How the Cost of Housing Became So Crushing

[@raymond-i2v]

fear a housing crash due to people buying homes above asking prices with little equity. If prices drop, affordability and potential foreclosures may arise, worsened by future layoffs and rising living costs. I want to invest more than $300k, but I'm not sure on how to mitigate risk.

[@Jordan8568-l4u]

That's an intriguing outcome. How can I contact your Asset manager?

[@Fred-w7t]

Thank you for this tip. It was easy to find your coach. Did my due diligence on her before scheduling a phone call with her. She seems proficient considering her resume.

[@CameronFussner]

Back in the day, when I purchased my first home to live-in; that was Miami in the early 1990s, first mortgages with rates of 8 to 9% and 9% to 10% were typical. People will have to accept the possibility that we won't ever return to 3%. If sellers must sell, home prices will have to decline, and lower evaluations will follow. Pretty sure I'm not alone in my chain of thoughts.

[@fadhshf]

If anything, it'll get worse. Very soon, affordable housing will no longer be affordable. So anything anyone want to do, I will advise they do it now because the prices today will look like dips tomorrow. Until the Fed clamps down even further, I think we're going to see hysteria due to rampant inflation. You can't halfway rip the band-aid off.

[@hasede-lg9hj]

Home prices will come down eventually, but for now; get your money (as much as you can) out of the housing market and get into the financial markets or gold. The new mortgage rates are crazy, add to that the recession and the fact that mortgage guidelines are getting more difficult. Home prices will need to fall by a minimum of 40% (more like 50%) before the market normalizes.If you are in cross roads or need sincere advise on the best moves to take now its best you seek an independent advisor who knows about the financial markets.

[@lowcostfresh2266]

@@hasede-lg9hj Impressive can you share more info?

[@lowcostfresh2266]

Impressive can you share more info?

[@hasede-lg9hj]

There are a handful of experts in the field. I've experimented with a few over the past years, but I've stuck with Annette Marie Holt for about 3 years now, and her performance has been consistently impressive. She’s quite known in her field, look-her up.

[@lawrencetchen]

The debate between NIMBY and YIMBY started because the equity in people's homes became their largest source and stability of wealth. Then venture and vulture capital heard about it and decided housing was a great place to park their money. At some point we as a society have to take a moral stand and say "hey, your second vacation home and 'X' capital firm's 26,957th single family house isn't more valuable to our economy than a unhoused family which could otherwise be working and contributing if they had the stability" Furthermore, the status of owning a property is not labor contributed to the economy (but maintenance of it is), and corporate renting units (along with federal subsidies for mortgages) is just a wholesale enormous transfer of wealth from the working to those who own things and own money.

[@SigFigNewton]

Their video greatly underemphasized the role of NIMBYism. They gave sweeping generalities of arguments that don’t account for why some growing communities have plenty of supply. Also related to your comment all actual solutions are those that increase supply on market, and a weirdly underdiscussed approach is hefty vacancy taxes. Hasn’t been a permanent residence for over 8 months? Large tax for decreasing the availability of a basic human need that is in short supply.

[@5pp000]

Yes, but I think people (including me) who blame it mostly on NIMBYs are understating the role of the 2008 credit crisis. A drop from 2M housing units/year to 600k, followed by no action taken to restore it quickly when doing that would not have been so difficult, is in time going to cause a train wreck.

[@bulletsandbracelets4140]

Came into the comments specifically to see if this finally was one to address this and I can see it isn't. Thank you for bringing it up and I'm glad to see it's at least a top comment. It's so frustrating to see all this talk about housing prices and to have not a single person bring up the single biggest cause. We don't have an inventory crisis. We have an availability crisis because too many people are hoarding property to either rent it out (and earn "passive income") or to sell it for a guaranteed gain sometime down the road. This line is going to need to be drawn eventually. Just like we are, at some point, going to need to reckon with people owning businesses in areas they do not live in and drawing the wealth out of those communities. If you don't live in a community then you are providing nothing and have no right to ownership that adversely impacts the people who do live there.

[@bulletsandbracelets4140]

@@5pp000 the 2008 crisis was when all of those houses were bought. The population isn't growing at a rate that necessitates a huge boom in building. New jobs aren't being added to cities at that rate either. We don't just endlessly need new supply. When the crash happened, a ton of people lost their mortgages, and instead of those homes being put back on the market and going to buyers who would live in them, massive firms bought them en-masse for cheap from the banks who were desperate to make something off of the loans. Just look at available rentals, especially single family homes up for rental. Before 2008 there were barely any. After 2008 it's hard to find a place you don't need to rent in many places.

