[HN Gopher] Home buyers need 80% more income to buy than 4 years...
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       Home buyers need 80% more income to buy than 4 years ago
        
       Author : delichon
       Score  : 22 points
       Date   : 2024-03-16 14:31 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.washingtonexaminer.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.washingtonexaminer.com)
        
       | zrn900 wrote:
       | Capitalism working its magic. As the resources and people to
       | exploit abroad dwindled, it started eating itself from inside out
       | to profit as was predicted.
       | 
       | https://www.reddit.com/r/canadahousing/comments/tose5z/landl...
        
       | jncfhnb wrote:
       | I don't feel like 59k income was enough for home ownership during
       | peak Covid times
        
       | pocketarc wrote:
       | > The income needed to comfortably afford a home is up 80% since
       | 2020
       | 
       | Based on the $343,000 house price, and the 3%/7% rate difference
       | they mention between 2020 and 2024, the mortgage on a house the
       | exact same price would've gone up from $1900/mo to $2650/mo. That
       | alone is already a 40% increase.
       | 
       | Obviously houses prices have inflated along with everything else,
       | but the pain is really mostly coming from the increased mortgage
       | rates. Even a cheaper house would still be painfully more
       | expensive today.
       | 
       | What I wonder is... when would it make sense to try to return to
       | a low interest rate environment (if ever)? Is there a point where
       | we think it will?
        
         | amluto wrote:
         | Conversely, perhaps that $343k home actually shouldn't be worth
         | that much. In a properly functioning market (e.g. no perverse
         | incentives to own a unit and decline to rent it instead of
         | renting it for less money, along with genuinely unpenalized
         | liquidity such that a long-time owner can sell and buy
         | something different without paying utterly absurd taxes and
         | fees), prices should tend toward the market-clearing price.
         | 
         | Sadly, in real estate, one can easily own a $1M house, prefer
         | to live in a $800k house, and have a situation in which making
         | that trade results in a net loss of cash.
        
       | chrsw wrote:
       | I was wondering why in my neck of the woods a small 2 bedroom has
       | a mortgage of about $4500/mo.
        
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       (page generated 2024-03-16 23:02 UTC)