Considering how crazy expensive accommodations have become the last couple of years, concentrated in the hands of greedy corporations, landlords and how little politicians seem to care about this problem, do you think we will ever experience a real estate market crash that would bring those exorbitant prices back to Earth?
Only if capitalism falls. Otherwise zero chance. Sry.
Well, birth rate is steadily dropping. As people die the housing market could change. There are free houses in rural Japan because their population has been declining and young folks all moved to the cities. In 30-50 years we could see something similar.
you’re not factoring in catastrophic climate change into your equation. in 30 to 50 years much of the equatorial regions will ne unlivable. massive levels of climate refuges will be shifting. we’re seeing unlivable wet bulb temps TODAY. so this isn’t catastrophising. it’s an almost certainty at this juncture.
I dunno, I try not to worry about these things to much. I’m not having kids I do what I can to live a low carbon footprint life. Not really anything I can do about it. Thinking about moving somewhere cooler with more solid natural water access incase of societal collapse… I like to garden and preserve shit anyway.
That’s honestly the best you can do at this point. individual change is really limited when industry is like 85% of the issue. I try and do the same. grow my own food, drive an ev powered by solar panels, don’t eat meat etc. but it really feels futile when it’s a drop in the ocean as far as impact goes.
That’s a good point. Well now I’m much happier to not have kids.
No, unless we separate housing from investment, it will never be affordable. I don’t foresee the political will to make it happen.
This is the biggest issue right here. Houses weren’t always investments and making them investments was a terrible idea that’s now difficult to fix.
Real estate has become a huge part of stock market and GDP figures. People’s retirement funds have become other people’s mortgage and rent payments. Affordable houses for some would mean economic decline for others, and no political party wants to create economic decline.
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And it’s a flawless design if you ask me.
You’re out of your mind. You’re saying no profit of any kind is possible unless we exploit people forced to rent?
I know that’s not 100% what you’re saying, but that’s how it comes across…
Maybe, but really the issue is construction of new houses. Cities are much cleaner now so people want to live in them. They used to be filled with factory smoke and animal feces.
Yes, more than now. No I don’t care that you saw some poop yesterday. The streets were literally caked with horse poop. You wouldn’t even notice dog poop.
And most jobs used to be physical, so the average person would have some experience in carpentry. If houses were too expensive, you would find a friend or relative with some expertise and build something yourself. So houses outside the city were cheap because you could build new ones, and houses inside the city sucked (and were cheap).
Part of high housing cost is due to the investment mindset and housing speculation. However, another part of high housing cost is that other people did put in the work to raise its value. Want to live in a clean, convenient neighborhood? Someone kept the place clean. Many businesses set up shop in the area to make it convenient to buy things and get things done. Certain passionate chef set up a wonderful restaurant so that you can just come by and enjoy good food. Some group of people, leader, or politician put in the political maneuverings that got certain ordinances passed or raised the bonds or taxes to build the public transportation. So over time as people continue to invest time, effort, labor to improve an area, it should be expected that the area becomes more expensive (and desirable).
“no political party wants to create economic decline.”
I’m afraid I have to disagree.
Yeah economic decline is actually being sold as the solution to global warming. It’s called “cutting back” but really it means making everyone poorer.
Ah yes, because building renewable energy generation, electric vehicles, fortifying the electric grid, repurposing and developing land formerly used for mining and fracking… All things that happen for free.
The solution for global warming has never been “use less than you need” it’s always been “use what you have better”.
How about using what we want? Is that part of the plan? Or is it only what we need?
Still trying to understand how everything has to be crushed under capitalism. Food. Health care. Housing. Travel. It all there to spin up cash.
Can’t wait till they figure out how to monetize air 🫠
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In the healthcare space they already have. If the wild fires keep up, it won’t be long before we have a Spaceballs or Lorax mogul in our midst.
Certain states such as Oregon (where I live) have acts in place regarding forests in general such as the FPA that should prevent the worst, or at least the destruction of forests whether imperatively or by wildfire, from happening.