[@usernameryan5982]

Yeah park the money they borrowed at 0% due to the Feds monetary policy. NIMBYism is simply status quo bias, it has nothing to do with preserving home values because homeowners and renters are both NIMBYs. YIMBYism is based on 2 sub-movements. One that wants to see the fundamental design of American cities evolve from the downtown and suburb feel to a more urban/mixed used feeling. The second is the mistaken belief that increasing density is the only way (or even the major way) to solve the affordability issue. The major reason why a large city like Houston or a medium sized city like Lubbock is so cheap compared to just regular size cities like Seattle or even Denver is because they don’t have growth management restrictions on sprawl. Despite adding way more residents to the urban areas, most Texas cities are way more affordable than others thanks to this one fact, not the fact that they allow for so much more density (because they largely don’t). Anyone who’s spouting nonsense about people owning second homes, Wall Street, capitalist greed, or whatever other nonsense they come up with cannot explain the price differences between cities without looking at how difficult it is to add housing in those areas, primarily on the urban fringe. And these restrictions are not fueled by NIMBYs, they’re fueled either but environmentalists or ideologues that are trying to control where growth occurs. I’m not against density, but it has been a failure in every major city it has been tried because the urban fringe restrictions put an artificial scarcity of land, the residents in the already developed land freak out whenever they attempt to upzone, and it sends land values through the roof. It makes it impossible for the few developers that weren’t bankrupted in the 08 recession to add housing because there’s nowhere to build. Add the fact that the Fed has encouraged people to borrow as much money as possible with below market interest rates, and here we are.

[@ib7566]

architect here. and as many others here pointed out, the big problem is in every type B, C, and century city in the country has been languishing in restrictive regulations on the type of housing. People shouldnt be forced to move into exurbs or new neighborhoods in the boondocks because the maximum density allowed is 3000 sqft single families on 1/4 acre lots.

[@DSGLABEL]

Way to many requirements to build. It stifles anyone trying to get into building.

[@sheneedsme]

As a builder for 40 years I agree with you 💯

[@andyy6481]

so what should people do?

[@DSGLABEL]

@@andyy6481 demand your localities ease up on the BS restrictions

[@cathylynn57]

My concern is the easing of certain restrictions may cause other problems. In my area the state has eased rules for building ADUs, but where do people park, roads stay the same and the traffic congestion just gets worse. I’m in So Cal and there is a lot of building of homes, apts, condos but little improvements to highways. Unfortunately, you can buy a home but then drive for hours just to get to work, but that’s a whole other problem!

[@austinbar]

I’m closing in on my retirement and I’d like to move from Minnesota to a warmer climate, but the prices on homes are stupidly ridiculous and Mortgage prices has been skyrocketing on a roll(currently over 7%) do I just invest my spare cash into stock and wait for a housing crash or should I go ahead to buy a home anyways?

[@eloign7147]

If anything, it'll get worse. Very soon, affordable housing will no longer be affordable. So anything anyone want to do, I will advise they do it now because the prices today will look like dips tomorrow. Until the Fed clamps down even further, I think we're going to see hysteria due to rampant inflation. You can't halfway rip the band-aid off.

[@rogerwheelers4322]

Considering the present situation, diversifying by shifting investments from real estate to financial markets or gold is recommended, despite potential future home price drops. Given prevailing mortgage rates and economic uncertainty, this move is prudent, particularly due to stricter mortgage regulations. Seeking advice from a knowledgeable independent financial advisor is advisable for those seeking guidance.

[@joshbarney114]

This is precisely why I like having a portfolio coach guide my day-to-day market decisions: with their extensive knowledge of going long and short at the same time, using risk for its asymmetrical upside and laying it off as a hedge against the inevitable downward turns, their skillset makes it nearly impossible for them to underperform. I've been utilizing a portfolio coach for more than two years, and I've made over $800,000.

[@FabioOdelega876]

Can you provide instructions on how to contact your advisor? I'm experiencing erosion of my funds due to inflation and looking for a more profitable investment strategy to make better use of them.

[@joshbarney114]

‘’Marisa Michelle Litwinsky’’ is the licensed advisor I use. Just research the name. You’d find necessary details to work with a correspondence to set up an appointment.

[@thelurker12]

Less homes being built, less labor to build them, older people no moving into more dense and smaller housing, more singles living alone. Not real difficult to understand but certainly no easy answer.

[@Bawse625]

One thing that I found was missing from this podcast is the rise in private equity buying single-family homes and turning them into rentals in perpetuity. This also causes a severe housing shortage as there is existing inventory however it is being held hostage as a rental instead of actually being owned.

[@tristan7216]

If governments are going to subsidize lower and middle class housing, it should not be suburbs any more. These are unsustainable per tax vs infrastructure without constant federally funded growth.

[@angelsy1975]

You read _Strong Towns_ too, eh?

[@imperialmotoring3789]

No subsidies should be given.

[@SigFigNewton]

@@imperialmotoring3789the current system is so obviously failing us. Drop your blind ideology

[@SigFigNewton]

It’s fine to build more suburbs if property taxes on them are significantly increased. Simply make them pay for themselves for a change. In most places, there’s enough land there within driving distance of the jobs.

[@claireconover]

subsidies should be given based on income. if you’re poor or middle class, your rent or mortgage is subsidized to varying degrees. if youre rich, you have enough to rent or buy a smaller place… no help is needed, no subsidy is given.

[@VirginiaBronson]

Amazing that the supreme court allowed for criminalizing homelessness during a housing crisis, isn’t it?

