[HN Gopher] Will Real Estate Ever Be Normal Again?
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Will Real Estate Ever Be Normal Again?
Author : jbredeche
Score : 25 points
Date : 2021-11-14 17:50 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| rossdavidh wrote:
| Should have a (2007) in the description. :)
| Supermancho wrote:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/12/magazine/real-estate-pand...
|
| The publication year is 2021, which is the typical way a story
| is tagged. I have to wonder why 2007 and not 1913 or 1929?
| Throwing out a date does not imply a specific context or add to
| the discussion.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| Sorry, just a joke.
| [deleted]
| throwaway55421 wrote:
| It will change when people want it to change, just like workers'
| rights did over the last century.
|
| If you don't want to pay a million quid for a house in London,
| refuse the game. Move elsewhere. Find a different way to get by
| in life, perhaps even a different country.
|
| People won't do that, though. It's more likely, IMO, that the
| entire world becomes more feudalist again until there are few
| escape hatches.
|
| But it'll ultimately be because people keep buying in. As long as
| people, en masse, continue to max bid housing (whether for rent
| or to buy) this situation will continue.
| jedberg wrote:
| Workers' rights and housing are very different. It's a lot
| easier to move jobs than to move house. It's also a lot easier
| to create jobs than to create housing.
| throwaway55421 wrote:
| Workers rights were not generally gained by moving jobs, it
| was unionization and protest.
|
| Moving house doesn't change the market unless everyone else
| does it, and even then, the major benefit would come from
| something like large numbers of people agreeing not to max
| bid (i'm not suggesting that such a thing would be realistic,
| but it's an example of unionization)
| chuckee wrote:
| > If you don't want to pay a million quid for a house in
| London, refuse the game. Move elsewhere. Find a different way
| to get by in life, perhaps even a different country.
|
| People did exactly what you suggest. And the country they moved
| to was England, and the city, London, which now has 38% non-UK
| born residents:
|
| https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populati...
| throwaway55421 wrote:
| Yep. I live there and it's great. Love the transport links.
|
| If I were mentally handicapped and stuck working in a
| supermarket earning a tenner an hour I'd have long since
| flipped the table, though - playing when the deck is stacked
| against you makes no sense.
|
| In the 1960s we had a system that allowed the majority to
| live in reasonable conditions. Nowadays it's get rich or die
| trying and no-one seems to really see a problem with this.
| jedberg wrote:
| Not until zoning or ownership laws change. More people want to
| live in the places then there are places to live.
|
| There are three ways to fix this: incentivize builders to build
| more places to live, have the government build housing, or
| penalize investors. Or any combination of the three.
| Mandatum wrote:
| https://archive.md/AAMM6
| jschveibinz wrote:
| I commented on this same article yesterday:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29212851
|
| Here is a link to a relevant article on the zoning part of the
| problem, posted today:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29219042
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| Renters and buyers are increasingly in the same boat - the one
| where people with money in the bank are finding there's nowhere
| to live.
|
| In the case of renters, many with savings are facing homelessness
| - once those savings are burned up on hotels. This isn't a
| dramatization or overstatement. It's what I'm witnessing
| personally and very nearly happened to us. We were one of the few
| to beat long odds and score a place to live.
| thefounder wrote:
| Why don't you move to a cheaper place/smaller city? I don't
| understand why there are some many homeless people in big
| cities (i.e NYC). If people would just move to cheaper
| areas/cities the whole issue of housing would be fixed.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| My community is here. How is it just that I be forced into
| exile because "the market" says so? I've done no wrong.
| toss1 wrote:
| Yes, it is sucky to not be able to live where you like, but
| the attitude seems odd.
|
| Why do you feel entitled to live at any particular location
| (that was not actually inherited)?
|
| I've never felt it was my "right" to be able to afford any
| particular location and/or living standard at that
| location, and always noticed that it was a trade-off
| between costs, location, commute/travel times. Same whether
| it is in a resort town vs out in the styx, or in a major
| city downtown vs the suburbs/exurbs.
|
| As long as I can remember, it's been that way - the workers
| in the fancy town couldn't afford to live there, unless a
| big crew got together to rent a house in town. Or, you were
| looking for a rent-controlled apt or sublet.
|
| Just because you or I have done no wrong, does not mean
| that we are entitled to do what we want, where we want,
| when we want.
|
| "... You can't always get what you want / But if you try
| sometime you just might find / You just might find / That
| you get what you need "
|
| Welcome to the real world.
| wankerrific wrote:
| Sorry. You're going to have to move. Owning is for
| investors, banks, and other financial entities. /s
|
| The best part is that if things go upside down in a few
| years we get to bail them out.
| flyinglizard wrote:
| Aren't most houses owned by their inhabitants, rather
| than evil corporate entities?
| timwaagh wrote:
| I think there's definite limits to that. Like you can't
| expect to forever stay in Amsterdam center because you
| happen to live there now. Loads of others want your place
| and can contribute more. But it's not always the case. For
| example the outskirts of said city are deliberately
| underdeveloped because the zoning designation says so which
| is entirely a political choice to expel the poor.
| beervirus wrote:
| Things change all the time, even if you don't do anything
| wrong. Welcome to earth.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| What you did wrong was not keep up economically with the
| average earnings of those in your community. The market
| believes that you are not productive enough to live where
| you currently do. Capitalists believe that you must turn
| the other cheek for the invisible hand of the free
| market...
