I've been keeping an eye on home prices in my city (in the US) but it's made me realize that I'll probably never own one. Prices have gone up 20% just in the last year alone because of the pandemic, but that's not much of a change, because housing prices in the US have been increasing since the 1940s. Every ten years the cost of housing goes up by about 25%, which is faster than wages or inflation.
I'm sure this comes as no surprise to the beautiful posters here, because we understand that housing is a commodity in our society, and commodities have to give investors a return on their investments. I think this makes it easy to predict that, since the wealthy people who have the greatest stake in real estate always expect a return on their investments, housing prices will always go up, barring major economic depressions or collapse. It also doesn't help that for a majority of home owners, their house is their largest investment and a bedrock in their retirement plans. This is a neat little trick that the rich have played to get people to defend status quo policies that benefit the wealthy, like what they've done by pushing 401k accounts and eliminating pensions.
I don't have a point other than to vent a little. I don't expect any politician at any level to try and tackle this problem in the foreseeable future. I hate thinking of how many more of us will be under landlord rule, housing insecure, or homeless because capitalists value profit over human life.
Large corporations like Blackstone or large funds (hedge funds, pension funds) have been buying up housing. That's why you hear all these crazy stories of offers twice above listed price and in cash all the time. They've been buying up properties because they represent a stable source of income over a few decades (it helps that interest rates have been low and have no indication of going back above 2-3%) and profit has been declining in every other sector - they'll start to focus more on farmland too, I wouldn't be surprised.
These funds have so much capital that they're cool with offering that much money and either holding the property for 50 years with minimal upgrades OR flipping it after a year.
They're starting to "invest", read become landlords, in rural areas too lately, it's not just global cities like NYC, London, Vancouver, etc.
Neolibs will say you simply have to build more housing or get rid of zoning laws - of course, that doesn't attack the problem that large funds are becoming landlords nor does it mean that the housing developers will build will be non-luxury (every looked at housing or condo starts? It's always luxury) - and of course, supply is plentiful, there are more empty homes than homeless people, the problem is purely that a parasitic class is witholding people's shelter not that there isn't enough to go around. Sometimes, more Warren style libs will talk about increasing taxes on corporate real estate and on non-primary residence landlords (i.e. you can rent out your basement but you start to get taxed through the nose for renting out a house you don't live in). Reform, of course, will not last as the bourgeois need this as a sector of profit as every other industry continues to decline. Maybe they could get that for a year without enough loopholes that big funds can just ignore the reforms, but it won't last forever.
Corporate landlords/real estate groups typically expect a 20% yearly return on investment as well. So they often push out existing tenants to "flip" the rental properties at a higher price. It's pretty wild.
they're doing nearly the thing as they did during the '08 crash, yeah. Slightly different things going on but same outcome.
People have said it before as a joke, but I really do think workhouses are going to make a comeback sometime in the next few decades. We're already seeing the start of it with the silicon valley shared space shit.
Just saw an article a few days ago about capital investment and hedge funds buying up as much property as possible, which raises the price of real estate. The worst part of the article was that it said this is a good bubble unlike the 2008 housing bubble because homeowners in 2008 dumbly took out mortgages they couldn't pay, but now smart finance people are investing so nothing will go wrong.
housing prices will always go up, barring major economic depressions or collapse
I have good news
Honestly every passing day and every new moral atrocity confirms in my head that I gotta keep learning chinese and get the fuck outta here
Hate to break it to you, but working conditions in china are worse than the US.
It's just that things are improving in China, and getting worse here.
Exactly, the two lines will soon cross. Plus they're not plugging their ears when it comes to climate change, reforesting all that land and investing in rail. Mostly I think I'd enjoy not living under the creeping inevitability of fascism though.
They are certainly plugging their ears when it comes to cars though. Look at this shit
Looks like Silent Hill lmao. They should do what France did and mandate rooftop gardens on every new building, in addition to returning to traine
Please Xi, my many large sons have become stuck in bumper to bumper traffic
rental income has increased from 408 billion in 2010 to 825 billion in 2020
https://twitter.com/BostonTenants/status/1379854373740761092
Housing prices (adjusted for inflation) higher than they were in 2008? This can only end well
In my city, the average price of a home in 2008 was $275,000. In 2020 it was $495,000. :jokerfied:
My California brain immediately thought that 500k for a house was a steal, shits fucked out here
Techies will be moving out of the bay, driving down real estate prices
Any day now....
Soon...
Er ok they’re still going up but Er
Let’s just wait...
I think the housing bubble actually peaked in early 2006 and it was falling housing prices that ended up tearing down the banking system, particularly as housing speculators defaulted on mortgages for houses that had gone down in price. So don't worry, things can still get much worse.
trying not to get lynched but also wanting a cheap house, choices, choices
I wonder if rural housing prices will start to go up if people who can work remotely start moving away from cities.
That's been happening in my area. Previously rural town that were relatively close to the city are on their way to becoming exurbs/"bedroom communities". As far as opportunity to own a home goes, this can be a good way to get something that is affordable but not decrepit. Unfortunately the US is abysmal at managing urbanization, so you'll probably be in a suburban hellscape that doesn't even have convinient access to the city (looking at a 30 min drive without traffic, that will become 60 minutes during rush hour, especially as these places grow).
It's starting to get real bad where I'm at (up over 30% in the last year). It's infuriating to think that buying a year earlier or later could save or cost you multiple years of full time wages.
What will be interesting to observe is empty Mc-mega-mansions that sit vacant cause nobody wants to pay the heating/AC cost for so much space. Plus overall contraction due to boomer die-off and everyone behind them being much poorer. It'll be a decade long process of course.
I'm thinking that they'll get divided up into apartments like what happened with victorian mansions
Anyone from the UK want to chime in about what happened there in the last 40 years?
Hint: it’s crazier than this. An direct wealth transfer to one generation in particular lmao
Thatcher let people buy council houses for way below market value while curtailing council house construction and new build numbers. Our baby boomer generation all became homeowners while setting up a housing shortage lmao.
And they haven’t updated taxable values in like decades lmao
Real anprim time after all.
Time to burn down empty houses and retake the and under them.
I'm looking for a new place to live right now and a van down by the river is looking more and more attractive