[@Ryanrobi]

Housing is my number one issue.. where i live in the last 4 years the avg mortgage in my town went up from $1800 to over $5000! For the same dam house! All of my siblings in Massachusetts own homes and they've all had their equity go up more than a half a million dollars in the last 4 years and they all refinanced at 2.9% me and my little brother however we're just young enough where we were not able to buy a house before the pandemic so we are totally screwed out of it... For example my mom's house in Massachusetts in the second poorest town was worth $65,000 in 2019 she's selling it now for over $300,000 has multiple offers absolutely nothing changed about this house. She bought the house in 1985 for 64,000 and it pretty much stayed at that price until 2020 or at 5X and 4 years Make it make sense!?

[@DSGLABEL]

Devaluation of the dollar. Good luck buying something with the 300k

[@twhite8308]

How doe you factor in hedge fund and AirBnB ownership of existing housing?

[@donalddavis303]

It's not helpful, but not significant. If air bnb raise prices too much then they are competing with hotels and motels, the lack of supply of housing keeps pieces high so there is a minimum vacancy they have to keep up in order to pay the mortgage. A bigger issue then air bnb is 1041 exchange and land banking keeping land out of housing production

[@Ryanrobi]

I since moved from Massachusetts to Northern New York to go back to farming with my friends from college in the county here the average home price went from $73,000 in 2019 then now it's $142,000 in early 2024. It is still much much more affordable than Massachusetts especially if you make a good income.

[@MarkSenatori]

I love listening to The Daily, but this episode didn't quite hit the mark. The housing crisis we're in today is not only born out of the financial crisis and the effect on building. Decades of anti development policy at local levels and zoning feed into it. Also, demographics and population. The net of Death/birth rates, immigration both documented and not, as well as declining prison populations all exacerbate the housing issue in this country. it will all work itself out over time.

[@supery0111]

Exactly. All this talk of subsidies and nothing on zoning reform. Complete misdiagnosis of the problem

[@scottsammons7747]

We also are required to build better houses than in the past. Snow load and earthquake resistant, better insulation, better electric design. These innovations cost. But it is possible to save for the home you need. The full on national effort for housing, included building techniques and inspection requirements. There were new standards put out by the Corps of Engineers.

[@randalmiller7952]

I heard zoning requirements as a contributing factor in their podcast.

[@DamienWalter]

I don't know if you don't know, or if you're just pretending. This feels like being gaslit by the upper middle class.

[@raincadeify]

💯

[@nandayane]

@@DamienWalter Upper middle class can’t afford a house in today’s market either.

[@DamienWalter]

@@nandayane You don't understand what the upper middle class is.

[@FatYokel]

Of course they know, keep searching fearlessly down the money rabbit hole.

[@Keepitkind7]

Stop corporations from buying up all the homes!

[@bijanka]

This is key.

[@lawrencetchen]

I am very surprised they did not speak more on this during an episode focusing on the affordability of housing.

[@dudehighmrksup]

Corporations don’t buy up many homes in overall percentage. The vast majority of houses bought for investment are low level landlords that only own a few properties

[@sannefridolin]

@@dudehighmrksup thats not what I hear.

[@dudehighmrksup]

@@sannefridolin Look up the stats. Majority bought from “ma and pa” landlords. That fact doesn’t get traction because nobody wants to think their uncle with 5 properties is part of the problem. Much easier to get mad at faceless corporations

[@Drunkwithsuccess]

We’ve already blown any chance for shovel out subsidies. Print more money. Really? The current interest of the national debt is nearing $1 trillion a year. There’s simply no way we can afford what you’re talking about.

[@careducation2349]

My mother-in-law’s house in philly suburbs took 20 years to go up 200k (‘94-2014). It went up another 200 between 2020 and 2024.

[@krakken-]

The US in the past ~20 years has seen consolidation in industry after industry. And industries that have consolidated are less competitive. Meaning, prices rise. Capitalism requires competition, but the past 20 years of policies (really 40 years) have driven consolidation, not competition.

[@IndigoBellyDance]

Housing is Out of control. Seen it coming for years & politicians ain’t gave 2 F’s.

[@MrKongatthegates]

What are they going to do? This is a free market country. They dont have to do anything, just let the market do what it does.

[@georgeguttmann3103]

There are a few other complexities which are rarely mentioned. For example: our minimum expectations for a home or apartment have inflated dramatically, my first home had a single bathroom, no dishwasher and a single small garage. in that regard, we have an inflation of expectations. We also expect our homes to be safer and the use of materials like drywall have dramatically reduced home fires. and with climate change even homes in Seattle have air conditioning systems. My suggestion is that we be suspicious of solutions based on simple analysis.

[@DaveDDD]

Those expectations should keep in line with advancements in manufacturing and increasing efficiencies. It’s also much easier/faster to build a house in 2024 than it was 50 years ago.

[@sheneedsme]

⁠@@DaveDDDNo it isn’t. I have been a builder for over 40 years and it’s much harder now. The permits are numerous and take forever and the codes are much tougher and there are fewer skilled workers. Also homes are loaded with options that weren’t expectations in the past. Nobody wants 1,000 square foot basic starter homes anymore.

[@nathangill8404]

A 25,000 handout to 1st time buyers would be bad because the price of homes would rise based on seller knowing the market is juiced. 🤑. This happened in higher education.

[@Daveyjonesvi]

It’s only for first generation home owners so no it won’t rise like that.

