_third_wave 4y ago
That has been going on for decades in the Netherlands, I bought a (newly built) home in 1996 when the country still used the Dutch Guilder and sold it for the same amount in €uros in 2002. One Euro translates to 2.21 Guilders, i.e. the house sold for more than double the price in 6 years time. For what I got for a relatively modest semidetached house on 220 m² of land in the Netherlands I could buy a 22 hectare farm in Sweden with money to spare. Ridiculous, that is what it is.
- anon4242 4y ago
  Sweden is a pretty sparsely populated large country and there's quite a wide range of property prizes reflecting this. In denser areas the prizes are probably more akin to those in the Netherlands. Just took a quick look at hemnet.se and right now you could get a farm for anything between ~30,000€ to ~10,000,000€.
  - Ekaros 4y ago
    Also Sweden like Finland is quite long country. And when you go north the value of land really drops as productivity drops specially when you get to beyond artic circle.
    - the_third_wave 4y ago
      This is true but not relevant in this case given where I live, Västra Götaland in the west of the country. Farmland and productive forest come with a premium here.
  - the_third_wave 4y ago
    Sweden also has most of its population live below the Uppsala - Karlstad line, i.e. in the lower third of the country. Then there is the fact that good arable land and productive forest comes with a premium here. Our farm has both of that, lies between Vänern (the big lake) and Göteborg (the second biggest city in Sweden) in Västra Götaland, not somewhere out in Norrland. The fact stands that real estate in the Netherlands is vastly overvalued compared to most of Sweden - although prices in Stockholm and Göteborg and some other cities also have risen to questionable levels.
rayiner 4y ago
Why are housing prices going up in countries that are shrinking?
- Ekaros 4y ago
  It depends on location. Finland for example has like 3-5 areas where prices are going up or are stable. In others like dying towns and such housing is sometimes essentially worthless. Or even negative value. Like there are row houses(a special company owned by tenants/individual landlords), can't get loans for needed renovations. Because value of building is less than the renovations cost.

by smcl 4y ago

chrisco255 4y ago

In US markets, prices have basically tripled from what they were 7-9 years ago.

rootusrootus 4y ago
That is not accurate, though in some specific regions it may be true. Overall, prices right now are just a little above twice what they were at the low point in 2012 [0]. From 7-9 years ago, even at the high point we were less than double. [0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CSUSHPINSA https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CSUSHPINSA
legitster 4y ago
Uh... big asterisk here depending on where you live.
- betaby 4y ago
  Is it? It 'feels' like true for places where most of the population lives.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Almost certainly not true of where I live in the western exurbs/suburbs of Boston. Maybe in the city though even that seems high.
  - chrisco255 4y ago
    It's true for places that people are actually moving to, like Florida, where prices literally tripled, and Texas, where it's more like 2.5x (but higher in metro regions like Austin): https://www.statista.com/statistics/1100168/single-family-home-prices-florida/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1100168/single-family-ho... https://www.noradarealestate.com/blog/texas-housing-market/ https://www.noradarealestate.com/blog/texas-housing-market/ But across the country the median is more than double from what it was.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