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| I see your point. However, isn't it still preferable to
| have a home and leave your community, then to have the
| community but be on the street?
|
| I personally would prefer moving to homelessness, many
| times over, even though I wouldn't say it was
| fair/desirable/justice that I needed to.
| bravura wrote:
| The choice of location is rarely as clear cut or stark as
| the choice between simply community vs homelessness.
|
| For many people, the choice of location involves weighing
| many competing and hard-to-quantify intangibles and
| opportunity costs.
| spiderice wrote:
| Right, but I personally don't see a scenario where living
| on the street doesn't trump every single one of those
| other factors.
|
| In other words, anything that involves me living on the
| street is a complete non-starter, regardless of how
| compelling the other factors are.
|
| I get that some people really don't have the option to
| just move somewhere cheaper. But if that's at all a
| possibility, it seems like that should be a no brainier
| [deleted]
| tedunangst wrote:
| How is it you've fallen so far behind the rest of your
| community's median income?
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| The curse of mobility I guess: people can move in if they
| want, bid up prices, which can force out those who were
| there before. The only solutions are to either
| eliminate/reduce mobility or move housing out from market
| influences.
| itake wrote:
| I think ppl in your position should either follow the
| community, and obtain higher pay or relocate in area with
| people that align with your values.
|
| If working 60 hour weeks or reskilling isn't your cup of
| tea, that's fine but we can't keep everything the same
| forever.
| another_story wrote:
| I don't think it's fair to put the onus on individual
| people to move everytime they're priced out of a market,
| especially a market that has been heavily manipulated to
| benefit the few via lower interest rates and poor zoning
| laws.
|
| You could see this housing crisis coming from years out
| and the government did nothing but maintain low rates,
| block multi-unit zoning changes, and allow the wealthy
| and foreign investors to buy up housing.
|
| The real issue is poor and inept leadership.
| flyinglizard wrote:
| Low interest rates benefits everyone who takes mortgage
| and in fact makes (leveraged) investment into building
| more properties a no brainer.
|
| There is no bad guy here, just individuals displacing
| other individuals.
| marcinzm wrote:
| My view is one shaped by a family of immigrants. In the end
| life isn't about right or wrong or morals or ethics. It
| just is. Much of it is out of an individuals control and
| never was or will be. All you can do is control how YOU
| react to those factors. You can complain about them and get
| ground into powder, or you can adjust to make your own life
| better.
| nabilhat wrote:
| Roughly 1 in 10 people in the USA already live more than an
| hour away from their job, a number that's been increasing
| over the last ~15 years as people move to cheaper places.
| This sustained migration of workers has not yet fixed the
| whole issue of housing.
| science4sail wrote:
| I wonder if there could be an evaporative cooling like effect
| in play here? That is, everyone who is willing to move has
| already moved; as a result, the remaining population biases
| towards those unwilling to move.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| Because there are no jobs there.
|
| Yes remote might fix that, eventually. But I strongly doubt
| that, especially as humans are social animals.[1]
|
| However The UK is a more extreme version of this. People move
| to london because it has the most concentration of high
| paying jobs, and as a side effect culture (what that is I
| leave up to you. I don't just mean music, cinema and posh
| people shit.)
|
| Now, I could move back to bumblefuck rural england, but I
| would have to exchange an underserved IT job market, with a
| median wage of >PS60k to a once/two company town with a
| median wage of PS38k. Combine that with houses only being 30%
| cheaper, and higher transport costs, no nurseries or
| comprehensive child care, the countryside can be a real pain
| in the tits.
|
| Costs are higher in the countryside, as there are less public
| amenities.
|
| So no, people can't just move, otherwise they would have done
| already.
|
| [1] there are two classes of remote "influencers" the first
| ones seem to be happy working alone, permanently. The second
| appears to be the ones that are "jet setting" where they work
| in a new country every other month. Both of these groups
| represent a tiny minority. I strongly doubt that we should be
| optimising for these two noisy classes of people. I suspect,
| and me, my team and wider company data backs this us (even
| though its shallow evidence) that they more popular route is
| hybrid.
| mbesto wrote:
| > Because there are no jobs there.
|
| This is simply not true. There are a record number of job
| openings. I would go on to say that there has never been a
| time in history where finding a job was this easy.
|
| https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/jolts.pdf
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/JTSJOL
|
| "The number of job openings was little changed at 10.4
| million on the last business day of September, the U.S.
| Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today"
| throwawaygh wrote:
| Presumably OP means a job in their profession, not
| employment generically.
| jedberg wrote:
| But where are all these jobs? Aren't they mostly in the
| already impacted cities?
| jmspring wrote:
| A lot of times, one's proximity to work, friends, family has
| a non-trivial cost associated with it. Not everyone can be
| mobile. That said, the other side of the coin with regard to
| homelessness - some fall in the above; some follow to where
| the services/ease of access to one's vice/tolerance (also
| known as compassion) is.
|
| With regard to moving to a smaller town. The median income in
| the county in CA I live in is ~40k/year. The average house
| price has essentially doubled in the last 5ish years. Income,
| hasn't changed so much. I bought my place ~5.5 years ago and
| it's basically doubled and is a condo. Same issues around a
| lack of affordable housing in this rural mountain red county
| is mirrored by some of the bay area counties I moved from.
| 99_00 wrote:
| "Normal" is meaningless. Markets are always changing. This market
| will also change. Maybe increasing impact of work from home and
| empty office buildings will do it in the near term.
|
| Maybe baby boomers downsizing, moving into homes, and dying will
| do it in the long term.
|
| Maybe there will be runaway inflation and the fed will bring in
| and crippling interest rates that cause a deep recession in the
| short term.
|
| But the future market won't be what it is today. The same
| shortsightedness that wasn't able to foresee the impact of
| millennials will fail to see what comes next.
|
| The demographic impact of the millennial generation was a big
| topic of discussion in the late 90s and early 2000s. Since then
| the discussion has gotten a lot stupider focusing on pop culture
| stereotypes. A large group of people passing through life stages
| at the same time are going to have an impact.
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