However, when it comes to other places, I wouldn’t even be surprised unfortunately. On the California state border on Highway 199 crossing from Oregon where it’s mostly green, you see nothing but Redwoods burned and left in shambles for a few miles, it’s gives off goosebumps seeing a natural sight in this awful condition, let alone a supposedly protected state park.
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that it isn’t capitalisim that is doing this. Blaming capitalism for fucking the 99% is like blaming science for inventing nuclear weapons. Capitalism is just the process. The focus is determined by key players. Frankly, I’d blame the availability of just about every industry in the stock market for what we are seeing. Companies used to be run by industry experts, who had a vested interest in their business being a sustainable long term asset that would provide wealth to their family for generations. Now, companies are run by “Line Go Up” CEOs appointed by a board of stock holders (mostly financial bros) who just want the stock to look real good before they sell it. There is no concern for the customer, workers, or the general populace beyond government mandated standards. All that matters is making money for people who couldn’t care less or know less about the industry.
Capitalism didn’t ruin food or housing. Capitalists did.
Actually the stuff with the freeest (is that a word? How is that spelled??) markets tends to be the easiest to get and cheapest.
Medicine has uncontrolled price explosion because it’s an incredibly tightly constrained market. Food tends to be plentiful and cheap because it’s not very tightly constrained.
Yes, food did jump in price in the past couple of years … because of massive market interference when the governments dumped huge amounts of currency into the world, with only the upper classes having access to that new cash (it was given to corporations and to stockholders, leaving the lower class to watch their money devalue with no offset).
Housing is another tightly constrained market. You practically need positive permission from government in order to build anything, and there are tons of local constraints on what can be built.
I’m thinking of Boulder as an example where housing prices are skyrocketing, and construction is limited to a certain number of floors.
Capitalism is based on free markets. Where free markets exist goods become cheap and plentiful. But we have a lot of markets that aren’t free, for various reasons.
Where hexbear when you need them?
Can’t wait till they figure out how to monetize air
Saw this at a Walgreens last week.
These are really popular with people traveling to Colorado ski resorts and getting altitude sickness. They’re useful to grab to avoid getting sick and combating the symptoms if you do.
I remembered those existed and grabbed one when the gf was having a tough time fighting covid
It’s honestly fantastic that you can buy oxygen in stores. Imagine if you needed oxygen fast and had to wait for a doctor’s appointment.
There are actually medical edgecases for stuff like this where they can be quite useful. That being said, a lot of people definitely also seem to view it as merely monetary, as there are literal oxygen bars in Vegas.
My first thought was “I wonder how sturdy these cans are, and what provisions they have against puncture”. Normally oxygen bottles are strong, and the oxygen is dissolved in a foam or something so it doesn’t leak out as fast from a puncture.
Investment is exactly what we need. We need more people to see building housing as a good investment, in order to get more housing.
The only other option is forcing people at gunpoint to build housing, and that only works for a couple of months then backfires.
But keeping supply low is more profitable. There isnt going to be an expansion of housing without a change in the rules of the game.
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Looks like Mr Smartwood’s plan worked!
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Mmmm, fresh pasta 🍝
Ah yes, shall I remind you that not everyone is as fortunate as you are. And your arrogant and self entitled attitude doesn’t help the picture. I pity individuals like you, who think so highly of themselves.
Maybe we, the apes who work from 9 to 5 should simply die so that there is no one to pay the rent for your shitty apartments or service them.
Do you think you will be at the same place if you were born in a ghetto or to parents who would not be able to provide you with education. There are plenty of smarter kids out there who are way more capable than you will ever be but they would never achieve their true potential because of lack of education, opportunities, parental support, social circle, place, country, etc.
But I guess self awareness is not your forte.
And if you really wanted to make a positive impact you would make your housing affordable but we all know that would never happen.
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wealthy are simply more innovate and hard-working
Lol
Judging by their bio they are a parody account. At least I hope so
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You can buy a full on house in Rochester NY for under 40k but you may not want to live there.
I was going to say something very similar. If I look ahead and think about eventually retiring, there’s no way I could afford to do so in my current high cost of living area. However housing prices in the upstate NY town I grew up in, are next to nothing. I could just quit today and live out my savings, but then I’d have to live there
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Look at other countries. Huge slums / shanty towns get built and normalized long before revolution.
