Unfortunately there isn’t an easy solution. The US median housing price is 5X median household income, while the rest of the world is around 7-10X in most cases.
The real solution is to build more houses and remove red tapes, but then construction and labor costs are causing developers to pause on some new builds. Again, not easy to fix in short term.
That’s easier said than done when majority of voters are beneficiaries of ever increasing home values, they complain about traffic and so on. This will only change when more active voters will benefit from home prices decreasing.
Research suggests that the average voter has very little influence on public policy compared with wealthy interests and organized lobbying groups. Changing voter preferences wont really impact housing policy.
I highly suggest attending your next local planning and land use meeting. The ones in my previous city were always during the workday so basically only retirees could attend and they would literally boo anyone who dared speak positively about a proposed apartment complex
That’s not true specifically in the case of housing policy. For one thing, individual homeowners have strong influence when it comes to opposing specific housing developments. For another thing, in this case the property developers would benefit immensely from relaxing zoning and other building regulations, but are fiercely resisted by homeowners, and so the proof is in the pudding. “Average voters” have a lot of influence when they actually have aligned incentives and act as a block, which is exactly what happens with housing.
How often do individual homeowners win against housing developments? Where I live, they build them regardless of whether homeowners want them or not. The homeowners don’t get a say. I’m in a HCOL area and our state and local governments have mandates for building more because we’ve had an influx of people.
Unfortunately, developers tend to build big houses on tiny lots because they can sell them for more. They are definitely not starter homes. The only starter homes are the small, older ones. But if one of those goes up for sale, developers turn it into three or four huge ones, each costing over a million.
I know developers are just trying to make their living, but it’s frustrating that there isn’t more of a variety of housing for a variety of people.
They recently built a bunch of townhomes near me, and they sold them starting at $900,000. And they have a monthly HOA cost. Average people can’t afford these homes, and it’s not because of the existing homeowners. They have no say.
Not everyone is rooting for the house values to go up. For one, a lot of people want more people to be able to afford homes. Parent worry about their kids. People in general just want things to be better.
But also, if your home goes up in value, so do your property taxes. And if you sell your home, you still have to live somewhere. That’s why people get stuck in “starter” homes. You can’t afford to move and still be within 50 miles of work.
And there will be complaints about reduction of natural area, environmental concerns, population density and pollution issues, etc. There’s no solution that please everyone, or even the majority.
Well those are certainly ways to help fix the symptoms but the real issue is erosion of buying power of lower and middle class (total coincidence but the rich have never been richer yes even the robber barons)
That and economic pressures to live in large cities which is an underlying issue. We should push policies that incentivize rural living. tax breaks incentives for work from home positions could help as well as UBI can help change the calculus.
Dont get me wrong building new houses is part of the equation as well, economics of scale is a factor. But its important to realize new house construction is also out of reach for a large chunk of the country and its not a fluke its not an accident. Wealth has been transferring to the donor class for 50 years and its starting to hurt.
More people living rural is the wrong thing to do on pretty much every front for this issue. WAY more expensive, way less housing density so less people can benefit from it, way worse for the environment, extremely inefficient
> while the rest of the world is around 7-10X in most cases.
The rest of the world outside of culturally British countries (the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) have policies that encourage building more mid and high rise apartments and accepting that there will be many people who never buy a home and rent an apartment for their entire lives. Aggressive building of mid and high rise apartments really is something that lowers rent for everyone in the city- cities just refuse to do this in these culturally anglo-British countries.
The US has to start following the same rules that the rest of the world follows, and this means accepting some mid and high rise apartments in your city. "The American Dream" of home ownership in suburbia is practically a religion that has caused a lot of suffering and poverty.
There’s a couple more levers that can be moved. Start the transition to the labor and developers and remove the red tape. Reduce private capital influence.
Let whatever bastardized form of capitalism this is, solve the problem. Pole barns, manufactured homes, additional high density units, new construction methodologies, increasing the labor supply, immigration. Dozens of ways that creativity and the desire for profit can step in, but we can’t do that with the red tape in the way.
