I can’t afford a house at all unless I go somewhere that I can’t find the kind of work I do
I think this is a key point.
The average house prices in major cities has gone up ridiculous amounts. But, if you look at the average national house prices it isn’t as dramatic. The problem is, that there are a lot of jobs that only exist in those expensive, major cities. It doesn’t much matter if a house in the suburbs of Detroit is dirt cheap if your job doesn’t exist anywhere near Detroit.
So, you have places where the housing prices are reasonable, but nobody earns a really high wage because it isn’t one of the major metro areas in the country. Then you have places where the jobs exist but housing is completely out of reach.
Also, it seems to me like the big issue is that while some goods have become cheaper and cheaper over the years, the ones that have become prohibitively expensive are the important ones. Like, look at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Food price inflation and overall price inflation have been about the same since the 80s, but since 2020 that’s not true. Since then food has become much more expensive relative to the inflating dollar. Then there’s housing (a.k.a. “shelter”) that has been outpacing inflation by a massive amount since Reagan’s time, but even worse since 2020. The only thing that has become cheaper in at the bottom of Maslow’s pyramid is clothing. But, the kind of clothing that’s cheap is “fast fashion”. It’s not basic “shelter” type clothing. Maybe that has become cheaper, but enough clothing to survive was never a major expense.
The next tier up in Maslow’s hierarchy is safety needs: personal security, health and wellbeing, financial security, safety nets. This is probably the area that has been hit the hardest. Because of America’s messed up healthcare system healthcare costs are getting more and more expensive. Financial security is also a joke for most non-boomers. The US has no safety net to speak of. And personal security, in the era of Trump, I think a lot of people feel much less secure.
There are things that are part of the consumer price calculation that have been getting cheaper. But, if you can’t meet your basic needs, that really doesn’t matter. Sure, my grandpa would have been absolutely amazed with the entertainment I can get on a screen. Compared to a black and white TV a modern TV is incredibly cheap, amazingly high quality, the selection of things to watch is astounding, etc. But gramps had a steady job, a guaranteed pension, reasonable medical costs, a house that could be bought for a couple of years of salary, etc.
IronBird@lemmy.world 2 days ago
remove all speculation incentives from housing, fuck remove all speculation incentives full-stop, and maybe all these rich cunts will actually do something with their $ (like build homes) instead of jerk themselves off while watching lines go up.
merc@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
It’s more than just speculation incentives from housing. I agree that needs to be done, but it’s nowhere near enough.
A bigger issue is that with the complete mess things are in, for a lot of people near retirement age, the only asset they own is their home. That means they’re going to desperately fight to keep house prices high, and ideally to keep them going up and up. But, this completely fucks over anybody who doesn’t yet own a home.
As part of their fight to protect the value of their homes, they’ll block any new construction in the neighbourhood because it will lower the value of their homes. As a result, this blocks new, denser housing construction for anybody who needs a house. The only place where NIMBYs aren’t blocking new housing are suburbs in the middle of nowhere. And, construction companies aren’t going to be building condos or small houses out in the middle of nowhere. Those homes are going to be big, suburban homes. So, the only real hope for someone who needs a house is that someone moves out to one of these big new homes in the suburbs. But, retired people aren’t going to do that. They’re looking to downsize, if anything. So, they’re more likely to just stay in their current homes.
Basically, what’s needed is to do whatever it takes to keep houses from appreciating in value, and to go around NIMBYs who try to block densification. But, to do that, you also have to address the problem that these boomers don’t have a real safety net, and their house is the one thing they own of value. Oh, and the boomers vote and lobby effectively… so…
IronBird@lemmy.world 1 day ago
hey, I dont think nimby’s are as much a problem outside of the biggest-most organized cities.
our democratic participation is so shit across the board all it would take is a decently coordinated ad-campaign to sweep in whatever local government reforms you could want
the bigger issue (imo) is finding someone with the capital/connections required to get big projects like high-density housing started, who isnt also just another rich piece of shit.
EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com 1 day ago
The housing market is just a big fucking pyramid scheme.
Stocks go up and up and up too, but they aren’t an essential good (e.g. shelter) or even tied directly to any day-to-day utility. They can also be cut into smaller increments by splitting or via fractional shares, so they remain accessible even to people with modest amounts of money to invest.
Real estate as a speculative investment has been hugely detrimental to society.
merc@sh.itjust.works 13 hours ago
IMO in a well run country real estate should not go up in value. If your great-great-great-great-grandfather could have bought a house for 3 years of his wages, you should be able to buy an equivalent house for 3 years of your wages, assuming you’re buying a similar house and have similar wages.
The value of a house should go up only because of overall inflation going up. But, it should slightly lag behind inflation, because older houses need repairs to bring them back up to the standard they were in when they were new.
Basically anything other than a house should be a better investment than a house: a treasury, a savings account, a gold nugget.
I mean, imagine if there was anything else in the world that went up in value in a way similar to stocks, but was also something that you used. Imagine if, instead of depreciating immediately, your car went up in value each year. Or, imagine if your clothes were consistently worth more than when you bought them. It’s ridiculous that houses are both something you use and put wear and tear on, but also something that goes up in value every single year.