@@Daveyjonesviyes it will because it’ll be baked into the price by the sellers/manufacturers. That’s how “capitalism/greed” works.

[@Martcapt]

Maybe, but it's not how economics works.

@@Martcapt on our planet capitalism is the most dominant facet of the finance subset of economics and greed is the downfall of it all.

[@Martcapt]

Are you an AGI? Because it feels like it. That it is true that there would be (some) price increase due to the stimulus doesn't mean prices would increase nearly by the same amount. It's a similar mechanism that confuses a lot of people discussing tarifs today.

[@TonySmith79]

The more building you do the less valuable they become. There is no incentive to build for normal people. If the government pushes building then they need to be sold to the people living in the building. Community ownership and Land Trust. Divesting all private equity from properties from their portfolio will drop prices dramatically.

[@wp5224]

This is surprisingly informative. Here in Denver there is a movement to end local zoning regulations that limit density and add red tape to the process of building homes that suppress supply and inflate prices. Some communities will fight that change tooth and nail and may delay progress in court for years but there has to be a compromise solution that meets the moment.

[@jonliska8401]

I would add the effects of Air Brb, VRBO and rhe rock bottom interest rates during covid which allowd homeowners to keep homes they no longer needed and rent them out AND allowed PE firms and REITs to buy up available housing cheaply thus reducing supply further.

[@aeotsuka]

We also need to consider the local needs for housing versus where the JOBS are. Corporate consolidation in the 80s, 90s and 2000s have concentrated the good jobs in a handful of metro areas with astronomical housing shortages/housing costs, and very wealthy people who will go to any length to block anything from being built near them. The daycare worker whose work is needed in NY/DC/LA/SF cannot remote-work in from the Rust Belt, is least able to afford a 90 mile mega commute, and can least afford current prices (to own or rent) in these cities. A Harris administration, if elected, must tackle this issue to dramatically increase housing supply in the specific metro areas of greatest need. And doing the right thing for the working and middle class could set up some interesting drama with the wealthiest donor classes in the thriving blue cities.

[@b5thomas7]

We just experienced a historic boom in apartment construction during the "Zero Interest Rate Period." Those projects have finished or will finish in the next year or two. This has resulted in a huge amount of new supply hitting the market, increasing vacancy and flattening rent growth (or causing rents to decline in high-supply markets like Austin and Phoenix). With high land, construction, operation, financing, and insurance costs, developers can no longer build apartments profitably (especially expensive to-build urban concrete buildings). Hence we now have a record gap between deliveries and new construction starts, which have cratered. The unfortunate conclusion is things will only get worse for renters in the next 2-4 years.

[@andrewscottgreene]

Honestly, NYT is not being honest here. NYC housing is so expensive because everyone has family money to give their children (most likely, including these reporters). For working folks, there are options but they are limited and you have to hustle.

[@user-ik2no7jw5g]

What about private equity buying up apartment buildings and swaths of housing, jacking up rents and home prices?

[@gnomechump-stiny7128]

Theyre only a symptom not the main issue.

[@kharacon]

One thing I asked my state representative about was timber production - we aren't harvesting as much as we likely should be, and increasing those permits could reduce the costs of inputs and cost of transportation to build sites. It feels like better timber harvesting, creating fire breaks and otherwise encouraging the production of inputs like more efficient appliances. If we can subsidize inputs versus end-buyer housing purchases I think we will see the added benefit in reducing the costs for insurance covering rebuilds. Subsidies / cheaper borrowing just continue to inflate costs of finished new homes while squeezing the labor and inputs for rebuilds and repairs to existing stock - pushing more aging, naturally-affordable housing out of the market.

[@williamrossetter9430]

We recently moved out of Orange County, CA this year. We owned a beatiful house back there. Our home there appreciated 6.5 times for what we paid in 1987. However, we found the personal income taxes, property taxes and property insurance also increasing. Being just retired, the expenses were rising as was the appreciation of our home. We looked to get a more reasonably priced home, and found one in coastal Delaware. Our expenses here are much less than SoCal. What bothered me about SoCal are the construction regulations that add to the cost of building. Looking for a coastal home back in SoCal would require us both to keep working. Life is much better here in coastal DE. Not worried about a colder winter at all. Rather than pay to live in SoCal, the cost of everything there is unreasonable. Cost of housing is also the result of higher home building regulations, especially in CA.

[@stephenphillips6245]

Home Wreckers was a great book outling Obama giving federal funding to make house owners whole...but equity banks illegally foreclosed on 5.million people to utilize those federal dollars. Then very few houses were built...lead to the tight supply. Reagan shrunk government to the pointwhere Obama had to follow that blueprint of keeping government out if the topic which brought institutions in.

[@Edo9River]

Both candidates promice more homes. BUT I want to know where large numbers of houses will be built, if we seriously consider the likelihood of Severe Weather events in the West.

[@lawrencetchen]

And stronger and more frequent hurricanes in the Southeast! Much of Florida is a wetland no more than 6 ft (depending on the tide) above sea level. Basically the Netherlands of the US

[@bulletsandbracelets4140]

Also really want to know who is going to be allowed to purchase those homes. Because if they aren't preventing landlords from snapping them up then all they are doing is making the problem worse.