The Bay Area is the example that always gets brought up in housing discussions but it's such an abnormal example. The Bay area is simply geographically limited commensurate to the amount of people who want to live there.
The issue is that people cannot afford houses in the suburbs of Kansas City or Chattanooga or Madison WI, or many places where home ownership should be a slam dunk. This isn't solely an inventory problem, it's a wage problem. But unfortunately when it's time to talk wages, the corporate overlords get the media to distract us about the Bay area and then we all act like the problem nationwide is unsolvable.
If we ignore California's unique problems like Prop 13, bureaucratic logjams and the Bay Area, and focus on the root cause affecting the majority of the nation it's the simple math of flat wages vs raising costs.
Wages have risen faster than inflation for decades, it's not a wage problem. Housing prices specifically have grown much faster because there's not enough supply. This has been studied ad nauseum it's not some secret we still have to figure out
If demand is still outstripping supply that will just mean an even greater proportion of income will be devoted for housing as people compete for the insufficient housing units with their increased income.
Supply isn't the sole issue not even the driving issue stated in the article. Even if housing can be built in high demand areas the cost of construction means prices out of the reach of wages
It’s supply vs demand. The only “driving issue” mentioned in the article was the increase in demand due to low interest rates. That doesn’t change the equation.
And cost of construction is another factor limiting supply.
At the end of the day 100% of the affordability crisis is supply vs demand. There are multiple factors affecting supply, but increasing supply is the only possible thing that can actually help affordability.
Not cheaper, more affordable. We're so focused on the price tags and not concerned about what's in our bank accounts. Wages haven't kept up with nominal inflation let alone the increased inflation of the last five years due to covid and tariffs and needless regional warfare
Wages are flat, corporate profits are at record highs, investors are doing great at dividend payouts this is an easy fix but the hard part is convincing the rich to do the right thing
no, because its ultimately only the top percentile that can afford to buy. your home purchasing power only rises if your wage grows relative to others.
South of Orlando here, can confirm. Bought in 2010 as a shortsale for ~$160k, now "appraised" and comparable (same floorplan, builder, etc.) homes in the same subdivision are $480k... with no upgrades or anything, same olf roof, AC, etc.
In your instance you're comparing a buying price depressed from the housing crash in 08 though. Stuff that fell in 08 may have taken until nearly 2020 to rise back up to their previous high prices.
I agree though, prices have still gone nuts in the past 5 years.
Not really. Strictly speaking there are zero states where the individual median wage matches or exceeds the income required to purchase a full median-priced standalone home.
There's limitations of what's available based on where you are.
I may be able to buy six trailers on a large lot in some backwoods county, but I can guarantee I'm not going get a job unless the local dollar general hires me.
It went down in 2020 and recovered rather quickly. The point is that low to middle class earners in a hcol area, who want a house, can't store their down payment in a hysa and expect a house anytime soon. You need to take some calculated risk.
Pray for a 2008 housing bubble crash sooner rather than later
The problem isn’t the number of houses on the market. The problem is banks/firms have bought all the houses on the market and can charge whatever prices they want for them because where else are you going to go?
I read somewhere that 68% of US homeowners owned more than 50% equity on their homes. Even if price crashed by 30%, your still good. Plus if you were able to refi at 2-3%. Thats cheaper than renting, unless you bought in the last 5 years.
Median prices at a national level are good for economics wonks and headlines, but don’t translate into economic realities for most people — especially if a lot of the growth is at the bottom end of the market.
In a nutshell? You simply aren’t. Rent or don’t have a home to call your own. There is no seller stress in the market to drive prices down in the short term. Even if there was seller stress, it’s 100% going to buyers who already have a sizable number of doors they are collecting rents on or a corporation like BlackStone or Pretium Partners which have a sizable amount of consolidated capital. Inflation is a tax on everyone, but disproportionately hamstrings the bottom 80% of earners more than the top 20%.