If you’re living in a plywood shack, but still have a phone with data, some games to play, ebt / food bank to eat, you’re not about to pick up arms. At least most people in that spot won’t.
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Plenty of countries in the ME have already gone through this. Iran & Lebanon used to have a nice and solid middle class and damn free societies compared to what’s there now. And all that within just the last century.
The younger generations today are already giving in to that apathy.
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How many teenagers and twenty-somethings do you know? Do they seem angry or apathetic?
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there is no smartphone , video games and internet in the past, so people get angry easily
Great point. Historically life was orders of magnitude more difficult than today. There wasn’t food banks or welfare. There wasn’t computers and phones and cheap weed and alcohol to keep folks occupied.
Average people could stand a chance against a current military with just numbers.
Zero of those things are true today, so historically there is zero chance of a revolution today.
Again, really great point.
Ask anyone under 20 about climate change. Zero faith that we’re going to survive as a species
If you’re living in a plywood shack, but still have a phone with data, some games to play, ebt / food bank to eat, you’re not about to pick up arms.
I don’t think taking up arms is an option in most countries because of the lack of availability.
It’s not about availability, it’s about willingness. If a revolution was attempted in America, like 80% of those who pick up arms would be gunned down in the first day.
Choosing between that, at just living the rest of your days eating beans and playing games on your phone in a shack? Let’s face it.
Beans and a shack is probably actually an acceptable standard to guarantee everyone. And given enough time and spare bits of wood you can make your shack a good shack.
But right now a lot of people are suffering without their beans and shack.
It’s not about availability, it’s about willingness.
Same difference. No one is willing to start a fight with people who are well-equipped with arms and actual weapons when all they have are torches and pitchforks.
No, not same difference.
The opponent is a modern military, and I have an assault rifle and Molotov cocktails.
If I’m starving to death, yeah maybe I take up arms. If I’ve at least got some food and a charged up phone? I might tell myself I’ll take up arms tomorrow, but again, let’s face it.
I would hardly call the military in North Korea modern, but the people who live there do not have charged up cell phones and full stomachs. Why aren’t the citizens taking up arms?
Could it be because not having arms is a tremendous obstacle to taking up arms? You say, “No.”
god i only hope.
No way, I think we are going to find out that circus is more important than bread, very soon. When people start needing to eat expired food and bugs, they won’t revolt as long as they have TikTok etc.
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Are they better than the mega-corps buying up thousands of houses, sure. Are they still taking one of the basic necessities for life and commidfying it? Also yes. You can use whataboutism all you want and maybe it helps you sleep at night but that doesn’t change what you’re doing.
I also love to hear landlords complain about how hard their “jobs” are and how tenants are so difficult. News flash: nobody is holding a gun to your head and making you rent out a house. If it’s so much work why don’t you sell the house, put the money into some structured investments and work all the hours you’d work on the property at a real job? Is it because it’s not actually all that much work? Is that why you say it’s a good retirement supplement? Or was it because your daddy was a landlord, and his daddy was a landlord and dammit being a landlord runs in your veins? Gee, I wonder if we ever came up with a term for a family landlord business? Maybe we can come up with something really regal to describe them?
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You do realize that there are other ways to invest, bonds, shares, ETFs, etc.
In my opinion if you earn average or above average for the city you live in you should be able to afford a roof over your head easily which is not anymore the case for a lot of places.
Not only no, but you better get a burial plot while you can afford it.
Just throw me in the trash!
No. We won’t be able to solve the problem because we refuse to believe that viable solutions are any more complicated than “put person in house”.
I mean I do kind of expect the world to completely collapse within 20 years, so kinda?
A cave or a half-destroyed building in an overgrown city are free right? Doesn’t get cheaper than that.
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Any kind of prepping is 100% useless unless you’re also part of a (para)military organisation that can hold its own after collapse. Imagine trying to defend your homestead against a corps of fully trained and equipped marines with a single shotgun or hunting rifle.