[@johnnycactus5140]

IMO what would really help is to quit subsidizing housing at every level. From federal all the way down to local propertu taxes. Renters are carrying an undue and unfair tax burden.

[@BrentsTreehouse]

The nyt is reading the talking points of the building industry which is always about more supply. However, the unprecedented printing of money through emergency low rates for more than a decade led to people bidding up the prices beyond their value and investors buying. This piece is oddly silent on the role of central banks, monetary policy, investors, Airbnb, etc.

[@Tormekia]

Santa Cruz CA has a program where housing is set aside for people of a certain income. You cannot buy these homes if you make more money. And when you sell, you have to sell to someone else who is part of the program (no crazy profit). The home prices are lower than average and they allow people who make less to have a chance at owning. Needs to be implemented nation wide. Certain housing needs to be price locked for people with normal incomes. Government can immenent domain property to build roads. It can do this shit to save the middle class.

[@nadyabest1279]

I disagree on Conor’s statement that writing off mortgage interest is a subsidy of government. Yes it’s a write off for home owners but still income for the banks that they pay taxes on it, there is no subsidy here. In US, federal government has practically no subsidies for real estate market, even if you get a break, somebody else is paying for it It’s time for federal government to step in very carefully by not disrupting the market too.

[@ericchang9568]

Well it's because Obama rescued the banks instead of home owners: i know because we bought a few foreclosure homes from 2009-2013 from home owners who walked away from their underwater mortgage. The prices had recovered since then but their credit were destroyed, so were the small builders.

[@tristan7216]

Cool story bro, but housing was skyrocketing already before 2008, at least in California and NYC. The long bull run in housing is around 30 years old at least, though it was contained to the coasts in the early phases.

[@r8chlletters]

With stagnant wages for 50 years.

[@StephenDix]

Not a fan of this format. Sounds like two people griping and gossiping instead of getting ro the point. This could hve been an infographic. Modernize, NYT.

[@dvsteady]

We are fortunate to have purchased a home in 2018 at a low interest rate (a smallish three story townhome) with the plan for it to be our starter home. I was pregnant. Then the pandemic hit and housing is now out of control. We’d love to buy a bigger family home but now it feels impossible. A good home in our area cost “only” about $900k five years ago…but now that same home is $1.6 to $2m. Could we technically qualify for it? Sure. But we’d be saddled with debt and have no money for life’s small luxuries and we don’t want to do that to ourselves. We’re in “golden handcuffs” as they say and our starter home is now perhaps our forever home. I know it could be far worse so I’m grateful for what we have. But us not being able to move on/up also means others can’t ever buy our current home. It’s all interconnected and MOST of us are screwed.

[@cocoacrispy7802]

'Chicken Coops' for housing. This is TRUE. I can still recall the converted chicken coop we lived in, my parents and three of us kids, shortly after WWII. However, it was not long until we landed in a new suburban tract house, which is still there.

[@corrosivedevourer]

That's wild

[@timcareymusic]

Episode summary: Capitalism destroyed the housing market in 2008. Since then, capitalism has continued to make it worse. The only solution is government intervention, but that is unlikely to happen because government tends to be in the side of capital. Its the same story thats been written every day for the last 5 or 6 years.

[@elizabethrufener7280]

Building more units is critical for both renters and buyers is critical. More efficient building processes, smaller units, and density will follow. Post WWII suburbs are NOT the answer.

[@seanthomas5303]

Income and housing costs started diverging in the 70s, so any discussion that doesn't start there is at best incomplete.

[@Keepitkind7]

Harris is specifically addressing these exact problems they've addressed here. It time for corporations to stop the gouging so less subsidies are needed. Trump is focusing his econimc plan on tariffs which are paid for by American companies and absorbed by consumers. Tariffs are not paid for by the exporting country.

[@nathangill8404]

But she's not, and this has nothing to do with companies raising prices. Under the Harris-Biden money printing and inflation regimen, prices have skyrocketed (inflation) as the currency is devalued.

[@jludo]

Hilarious that only a few years ago that would have been a Republican talking point, about how bad tariffs are.

Tariffs work on the short term because companies HAVE to pay to import their products thus creating a temporary influx in capital…but eventually the gravy train slows significantly because sales drop because the prices have risen. Then MAYBE people would start buying American. Sounds like something trump would come up with.

[@realharo]

The point of tariffs is not to pay them, the point is to make domestic production (with its more expensive products due to higher wages among other things) more competitive.

[@waitaminute2015]

I guess Americans don't understand they will pay the tariffs.

[@scottsammons7747]

Much of the housing shortage was being talked about in the 1980's. Why are SO many new houses needed each year? Is the population growing that fast? Really? We aren't making more land, so where are the houses to be built?

[@AnnaKareninaSF]

Kalamazoo (area… Go WMUK Broncos) to San Francisco… please let’s get the housing situation addressed !

[@the_derpler]

The government needs to literally build apartment blocks in high demand cities.