As for the article, I fail to see how the components in the bill are going to incentivize builders to build where profits aren’t at the highest maximum potential. The markets are going to demand more luxury apartments, comfy condos for the digital upper class nomad, and very expansive suburban developments you couldn’t do in many spaces of the country. Another bill that’s going to be muted because it can’t incentivize builders to eat the cost of millions of dollars of land value before a single pour of concrete begins. This is omitting the clear issues when it comes to local politics and zoning, and the fact that the people who can afford to bid up these properties when they are built aren’t going to be living in the fucking things.
We moved back to our home state 10 years ago and your post made me curious. Since moving back I changed jobs twice and had decent pay increases each year and two large pay increases in each job change. I put my salary when we moved here in an inflation calculator and checked what that is worth in 2026 and it seems in all this time I’ve effectively only gone up $4,000/yr after inflation.
That’s a bit of a bummer. I feel we have had a somewhat optimal path too in terms of pay increases, or thought we had. Only real positive I guess is our home mortgage is locked to when we bought in 2016 with 3% interest and a home value that is nearly doubled. But it still stings to think how everything else though isn’t any more attainable and we’re really locked in to this home.
So you have 10 additional years of experience but you aren't able to leverage that into greater compensation? Hire a career counselor or do your research and figure it out.
We just put in an offer on a home, but did have to leave our east coast city to do so. We gave up hope on ever owning around DC. Pray for us because we fear financial devastation.
"With a landmark housing affordability bill in political limbo, U.S. home prices have hit an all-time high.
The median price of existing homes in June was $440,660, up 1.8% from $432,700 a year ago, according to new data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Home prices have risen for 36 straight months.
"Housing affordability remains low under slowing wage growth and stronger home price growth," Ershang Liang, an economist with PNC Economics Research, said in a report.
Some other highlights from NAR's latest housing snapshot:
Median price for existing single-family homes: $446,400
Median price for condominiums and co-ops: $380,000
Median price for single-family homes in the U.S. Northeast: $564,800
Median price for single-family homes in the Midwest: $346,600
Median price for single-family homes in the South: $377,700
Median price for single-family homes in the West: $633,600
The latest data underscores the affordability crunch facing many homebuyers. Home prices have climbed for decades, with the only major drop coming during the epic housing crisis that triggered the 2008-09 financial crisis. But costs skyrocketed during the pandemic as the Federal Reserve slashed interest rates to support the economy.
Today, even modestly priced homes aimed at first-time buyers are beyond the reach of most Americans. Fewer than 4 in 10 non-homeowner households can afford a typical starter home priced around $200,000, according to LendingTree. Households need an annual income of roughly $117,000 to afford the average home, real estate firm Redfin has found.
"Without a doubt, the affordability is a major challenge for people who want to become homeowners, which is the reason why we need more supply," Lawrence Yun, NAR's chief economist, told the Associated Press."
Homes that are previously owned were up. Meanwhile new homes went down. When combined together they went down (at least based on the median). The 1.8% is not remarkable increase from what I know. It's typically twice that.
I don't think there's a right answer here but I do think the stigma of multi-unit housing needs to be addressed, starter homes need to make a comeback, and people don't need to be living in mega square footage compounds for a family of less than 5.
Agreed. I grew up in a two flat house in the city. Although my parents owned it and we rented the 2nd floor. My family of five lived on a single level with three bedrooms and a small yard. I look at the downtown area of my town and really think we could use some beautiful brick two and three flat homes. It would boost the local businesses as well. Everything going up nearby is cookie cutter subdivision houses
I dont know how its in the US but here in Germany its really ridicolous at this point. Even in East Germany without any big economy you have to pay like 300.000 Euro / Dollars for a normal flat. Same flat in Bavaria is at 500.00, with luck 4 rooms. If you want more than two kids or a office room plus two kids you have to buy a house and here in Bavaria they straight up want you to pay for one million Euros.
Some are also "clever" and sell you this sixty year old house for 700k that then needs to be fixed for another 300k.