ajsnigrutin 4y ago

How much new housing is being built there? I'm from slovenia, former yugoslavia, and the situation here is the same, making it practically impossible for an average couple to buy anything here (and we're worrying about the demographics, lol). Back in yugoslav times, government built large apartment building complexes, by basically finding an empty field at the end of the city, saying "this is a city, farms should be outside the city, not within it", and building a complex of apartment buildings, and then another, and then a school/kindergarden, and then two or three more. And by complex I mean literally tens of 5+ story apartment buildings. Since it was socialism, those apartments would be rented out to workers by the government. On the other hand, people who wanted a house (instead of an apartment) could buy a plot of land, and build houses themselves... and i mean literally themselves... some of them would even dig the basement level by themselves, ask friends for help, every friday after work go to a buildng materials store, fill up their car with a few bags of cement and bricks, lay a layer of two down, and then wait for the next weekend. Fascade, insulation, sometimes even the upper floor could wait for better times, while people moved into the ground floor. Dealing with permits and papers was a thing "to deal with later". Then came independence, the government didn't want to deal with so many apartments and sold them to renters for a price of a mid-range car. And the current generations? Fucked. Like totally. A field right next to the roundway around the city? Sure [1]. Next to highrises? Sure [2]. New large apartment complexes? Nope. want to buy a few houses and build a larger apartment building? You better literally be friends with the mayor, since zoning doesn't allow more than two-floor two-apartment buildings. Want to build on an empty field? Nope, zoning doesn't allow it. People complain we literally need tens of thousands of new apartments, and all that's being built is ~4 "luxury" apartment buildings in relatively shitty locations (but still better than nothing) and every now and then someone gets a blessing from the mayor to build a 6-8 apartment building in a place where an old house once was. ...and then those apartments are bought up for way above what they're worth by people who then rent them out via airbnb. What if you're magically somehow able to aquire some land where it's allowed to build stuff? Permits and other papers take years. Want to build yourself? Nope, no way. Want friends to help? If they're not licenced contractors and giving out receipts, they're considered as working illegaly and inspections check those things a lot. Add to this some NIMBYism, where the neigbor complains if you're building a house there, and the situation is even worse. And public housing? The government built one complex of those, and the build-price was higher than retail price a few years before it was built (like 2800eur/m^2)... because well, government and corruption. So yeah... In the end, this is how you get revolutions and terrorism... You're a good worker, save money, save 10k eur in a year (a lot for most), and the apartments you were looking at are 30k more than last year. Why bother? People have nothing left to lose, because the average rent is above average pensions, so without something huge changing soon, a lot of people will be homeless and literally without anything to lose anymore. [1] https://goo.gl/maps/iL7962VtEzThwgAb8 https://goo.gl/maps/iL7962VtEzThwgAb8 [2] https://goo.gl/maps/6Do3W3KWXWKpxw1DA https://goo.gl/maps/6Do3W3KWXWKpxw1DA

the_third_wave 4y ago

That has been going on for decades in the Netherlands, I bought a (newly built) home in 1996 when the country still used the Dutch Guilder and sold it for the same amount in €uros in 2002. One Euro translates to 2.21 Guilders, i.e. the house sold for more than double the price in 6 years time. For what I got for a relatively modest semidetached house on 220 m² of land in the Netherlands I could buy a 22 hectare farm in Sweden with money to spare. Ridiculous, that is what it is.

anon4242 4y ago
Sweden is a pretty sparsely populated large country and there's quite a wide range of property prizes reflecting this. In denser areas the prizes are probably more akin to those in the Netherlands. Just took a quick look at hemnet.se and right now you could get a farm for anything between ~30,000€ to ~10,000,000€.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  Also Sweden like Finland is quite long country. And when you go north the value of land really drops as productivity drops specially when you get to beyond artic circle.
  - the_third_wave 4y ago
    This is true but not relevant in this case given where I live, Västra Götaland in the west of the country. Farmland and productive forest come with a premium here.
- the_third_wave 4y ago
  Sweden also has most of its population live below the Uppsala - Karlstad line, i.e. in the lower third of the country. Then there is the fact that good arable land and productive forest comes with a premium here. Our farm has both of that, lies between Vänern (the big lake) and Göteborg (the second biggest city in Sweden) in Västra Götaland, not somewhere out in Norrland. The fact stands that real estate in the Netherlands is vastly overvalued compared to most of Sweden - although prices in Stockholm and Göteborg and some other cities also have risen to questionable levels.

rayiner 4y ago

Why are housing prices going up in countries that are shrinking?

Ekaros 4y ago
It depends on location. Finland for example has like 3-5 areas where prices are going up or are stable. In others like dying towns and such housing is sometimes essentially worthless. Or even negative value. Like there are row houses(a special company owned by tenants/individual landlords), can't get loans for needed renovations. Because value of building is less than the renovations cost.