[@covertpetersen2573]

Forgive my copy and paste from another comment of mine: The problem, and how we got here, is the financialization of housing, full stop. We can't solve the housing crisis until we come to terms with the fact that housing can't be both a human right and a vehicle for private investment. It simply can't. I'm not saying people shouldn't be allowed to own and invest in their OWN home, that's not an issue. The problem is we've allowed the ownership of OTHER PEOPLE'S housing, and it's this practice that's at the very heart of this issue. Residential landlords, big and small, are the entire problem. We need to move towards a housing system that prioritizes non market, not for profit, housing over privately owned rentals. Housing that is built and then provided at cost + maintenance, without a middleman taking an unnecessary profit off the top. Will this be an easy undertaking? Absolutely not, especially in North America (I'm Canadian) where private ownership of rental housing is seen as some sort of hard law of nature, and any discussion of non market housing gets shouted down by ill informed and uneducated people. These people will call it "communism" or "Marxism" because they don't understand that this type of housing used to be built in greater numbers during the period of widespread affordability everyone always talks about. Governments used to build housing, affordable housing, that people could live in long term. They stopped doing this in the 70's and 80's due to austerity measures and widespread "red scare" panic, and it started us down this path towards the increased privatization and market capture we're now suffering through today. Co-ops, non profits, social housing, etc. These types of housing are what we desperately need if we want access to housing to become affordable again, and this is the majority expert opinion on this subject. Study after study, and report after report, we see this echoed by experts but it continues to fall on the deaf ears of our politicians and electorate because there's so much money being made by the wealthy by gatekeeping access to housing. It needs to stop.

[@MrKongatthegates]

The market can handle that, and do a better cheaper job of it. Only 14 years ago we had an enormous glut of housing, so much so that houses dropped 40% in value.

[@covertpetersen2573]

@@MrKongatthegates That is not what caused the 2008 financial crash, at all. That's a ridiculous statement.

[@lonelydronerfl5184]

I'm tired of all the whining about interest rates. I paid 8% 30 years ago. The higher rate moderated greed in the system helping to keep prices lower.

[@veroniquefaison]

How much was your house 30 years ago at 8%?

[@donnathompson4259]

13% in 1983

[@buckbiro]

30 years ago, home prices were 3-4x income. Now, home prices are 6-7x income.

[@liamc4113]

Agree, rate should be high. But people are dumber these days so the Fed doesn't care.

[@jackied962]

What's important to understand is that nothing will be done about it.

[@platinumpig]

I think we really need to build more cities. Trying to cram more housing/living spaces into existing cities is just going to make more congestion.

[@tobyblur]

I’m not a capital fundamentalist but subsidy is not free money. It comes out tax! If you want to redistribute wealth, is this the most efficient way?

[@jb71488]

What about the impact of investors scooping up single family homes to rent, this lowering supply for families looking to purchase a home?

[@5pp000]

Doesn't make that much difference, as long as _somebody_ is living in the house. If the investor is keeping it empty, yeah, that's a problem. If we flood the market with supply (new houses), prices will start to fall, and it will no longer be attractive to investors.

[@bulletsandbracelets4140]

@@5pp000 someone hasn't been paying attention to a certain software allowing these companies to do price-setting with one another, and to the fact that in many areas, one company has a monopoly on buying the available housing. Meaning that anyone moving to that area has only one option, and therefore no competition and no ability to seek cheaper options. It makes a huge difference. There wouldn't be such a huge housing crisis if rents were actually affordable. But people are being forced to pay more than half of their income just to keep a roof over their head. "Someone is living in the house", but "living" has a pretty big asterisk next to it. If we flood the market with new supply, those same companies will outbid new buyers and make up their losses with perpetual rent hikes. Just they way they have the past 2 decades.

[@elizabethallison418]

how are tariffs on lumber at play here? and if there are no jobs with security, how can we the people afford housing?

[@audro1212]

Yeah. And you don't even touch in the slightest on how big money is buying up housing units and then price-gouging, nor how they force smaller owners to charge both buyers and renters a much higher price than they need to shore up the inflated rate of profiteering being engaged in by those on top. You just want the government to throw our tax money at it so that the rich can get richer. Thanks so much.

[@locatejedora855]

How can such smart people be so stupid? Why don't they ask who bought all those foreclosure properties? Why no discussion of private equity purchases of property?

[@tyler0506]

Zoning is the issue and city sewer/water process plants limits in cities that have it. Same w septic design on small multi families

[@jamesphelps1958]

I’m surprised they didn’t talk about zoning as the replacement for racial redlining. That’s as much of a problem as the 08 crisis. It shouldn’t take 10 years from proposal to groundbreaking in NY and SF. That’s why the costs are so high!

[@johncummins7597]

Don’t finance the land finance the build. The land is now worth more than the house in most situations. A signature to rezone farmland worth on the high end ten thousand an acre is now worth a million an acre. This is the problem. Becomes a transfer of wealth from the commons ( the people) to banks in the form of mortgages and cash to developers. The home owners are being bent over in favour of banks and developers. In the fifty’s sixty’s and seventy’s the lot was worth 10-20 percent of the overall value of the home. Now it’s 50-70 percent of the value of the home. Developers here in the Toronto area and greater Toronto area have made developers trillions . They have land banked. Their profits therefore controlled the supply chain. Control the value of the signature . And you fix the housing crisis. We now have in the Toronto area ten to twenty developers controlling the housing stock. In the fifty’s sixty’s and seventy’s we had thousands of small developers now it’s an un Holy Alliance between townships banks and developers. Fox the value of the signature. Land and mineral and oil wealth has to be decoupled from capital and labour. To benefit all of society it equally belongs to the commons.