Even houses that were sold for 360k 20 years ago are now at at least double the price.
Most young people cannot afford it anymore and on top our social security system is fucked uü more and more.
Part of the problem is that, ignoring private equity which is a small fraction of the market and rapidly selling off stock right now to get out of the business, you really have a few classes of homeowners.
Older homeowners who are mostly paid off making cash transactions from house to house or taking out small mortgages using their entire house equity as down payment.
People who bought a home at 2 percent who can’t afford to sell because they can’t take that 2 percent with them.
People who bought in at 7 percent who are house poor, and are riding the line trying to not be underwater.
The problem is group 2 will never sell and group 3 can’t afford even a modest dip in housing prices.
gym_fun | 4 hours ago
Unfortunately there isn’t an easy solution. The US median housing price is 5X median household income, while the rest of the world is around 7-10X in most cases.
The real solution is to build more houses and remove red tapes, but then construction and labor costs are causing developers to pause on some new builds. Again, not easy to fix in short term.
prime_alki | 4 hours ago
That’s easier said than done when majority of voters are beneficiaries of ever increasing home values, they complain about traffic and so on. This will only change when more active voters will benefit from home prices decreasing.
darthsouls69 | 4 hours ago
Research suggests that the average voter has very little influence on public policy compared with wealthy interests and organized lobbying groups. Changing voter preferences wont really impact housing policy.
jiggajawn | 3 hours ago
At the local level there is plenty of influence from property owners.
Coldsmoke888 | 3 hours ago
To do what exactly?
MyDisneyExperience | 2 hours ago
I highly suggest attending your next local planning and land use meeting. The ones in my previous city were always during the workday so basically only retirees could attend and they would literally boo anyone who dared speak positively about a proposed apartment complex
johannthegoatman | 2 hours ago
Reduce zoning restrictions and build more housing
limukala | 3 hours ago
That’s not true specifically in the case of housing policy. For one thing, individual homeowners have strong influence when it comes to opposing specific housing developments. For another thing, in this case the property developers would benefit immensely from relaxing zoning and other building regulations, but are fiercely resisted by homeowners, and so the proof is in the pudding. “Average voters” have a lot of influence when they actually have aligned incentives and act as a block, which is exactly what happens with housing.
External_Koala971 | 2 hours ago
Why are YIMBYs not participating in local politics?
limukala | 2 hours ago
They do. They’re just outnumbered.
cap1112 | an hour ago
How often do individual homeowners win against housing developments? Where I live, they build them regardless of whether homeowners want them or not. The homeowners don’t get a say. I’m in a HCOL area and our state and local governments have mandates for building more because we’ve had an influx of people.
Unfortunately, developers tend to build big houses on tiny lots because they can sell them for more. They are definitely not starter homes. The only starter homes are the small, older ones. But if one of those goes up for sale, developers turn it into three or four huge ones, each costing over a million.
I know developers are just trying to make their living, but it’s frustrating that there isn’t more of a variety of housing for a variety of people.
They recently built a bunch of townhomes near me, and they sold them starting at $900,000. And they have a monthly HOA cost. Average people can’t afford these homes, and it’s not because of the existing homeowners. They have no say.
Northerndust | 2 hours ago
>That’s easier said than done when majority of voters are beneficiaries of ever increasing home values
As long as someone can afford to buy their home when they want to sell it.
cap1112 | an hour ago
Not everyone is rooting for the house values to go up. For one, a lot of people want more people to be able to afford homes. Parent worry about their kids. People in general just want things to be better.
But also, if your home goes up in value, so do your property taxes. And if you sell your home, you still have to live somewhere. That’s why people get stuck in “starter” homes. You can’t afford to move and still be within 50 miles of work.
