I moved for work in a job that requires frequent moves. This is from a typically high COL to a mid-high COL. These are the changes I see from about 5 years prior:
Mortgage costs are around $1000 more a month at 7% than 3%. A $275k ish house is now going for at least $400k. The price and rate increase absolutely blow housing costs up. Rent for these properties rose from maybe $1500 a month to around $2500 a month. Landlords are sitting on around $1k extra each month if they refinanced around 3%
Groceries cost me around $100-150 extra a month.
Childcare prices rose around $200 a month.
All that adds up to around a $15k premium a year to live the same way I have been for the past few years. This is ignoring niceties like entertainment and activities.
I want to live in a house or townhome because I have a family with kids and pets but everything is becoming more expensive and is outpacing raises.
Yeah I keep having this morbid intrusive thought that maybe soon a horrible crash will happen and a bunch of people's lives will be ruined, thus offering me an opportunity to get into housing.
Kinda sick how the entire system nudges you into wishing tragedy on everyone else so you can benefit, because nothing else will be done.
If it's any consolation, you can rest easy that the institutional investors would buy up everything so prices still wouldn't collapse. The exceptions would be properties that are going to be unprofitable in the mid-term because they'll be underwater due to climate change or something.
I get it. If real estate wasn’t an investment vehicle, we wouldn’t have this ever increasing pressure to make more money or starve.
It’s completely bizarre that a 40 year old house appreciates 33% in 5 years with absolutely no renovations or other added features. It’s arguably worse off, as it’s less efficient than newer properties and items like roofs and HVAC systems have finite lifespans.
I kind of wish home prices stayed somewhat stagnant. If you rent for 10 years, you have no equity. If you own for 10 years, you have (hundreds of?) thousands. That alone is enough to create wealth gaps in otherwise identical groups of people