[@loneranger1370]

Why not convert vacant office buildings into apartments? The buildings are already built and city's need those areas to become used more.

[@Xiomo2024]

Theres a lot of reasons why this is often not economically preferred. It comes down to we build office buildings to different standards that residential units, so they require a lot of rework. That rework stems from things like, office buildings not having openable windows, or only one bathroom ( or more importantly one place to connect sewer pipes )per floor. Due to issues like this, often only about 10-20% of available office space is even convertible.

[@aleksanderholleran1425]

They had an episode on this.

[@wellivea1]

Making zoning in urban areas just a little footnote is an odd choice, esp. for the "New York Times". Why emphasize the number of single-family homes built? The white flight era is over and urban centers should be booming with housing construction but they're not. The demand has no choice to find empty lots, and there are none in the areas where it would be most efficient and sustainable to build. Sorry, but pouring government money into housing without mandating upzoning would be a disaster we would come to regret. Just how bloated are the suburbs of this country going to become because of this myopic view?

[@ArronSturgeonPaintings-so2xc]

Excellent overview.

[@christopherspavins9250]

I'm house stuck. A condo would be nice but more expensive. Encampments now have children and retired elderly.

[@roc7880]

private equity, lack of development, and zoning laws. there is no mistery why there are no available homes left.

[@dixiebrick]

Nice to have known you affordable Kalamazoo

[@ginacoleman788]

My husband and I take exceptionally good care of our home so our youngest won't have to pay rent in her senior yrs after we're gone. It's a damn shame she has to wait so long to have a place of her own.

[@anthonyrowland9072]

People want houses but we need smaller regular houses like people lived in in the 60s or 70s. Have the government subsidize construction of 1000sqft 3br or even smaller 2br houses for $125-$150k all over the country with low or zero interest but a percentage fee of like 10%. Everybody gets an truly affordable Wonder Years house.

I got 2 words: EX…PAT😂

[@MrBemnet1]

It is not crises for everyone. Most homeowners are happy.

[@wayneburns5033]

Do we Have to have inflation? Is it part of a growing economy? Can interest rates be fixed at say 2%?

[@Indrid__Cold]

No, every component of free markets says growth is essential. Interest rates of 2% will likely never occur in our lifetime. The easy, low interest money is flowing to boomer retirement. No senior will risk their life savings in the stock market. Instead all of that market money is heading for safe investments.

[@wayneburns5033]

@@Indrid__Cold So, what is the interest rate and growth rate that is sustainable? If not 2%, is it 2.5%, 3%, 4%. The country seems to want to need a debt balance a lot greater than our GNP, interest rates that are lower allow a larger debt... right? What is the balance of growth and interest rates without the extremes that hurt housing and other key items in the average American consumer? The extremes seem to only help the rich, and hurt the poor, so let's find a way to stop the extremes, by fixing interest rates to growth.

[@mikem4432]

THERE IS NO HOUSING SHORTAGE.. the supply of homes is close to PRE PANDEMIC and the cost of HOMES IS STILL TOO DAMN HIGH!!!

[@scottsammons7747]

Seizure of all golf courses through imminent domain. Build housing on them.

[@CarolWeld-s1h]

Hey, what is the impact of the price colluding among landlords that the DOJ just announced an indictment about.

[@r8chlletters]

All these people who couldn’t find a job after 2008 who could have been part of a nationwide program to build homes.

[@bijanka]

Yeah but we had excess housing inventory in 2008; the Obama administration actually paid cities to bulldoze vacant buildings. So that would not have been a solution.

[@sheneedsme]

As a builder in 2008 the economy was dead and most builders went out of business.

[@counterflow5719]

We need an old-fashioned land rush. There is plenty of land away from population centers.

[@TM-su7vu]

I used to be such a loyal NYT listener, but this guy is insufferable.

[@raincadeify]

My word exactly.

[@ghostly123-w4u]

one sentence, drug dealers became corrupt realtors and the rich home owners turned a blind eye while the rest of us got destroyed, but some of us just became strong like diamonds under the pressure

[@twhite8308]

I live in house that was built for returning WW2 veterans. Was it built with government subsidy?

[@Klaus__567]

Hit $115k today. I'm really grateful for all the knowledge and nuggets you had thrown my way over the last months. Started with 14k in January

[@DarrenEvans-q8z]

How please

[@DarrenEvans-q8z]

I've been investing in Bitcoin by myself. I'm not really happy with what's going on, just few weeks ago I lost about $7,000 in a particular trade. Can you help me out or at least advise me on what to do?

[@Klaus__567]

I will advise you stop trading on your own if you keep losing. And i don't trade on my own anymore, I always required help and assistance

[@Klaus__567]

She's my family personal Broker and also a Broker to many families here in the United states, she is a licensed Broker.

[@SarahMorgan-f2x]

😱Sounds familiar, I have heard her names on several occasions.. And both her success stories on wall street journey!