Happi_Beav | 4 hours ago
And there will be complaints about reduction of natural area, environmental concerns, population density and pollution issues, etc. There’s no solution that please everyone, or even the majority.
theyux | 3 hours ago
Well those are certainly ways to help fix the symptoms but the real issue is erosion of buying power of lower and middle class (total coincidence but the rich have never been richer yes even the robber barons)
That and economic pressures to live in large cities which is an underlying issue. We should push policies that incentivize rural living. tax breaks incentives for work from home positions could help as well as UBI can help change the calculus.
Dont get me wrong building new houses is part of the equation as well, economics of scale is a factor. But its important to realize new house construction is also out of reach for a large chunk of the country and its not a fluke its not an accident. Wealth has been transferring to the donor class for 50 years and its starting to hurt.
johannthegoatman | 2 hours ago
More people living rural is the wrong thing to do on pretty much every front for this issue. WAY more expensive, way less housing density so less people can benefit from it, way worse for the environment, extremely inefficient
theyux | an hour ago
You are thinking of suburbs.
Wonderful-Basil-932 | an hour ago
More people living in rural areas just turns rural areas into suburbs
TropicalKing | 2 hours ago
> while the rest of the world is around 7-10X in most cases.
The rest of the world outside of culturally British countries (the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) have policies that encourage building more mid and high rise apartments and accepting that there will be many people who never buy a home and rent an apartment for their entire lives. Aggressive building of mid and high rise apartments really is something that lowers rent for everyone in the city- cities just refuse to do this in these culturally anglo-British countries.
The US has to start following the same rules that the rest of the world follows, and this means accepting some mid and high rise apartments in your city. "The American Dream" of home ownership in suburbia is practically a religion that has caused a lot of suffering and poverty.
pxer80 | 39 minutes ago
There’s a couple more levers that can be moved. Start the transition to the labor and developers and remove the red tape. Reduce private capital influence.
Let whatever bastardized form of capitalism this is, solve the problem. Pole barns, manufactured homes, additional high density units, new construction methodologies, increasing the labor supply, immigration. Dozens of ways that creativity and the desire for profit can step in, but we can’t do that with the red tape in the way.
grandmofftalkin | 4 hours ago
Isn't the real solution to raise wages?
MajesticBread9147 | 4 hours ago
That's a good thing overall especially to reduce inequality.
But the issue is that when housing is limited in major metro areas which produce the majority of economic activity, people will just bid it up.
The Bay Area has significantly higher wages than most of the country but is also very NIMBY regarding housing supply.
This just means that people are able to spend $2.5m on a 3 bedroom ranch home.
grandmofftalkin | 3 hours ago
The Bay Area is the example that always gets brought up in housing discussions but it's such an abnormal example. The Bay area is simply geographically limited commensurate to the amount of people who want to live there.
The issue is that people cannot afford houses in the suburbs of Kansas City or Chattanooga or Madison WI, or many places where home ownership should be a slam dunk. This isn't solely an inventory problem, it's a wage problem. But unfortunately when it's time to talk wages, the corporate overlords get the media to distract us about the Bay area and then we all act like the problem nationwide is unsolvable.
If we ignore California's unique problems like Prop 13, bureaucratic logjams and the Bay Area, and focus on the root cause affecting the majority of the nation it's the simple math of flat wages vs raising costs.
johannthegoatman | 2 hours ago
Wages have risen faster than inflation for decades, it's not a wage problem. Housing prices specifically have grown much faster because there's not enough supply. This has been studied ad nauseum it's not some secret we still have to figure out
limukala | 3 hours ago
If demand is still outstripping supply that will just mean an even greater proportion of income will be devoted for housing as people compete for the insufficient housing units with their increased income.
grandmofftalkin | 3 hours ago
Supply isn't the sole issue not even the driving issue stated in the article. Even if housing can be built in high demand areas the cost of construction means prices out of the reach of wages
limukala | 3 hours ago
It’s supply vs demand. The only “driving issue” mentioned in the article was the increase in demand due to low interest rates. That doesn’t change the equation.
And cost of construction is another factor limiting supply.
At the end of the day 100% of the affordability crisis is supply vs demand. There are multiple factors affecting supply, but increasing supply is the only possible thing that can actually help affordability.
