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Starter Homes Are Piling Up While Luxury Homes Fly Off the Market

21 points by toomuchtodo 3mo ago

soared 3mo ago
Pure clickbait to define a start home solely by the price and nothing else. The titles claim is correct overall, correct for some cities, but incorrect for many cities. No mention of volume - how many homes are in the large “start home” band v the small top 5% band? Regardless, even calling them lower cost houses still supports the thesis: more data on the K shaped economy.
- Avicebron 3mo ago
  Clearly the bottom section of that K should bootstrap themselves harder. Or work on their firm handshake. Joking aside, the amount of people who have absolutely no understanding of how bad the housing market to income ratio of the average person is so comically stupid it must be deliberate at this point. To share articles like this just belabors that ignorance.
ksudb 3mo ago
[dead]
bix6 3mo ago
No mention of condos? Surely that’s eating some of the starter home demand?
- alephnerd 3mo ago
  At least in SF, condo prices have stagnated or started falling becuase condos are aging and liability starts becoming much more of a risk.
  - iamnothere 3mo ago
    It’s not just SF, it’s happening all over: https://wolfstreet.com/2026/07/20/oh-dear-condo-prices-fell-by-15-to-33-in-30-bigger-cities-already-some-dropped-back-to-2006-levels/ https://wolfstreet.com/2026/07/20/oh-dear-condo-prices-fell-...
crooked-v 3mo ago
If you look at the location chart and their definition of "starter homes", this just turns into a heat map of housing shortages.
johnea 3mo ago
duh, the richest people have the money...
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
JuniperMesos 3mo ago
> Starter homes are defined for this analysis as those in the 5th to 35th percentile of home values in a given region. Nationally, the typical starter home is worth about $202,000, up 2.3% from a year ago. Luxury homes are those in the top 5% of home values in a given region. The typical luxury home is worth about $1.9 million, up 3.1% from a year ago. > The divergence is sharpest in San Francisco. Luxury sales across the metro area surged 21.6% year over year in May, while luxury inventory fell sharply and fewer listings cut their price. Starter-home buyers are hanging back: sales slipped 1.2% year over year in May, while more than twice as many starter-home sellers cut their price in June (22.2%) to try to entice buyers off the sidelines than did luxury buyers (9.4%). Yeah, this does seem like it's likely to be an artifact of the rapid rise of house values in San Francisco on account of the extremely limited supply and people who work at AI companies suddenly having a lot of money.
ghtbircshotbe 3mo ago
It's not economical to build "starter" homes. Given the large fixed costs, builders are going to have higher margins building a 2500 sqft monstrosity. Construction physics blog had a number of interesting article on the housing market

21 points by toomuchtodo 3mo ago

Pure clickbait to define a start home solely by the price and nothing else. The titles claim is correct overall, correct for some cities, but incorrect for many cities. No mention of volume - how many homes are in the large “start home” band v the small top 5% band? Regardless, even calling them lower cost houses still supports the thesis: more data on the K shaped economy.

Avicebron 3mo ago
Clearly the bottom section of that K should bootstrap themselves harder. Or work on their firm handshake. Joking aside, the amount of people who have absolutely no understanding of how bad the housing market to income ratio of the average person is so comically stupid it must be deliberate at this point. To share articles like this just belabors that ignorance.

ksudb 3mo ago

[dead]

bix6 3mo ago

No mention of condos? Surely that’s eating some of the starter home demand?

alephnerd 3mo ago
At least in SF, condo prices have stagnated or started falling becuase condos are aging and liability starts becoming much more of a risk.
- iamnothere 3mo ago
  It’s not just SF, it’s happening all over: https://wolfstreet.com/2026/07/20/oh-dear-condo-prices-fell-by-15-to-33-in-30-bigger-cities-already-some-dropped-back-to-2006-levels/ https://wolfstreet.com/2026/07/20/oh-dear-condo-prices-fell-...

crooked-v 3mo ago

If you look at the location chart and their definition of "starter homes", this just turns into a heat map of housing shortages.

johnea 3mo ago

duh, the richest people have the money...

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]

JuniperMesos 3mo ago

> Starter homes are defined for this analysis as those in the 5th to 35th percentile of home values in a given region. Nationally, the typical starter home is worth about $202,000, up 2.3% from a year ago. Luxury homes are those in the top 5% of home values in a given region. The typical luxury home is worth about $1.9 million, up 3.1% from a year ago. > The divergence is sharpest in San Francisco. Luxury sales across the metro area surged 21.6% year over year in May, while luxury inventory fell sharply and fewer listings cut their price. Starter-home buyers are hanging back: sales slipped 1.2% year over year in May, while more than twice as many starter-home sellers cut their price in June (22.2%) to try to entice buyers off the sidelines than did luxury buyers (9.4%). Yeah, this does seem like it's likely to be an artifact of the rapid rise of house values in San Francisco on account of the extremely limited supply and people who work at AI companies suddenly having a lot of money.

ghtbircshotbe 3mo ago

It's not economical to build "starter" homes. Given the large fixed costs, builders are going to have higher margins building a 2500 sqft monstrosity. Construction physics blog had a number of interesting article on the housing market