[@supery0111]

All this talk of subsidies and almost nothing on zoning reform. Complete misdiagnosis of the problem

[@tyler0506]

Pex plumbing is going to cause health issues overtime. Will be the chemical leakage that will affect it overtime

[@RM-xf9gi]

Build higher up to save on land! Build solar panel battery systems into every building! Have shops and medical services on the ground floors. Easy. Common sense!

[@Yukyuk96]

Could have fooled me. Mi city governments sparing grand rapids seem to thrive off obstructing new rentals

[@fintamaria2429]

Al Jazeera's Investigative Unit goes on the trail of The Minister's Millions to find out how he built a half-billion-dollar property empire - on a thirteen-thousand-dollar salary. Saifuzzaman Chowdhury, a close ally of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, bought hundreds of luxury properties in London, Dubai, and New York, but declared none of them to tax authorities in Bangladesh. The former land minister gives a guided tour of his $14m London home; he owns 360 in the UK alone. Now authorities in Bangladesh have frozen his bank accounts and are investigating claims the former minister laundered millions of dollars into Britain. He says he's innocent and the victim of a political witch-hunt.

[@garad123456]

Houses are to a modern human what a cave was to a non-modern human, says my local historian Mr. Thick-thighs

[@rolandnelson6722]

After house prices fell in 2008. They became cheap. Investing in them was a no-brainer. Prices rose. Rising prices left a trail of evidence. House prices were an uppy-going thing. This is the sole thing most people look for. They think it’s analysis. Buying into uppy-going prices lifts prices yet higher and leaves yet more convicting evidence. It’s ever thus.

[@santiagograciano8402]

This push for government subsidies here is disgusting. All that needs to be done is make it easier for builders to build homes.

[@Ryanrobi]

There's a massive difference between building post Great depression / world war II and now. Back then there was almost no regulation no zoning no building codes and there was no entrenched majority say 65% of Americans that have most of their wealth tied up in their home equity. So I don't see any possibility where the government could do anything that could bring down house prices significantly and build millions more frankly the majority of Americans are homeowners and they would be absolutely pissed off if all their equity was gone and if more poor people and immigrants lived in their neighborhoods and in their towns. Personally I think you should be able to do whatever you want on your own property more or less as long as you're not hurting someone else so all of these regulations should be gone and then we could actually build but I don't see that happening at all The majority of people I talk to are always mad if there's something new being built They think it's ugly they think it'll cause traffic blah blah blah The only thing that we can really do is to make it so these people have no say in what gets built on someone else's property the way it used to be.

[@benitoluna5118]

I’m a millennial, and some of the “causes” mentioned in this Ep. are absurd reaches to cover up from the main culprit - corporate investors and government regulation (lack there of)…millennials’ purchasing power was awful post-2008 and thru 2013/2014.

[@sanantoniobusinessreport]

WOW . . . two academic people talking non-sense.

[@tonyraffetto931]

Old people sell your house

[@gregorypeterson9]

And go where? Older people use to downsize to smaller homes but young people want them as more affordable starter homes. The supply of smaller 3br homes have gone and no Older owners are giving up their low interest rate homes.

[@CK-hu8vz]

My parents would but they would pay more for a small home or condo. You can not blame them for aging where they are already.

[@donnathompson4259]

Or mortgage free home

[@mikegathercole]

America needs immigrants to build our housing and infrastructure. Also need them to pay social security. Yeah fat chance.

[@lawrencetchen]

Which is why demonizing immigration is shooting your own foot. But hey, short-term political gain over long term societal stability, right?

[@brianbevard7815]

People want to not live where housing is cheap. Film at 11

[@justmebecky5937]

Women are dying because of trumps administration. Why are we focused on something NO ADMINISTRATION HAS HELPED ME WITH??? I worked hard. Had excellent credit. Self employed. Still got a house loan. Gimme a break.

[@chancevicary1805]

Because we can try to solve both instead of focusing on one

[@bijanka]

The housing crisis not an argument for Trump or Trump's policies but it's not something we can just ignore because some people already own homes. An economy where increasingly people pay 50% of their wages for a place to live, whether it's in Manhattan, NY or Manhattan, KS to live is not stable or sustainable.

[@slavaukrayini4442]

Moved 30 yrs ago from USSR to end up in USSA, where everything now comes back to this pathetic useless corrupt govt to “help”. When will people realize that this same out of control govt (at all levels) is the root of all our problems to begin with. Big surprise that landlords want to sell since the govt makes their life so difficult.

[@jamessmall5556]

Housing is an issue world wide not just in the USA. So far the only place I've seen where rents are not blowing up out of line with inflation is Vienna. Why? a multi tier approach to housing kzbin.info/www/bejne/i16QeGaLqc1rpqc . The only thing they don't mention in this video is how good Vienna public transit is, which helps with job flexibility, isolation. And mixed zoning helps (and other deregulation) too don't do what Denmark did(early on they learned their lesson) or the USA did building housing 20 miles from where people work or shop. The solutions are out there you just have to look beyond your back yard for solutions.

[@SC-sh6ux]

4:39 It was a demographic change which was predictable for decades. People are born and then want to buy a house 20-30 year later.

[@tyler0506]

Zoning is the issue and city sewer/water process plants limits in cities that have it. Same w septic design on small multi families under 4 units