PrivilegedPatriarchy | 3 hours ago
Explain how you think everyone having more money will make houses cheaper
grandmofftalkin | 3 hours ago
Not cheaper, more affordable. We're so focused on the price tags and not concerned about what's in our bank accounts. Wages haven't kept up with nominal inflation let alone the increased inflation of the last five years due to covid and tariffs and needless regional warfare
Wages are flat, corporate profits are at record highs, investors are doing great at dividend payouts this is an easy fix but the hard part is convincing the rich to do the right thing
External_Koala971 | 2 hours ago
You’re thinking that if people are wealthier houses will be more affordable?
Does it make sense when you say it out loud?
mechadragon469 | an hour ago
If we just double everyone’s income surely prices won’t change, yeah?
PrestigiousResult357 | 2 hours ago
no, because its ultimately only the top percentile that can afford to buy. your home purchasing power only rises if your wage grows relative to others.
[OP] Dry_Ant2664 | 5 hours ago
My salary is effectively the same as when I started working 10 years ago due to inflation. Yet housing prices have skyrocketed.
Tell me how you're supposed to be able to do this unless you're rich at this point.
liroyjenkins | 5 hours ago
Brace yourself. Median home price is up about 35% in 10 years.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS
Cumulative inflation is about 33%.
So home prices are basically matching inflation. Just like your income.
Difference is interest rates.
snowellechan77 | 4 hours ago
Just 35%????? Not true for my area.
RobotEnthusiast | 4 hours ago
Up over 50% in Missouri
Viva_La_Revolucion- | 4 hours ago
Up 100% in Tampa/St.Pete
rum-and-coke | 4 hours ago
South of Orlando here, can confirm. Bought in 2010 as a shortsale for ~$160k, now "appraised" and comparable (same floorplan, builder, etc.) homes in the same subdivision are $480k... with no upgrades or anything, same olf roof, AC, etc.
woah_man | an hour ago
In your instance you're comparing a buying price depressed from the housing crash in 08 though. Stuff that fell in 08 may have taken until nearly 2020 to rise back up to their previous high prices.
I agree though, prices have still gone nuts in the past 5 years.
gluedtothefloor | 4 hours ago
Easy, all the place nobody wants to fucking live at thst dont have any jobs are flat, and anywhere remotely desireable is up 60%+
dpaanlka | an hour ago
Bingo
deschamps93 | 3 hours ago
Yeah... But like.. places in bumfuk Idaho have gone down in price... So like... That's numbers yo
liroyjenkins | 4 hours ago
Guess you chose an expensive area
Cursethewind | 4 hours ago
I bought a fixer upper duplex in the hood for $157k in 2018.
Now it's worth $400k. I've barely done any work to it. I got a cash offer for $300k. Considered on taking it and running but opted against it.
I don't live in an overly expensive area.
Nepalus | 4 hours ago
Those are usually where good jobs are.
thewimsey | 4 hours ago
There are good jobs everywhere.
Nepalus | 4 hours ago
Not really. Strictly speaking there are zero states where the individual median wage matches or exceeds the income required to purchase a full median-priced standalone home.
Cursethewind | 4 hours ago
There's limitations of what's available based on where you are.
I may be able to buy six trailers on a large lot in some backwoods county, but I can guarantee I'm not going get a job unless the local dollar general hires me.
dpaanlka | an hour ago
I chose to live in civilization.
ffsudjat | 4 hours ago
Ten years ago was 2022. Home price today is 35% more expensive than that day.
discoleopard | 2 hours ago
Ten years ago was 2016, unless you’re from the future, in which case…. how’s the climate in 2032?
[OP] Dry_Ant2664 | 5 hours ago
Sooo any solutions?
powerboy20 | 4 hours ago
Put your savings for a house in the s&p. It's up 370% over the past 10 years. $50k from 2016 is worth $235k in 2026.