To be fair, that’s technically not much different than what you’d have to do to keep the sheriff from evicting you if you were squatting in a house today.
Not until people quit buying them. And it’s not sarcasm or trolling or whatever. There are tons of cheap housing, but it’s in places people don’t WANT to live. Until people start wanting cheap housing more than a certain location/ job, prices won’t come down.
It’s not even the “location,” it’s the people that come with the location. If I could live in a rural area ANYWHERE in the US without having to look at Confederate flags or deal with out and proud bigots, it would be amazing. But that’s not the country we’ve let happen.
I bought an apartment about 15 years ago. I finally finished paying it about 3 years ago, and recently got an offer to move to Ontario. With the current house prices and what I was offered there (about 80k), I could barely make rent for my family. I really wanted to move but had to say no because of stupid absurd rent prices. What’s weird is that if I wanted to rent the place I bought I would not be able to afford it either. This is bullshit.
We’re starting to see prices decrease right now, since high interest rates are holding. The big analytics firms think we will see a return to affordable housing in 2024 as long as the fed continues to raise interest rates. The reality for larger cities is that prices will most likely stabilize and possibly decrease slightly, but never return to reasonable. Lots of people are in 2% mortgages right now on homes with inflated values. Those people are never moving unless life forces them to. So while rising interest should decrease housing affordability and force prices back down, inventory will remain low, keeping prices pretty stable. Areas with abundant inventory should see a return to normalcy, but for big popular cities, this is probably the new normal. Unfortunately nobody has a crystal ball, and we can’t be sure of anything. But this is what the experts think.
The point is that those price declines would benefit only the wealthy who had the money in cash, but regular people are not having so much savings and for them even those “lower” prices are actually higher when considering the interest they will pay to the banks.
If you can eat the higher mortgage payment until the interest comes back down, and then you refinance, you’ll actually come out ahead of people who bought at high prices when interest was low. You can always refinance. You can’t re-negotiate what you paid for your house.
I have heard people say this, but why are we assuming the interest rates will come back down?
Because of their historical averages. They could stay high forever, but they probably won’t.
Historical average home prices were lower too though. Why is this different?
We’re starting to see prices decrease right now, since high interest rates are holding
That isn’t really holding up this year. Interest rates are correlated with price increases. Prices corrected after the initial increase but have since continued to increase. While the cost to borrow has gone up, the reason for increased interest rates will always drive up prices. The federal reserve will raise interest rates if inflation is high (driving up nominal prices) or if employment is too high (increasing demand). Home prices will decrease if there is a recession but then the fed will lower rates to fight unemployment (assuming inflation isn’t an issue).
In the US home prices are only down 0.5% year over year. In my high cost of living area (SF Bay area), prices are down 10% but climbing every month. At the current rate of home price growth, the Bay area will be back at all time highs this winter/spring.
Not in time for people looking to buy soon. I think eventually it may happen but it might take decades.
No. Expensive housing is a genie in a bottle.
Once sufficient people have purchased a house at the high price, it would be in their interest for prices to remain high. Corporate entities that buy up houses will actively lobby to make sure housing prices stay high, and the average Joe who paid that much for a house will be happy it stays that way.
I’m not so sure. Large lobbies have greater economic power than us average people, but they aren’t strong enough to defy macroeconomic trends. There are many factors that could turn and cause prices to collapse, we just don’t know when or if they will occur.
The only factors that can cause the collapse of a captured market are regulation, total market collapse, or revolution.
Total market collapse is very broad.
Fair enough.
“Second Great Depression, because we didn’t learn shit from the first one.”
I suspect that a strong push for fully remote work would help the US with housing costs due to a chunk of the workforce moving out of the cities and into the boonies.
That already fucked long island. “Everyone” moved out of NYC and bought all the housing on l.i when COVID hit and WFH started, now it’s completely unaffordable for anyone under the age of 40 and/or unmarried.
The listings have just become a joke. 300k+ for a twice burned down shed posing as a house in a flood zone and in the worst towns. It’s absolutely asinine…
this is lemmy what do you think they will answer