External_Koala971 | 4 hours ago
And it never goes down!
powerboy20 | 3 hours ago
It went down in 2020 and recovered rather quickly. The point is that low to middle class earners in a hcol area, who want a house, can't store their down payment in a hysa and expect a house anytime soon. You need to take some calculated risk.
liroyjenkins | 5 hours ago
Above my pay grade
I just do numbers
BodaciousFrank | 4 hours ago
Pray for a 2008 housing bubble crash sooner rather than later
The problem isn’t the number of houses on the market. The problem is banks/firms have bought all the houses on the market and can charge whatever prices they want for them because where else are you going to go?
DontDeleteusBrutus | 4 hours ago
If you can’t afford a home today, it is unlikely you can afford one during a house crash when they look like bad investments.
walkingthecowww | 4 hours ago
Mom and pop landlords own 80% of rental housing.
External_Koala971 | 4 hours ago
Housing crashes when job losses spike.
krsaxor | 4 hours ago
I read somewhere that 68% of US homeowners owned more than 50% equity on their homes. Even if price crashed by 30%, your still good. Plus if you were able to refi at 2-3%. Thats cheaper than renting, unless you bought in the last 5 years.
ugh_this_sucks__ | 2 hours ago
Median prices at a national level are good for economics wonks and headlines, but don’t translate into economic realities for most people — especially if a lot of the growth is at the bottom end of the market.
whats_up_doc71 | 5 hours ago
You can’t compare real prices in one area with nominal in another.
Rufio69696969 | 4 hours ago
Vote for politicians and policies that will allow more housing to be built
Pygmy_Nuthatch | 4 hours ago
The only way to become rich is to already have been rich.
The train left the station
EmperorAlgo | 3 hours ago
Home prices are more correlated to money supply than inflation.
Inflation also has price on goods which is kept low due to China being the worlds powerhouse.
wormtheology | 4 hours ago
In a nutshell? You simply aren’t. Rent or don’t have a home to call your own. There is no seller stress in the market to drive prices down in the short term. Even if there was seller stress, it’s 100% going to buyers who already have a sizable number of doors they are collecting rents on or a corporation like BlackStone or Pretium Partners which have a sizable amount of consolidated capital. Inflation is a tax on everyone, but disproportionately hamstrings the bottom 80% of earners more than the top 20%.
As for the article, I fail to see how the components in the bill are going to incentivize builders to build where profits aren’t at the highest maximum potential. The markets are going to demand more luxury apartments, comfy condos for the digital upper class nomad, and very expansive suburban developments you couldn’t do in many spaces of the country. Another bill that’s going to be muted because it can’t incentivize builders to eat the cost of millions of dollars of land value before a single pour of concrete begins. This is omitting the clear issues when it comes to local politics and zoning, and the fact that the people who can afford to bid up these properties when they are built aren’t going to be living in the fucking things.
Vulnox | 7 minutes ago
We moved back to our home state 10 years ago and your post made me curious. Since moving back I changed jobs twice and had decent pay increases each year and two large pay increases in each job change. I put my salary when we moved here in an inflation calculator and checked what that is worth in 2026 and it seems in all this time I’ve effectively only gone up $4,000/yr after inflation.
That’s a bit of a bummer. I feel we have had a somewhat optimal path too in terms of pay increases, or thought we had. Only real positive I guess is our home mortgage is locked to when we bought in 2016 with 3% interest and a home value that is nearly doubled. But it still stings to think how everything else though isn’t any more attainable and we’re really locked in to this home.
PrivilegedPatriarchy | 3 hours ago
So you have 10 additional years of experience but you aren't able to leverage that into greater compensation? Hire a career counselor or do your research and figure it out.
Routine-Yak-5013 | 4 hours ago
We just put in an offer on a home, but did have to leave our east coast city to do so. We gave up hope on ever owning around DC. Pray for us because we fear financial devastation.
[OP] Dry_Ant2664 | 5 hours ago
Extract
"With a landmark housing affordability bill in political limbo, U.S. home prices have hit an all-time high.
The median price of existing homes in June was $440,660, up 1.8% from $432,700 a year ago, according to new data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Home prices have risen for 36 straight months. "Housing affordability remains low under slowing wage growth and stronger home price growth," Ershang Liang, an economist with PNC Economics Research, said in a report.
Some other highlights from NAR's latest housing snapshot:
Median price for existing single-family homes: $446,400
Median price for condominiums and co-ops: $380,000
Median price for single-family homes in the U.S. Northeast: $564,800
Median price for single-family homes in the Midwest: $346,600
Median price for single-family homes in the South: $377,700
Median price for single-family homes in the West: $633,600
The latest data underscores the affordability crunch facing many homebuyers. Home prices have climbed for decades, with the only major drop coming during the epic housing crisis that triggered the 2008-09 financial crisis. But costs skyrocketed during the pandemic as the Federal Reserve slashed interest rates to support the economy.
Today, even modestly priced homes aimed at first-time buyers are beyond the reach of most Americans. Fewer than 4 in 10 non-homeowner households can afford a typical starter home priced around $200,000, according to LendingTree. Households need an annual income of roughly $117,000 to afford the average home, real estate firm Redfin has found.
"Without a doubt, the affordability is a major challenge for people who want to become homeowners, which is the reason why we need more supply," Lawrence Yun, NAR's chief economist, told the Associated Press."
snowflake37wao | an hour ago
Love how they didnt embed a link to the Associated Press quote they used lol. Would have read both CBS, now Im hunting for one.
Whaddduptho | 4 hours ago
Homes that are previously owned were up. Meanwhile new homes went down. When combined together they went down (at least based on the median). The 1.8% is not remarkable increase from what I know. It's typically twice that.
The_Silvana | 4 hours ago
I don't think there's a right answer here but I do think the stigma of multi-unit housing needs to be addressed, starter homes need to make a comeback, and people don't need to be living in mega square footage compounds for a family of less than 5.
HipsterBikePolice | 3 hours ago
Agreed. I grew up in a two flat house in the city. Although my parents owned it and we rented the 2nd floor. My family of five lived on a single level with three bedrooms and a small yard. I look at the downtown area of my town and really think we could use some beautiful brick two and three flat homes. It would boost the local businesses as well. Everything going up nearby is cookie cutter subdivision houses
Kooky_Arm_6831 | 2 hours ago
I dont know how its in the US but here in Germany its really ridicolous at this point. Even in East Germany without any big economy you have to pay like 300.000 Euro / Dollars for a normal flat. Same flat in Bavaria is at 500.00, with luck 4 rooms. If you want more than two kids or a office room plus two kids you have to buy a house and here in Bavaria they straight up want you to pay for one million Euros.
Some are also "clever" and sell you this sixty year old house for 700k that then needs to be fixed for another 300k.
Even houses that were sold for 360k 20 years ago are now at at least double the price.
Most young people cannot afford it anymore and on top our social security system is fucked uü more and more.
beachbaler18 | 3 hours ago
I think the solution is just smaller houses.
The US needs a lot more smaller homes so the barrier of entry is lower. Lower risks for builders. Lower price point for buyers.
mechadragon469 | 2 hours ago
Lower risk for builders but lower profitability too which is part of what hurts.
Classic_Dash_7745 | 15 minutes ago
The land costs the same if it’s a 1200 sq ft house or a 3200 sq ft house.
Dry-Environment5122 | 4 hours ago
Part of the problem is that, ignoring private equity which is a small fraction of the market and rapidly selling off stock right now to get out of the business, you really have a few classes of homeowners.
Older homeowners who are mostly paid off making cash transactions from house to house or taking out small mortgages using their entire house equity as down payment.
People who bought a home at 2 percent who can’t afford to sell because they can’t take that 2 percent with them.
People who bought in at 7 percent who are house poor, and are riding the line trying to not be underwater.
The problem is group 2 will never sell and group 3 can’t afford even a modest dip in housing prices.