Considering how crazy expensive accommodations have become the last couple of years, concentrated in the hands of greedy corporations, landlords and how little politicians seem to care about this problem, do you think we will ever experience a real estate market crash that would bring those exorbitant prices back to Earth?
I honestly think were heading for a total societal collapse. If the people with power and resources were the sort that were inclined to use it for good, they would have done it already. Given that we haven’t seen this, it’s reasonable that this accumulation at the top will continue unabated and that more and more people will fall into poverty and despair.
This is a recipe for revolution, and revolution is largely incompatible with stability, especially in the near term.
I wish this wasn’t the case. I suspect this century’'s deaths will dwarf last century’s.
Look at other countries. Huge slums / shanty towns get built and normalized long before revolution.
If you’re living in a plywood shack, but still have a phone with data, some games to play, ebt / food bank to eat, you’re not about to pick up arms. At least most people in that spot won’t.
Maybe you’re right, but it’s also possible that people in those places have been living with those conditions all their lives and it creates a kind of apathy. If you take away everything from people who thought they’d have a kind of middle-class future, we don’t quite know what that looks like yet. I suspect it won’t be exactly the same.
The younger generations today are already giving in to that apathy.
We’ll see what happens then. Apathy and despair is one possible combination. Anger and despair is another. They have very different results.
How many teenagers and twenty-somethings do you know? Do they seem angry or apathetic?
Ask anyone under 20 about climate change. Zero faith that we’re going to survive as a species
I think history is a better indicator of where human nature can go rather than current attitudes and trends.
Great point. Historically life was orders of magnitude more difficult than today. There wasn’t food banks or welfare. There wasn’t computers and phones and cheap weed and alcohol to keep folks occupied.
Average people could stand a chance against a current military with just numbers.
Zero of those things are true today, so historically there is zero chance of a revolution today.
Again, really great point.
there is no smartphone , video games and internet in the past, so people get angry easily
If you’re living in a plywood shack, but still have a phone with data, some games to play, ebt / food bank to eat, you’re not about to pick up arms.
I don’t think taking up arms is an option in most countries because of the lack of availability.
It’s not about availability, it’s about willingness. If a revolution was attempted in America, like 80% of those who pick up arms would be gunned down in the first day.
Choosing between that, at just living the rest of your days eating beans and playing games on your phone in a shack? Let’s face it.
Beans and a shack is probably actually an acceptable standard to guarantee everyone. And given enough time and spare bits of wood you can make your shack a good shack.
But right now a lot of people are suffering without their beans and shack.
It’s not about availability, it’s about willingness.
Same difference. No one is willing to start a fight with people who are well-equipped with arms and actual weapons when all they have are torches and pitchforks.
No, not same difference.
The opponent is a modern military, and I have an assault rifle and Molotov cocktails.
If I’m starving to death, yeah maybe I take up arms. If I’ve at least got some food and a charged up phone? I might tell myself I’ll take up arms tomorrow, but again, let’s face it.
No way, I think we are going to find out that circus is more important than bread, very soon. When people start needing to eat expired food and bugs, they won’t revolt as long as they have TikTok etc.
god i only hope.
No. As the effects of climate change become worse, people will migrate to cooler places, which will only push up prices in those places. Poor people will be left to live in uninhabitable and uninsurable areas, while the rich will get to live in comfort.
Climate change is essentially a class struggle, like everything else in life. As long as the 1% don’t have to suffer, nothing will be done. To get the rich to do something about climate change, it will have to affect them directly.
I also think in addition to what you mentioned people don’t want to address that the population is a problem as well. The earth more than doubled the people living on it in 70 years from all of human history, that’s not just sustainable. You can hypothetically fit 20 people in a one bedroom but just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
I’m in a hot climate and it’s far more expensive here than it is in cooler parts of the country, and it continues to be that way. Your hypothesis would be for the distant future, but that’s not what’s driving costs right now and in the immediate future.
Sure, but the premise of the question is if “we will ever have affordable housing again in our lifetime?” There is no reason to believe there will be affordable housing right now or in the immediate future, and this comment hypothesises why climate change will cause affordable housing to continue to be problematic in the distant future as well.
limate change is essentially a class struggle, like everything else in life. As long as the 1% don’t have to suffer, nothing will be done. To get the rich to do something about climate change, it will have to affect them directly.
Exactly this. Elysium comes to mind, altough it won’t be a space station in orbit but probably a densely populated blue zone in Western Antarctica defended by turret boats or some shit.
No. Expensive housing is a genie in a bottle.
Once sufficient people have purchased a house at the high price, it would be in their interest for prices to remain high. Corporate entities that buy up houses will actively lobby to make sure housing prices stay high, and the average Joe who paid that much for a house will be happy it stays that way.
I’m not so sure. Large lobbies have greater economic power than us average people, but they aren’t strong enough to defy macroeconomic trends. There are many factors that could turn and cause prices to collapse, we just don’t know when or if they will occur.
The only factors that can cause the collapse of a captured market are regulation, total market collapse, or revolution.
Total market collapse is very broad.
Fair enough.
“Second Great Depression, because we didn’t learn shit from the first one.”
I think were closer to seeing people be forced to rent every comoddity they need to live than we are to seeing full home ownership.
The opposite. I think home ownership will gradually seep away and only corporations will own houses. We’ll all basically rent small hovels from multinationals or it’ll be a package of the company we work for, like the dystopian show Severance.
That’s just decentralized feudalism where we work even more for less
They already allow children to inherit companies, why not just return us to surfdom.
“You’ll own nothing and be happy” - World Economic Forum
They really did go mask off with that one. I don’t understand anyone could’ve checked that out and signed off on it without going “surely people are going to see right through this?”. The answer is either apathy or malice, but both are equally bad for us in the end.
The solution is simple, but will never happen. Make it illegal to own a home you don’t live in.
Or at the very least make taxes paid proportionally more for each home you own past 1
What about apartments? Dorms? Would that make being homeless illegal?
Canada banned foreign ownership, and a bunch of local shell companies popped up. So it is not as simple as it sounds.
If you don’t live in the building and it’s for permanent accomodation, you don’t own any part of it. Very simple. Feel free to rent out part of the building though if you do.
Whatever mental gymnastics you did to get from there to homelessness being illegal don’t apply.
|Make it illegal to own a home you don’t live in -> Feel free to rent out part of the building though if you do.
Wouldn’t renting out a building you don’t live in be illegal? Or is AirBnB a loophole?
Wouldn’t renting out a building you don’t live in be illegal
Yes. That’s the point. You can own it if it’s your residence even if someone else lives there too.
Also you don’t seem to comprehend the concept of bed and breakfast
If there is political will, there is a way. The problem is often political will.
This is so stupid. The fact that people upvote this makes me want to go back to reddit
People here are extreme i went to reddit but quality of conversation is shit. I enjoy tildes a lot i have invite if you want quality of conversation there is amazing.
That’s not extreme. Extreme involves more guillotines.
There are 2 big obstacles we need to overcome. The first is corporate ownership of residential property. This needs to go away.
The second big issue, we need to build higher density housing, and get rid of the enormous parking spaces that take up our downtowns. Not everyone needs a house. And you can absolutely build medium density housing that doesn’t feel cramped. Sure, living in an apartment is not perfect, but you are closer to the places you want to go, and public transportation is more feasible. It’s a win-win for everyone.
The problem with high density housing is that the quality is shit. The quality is shit with lower density housing too, but things like thin walls in apartments goes a long way to people wanting to join in the sprawl. Developers fight tooth and nail against any regulations that are focused on QOL or environmental improvements (like “passive house” standards) and promise that they will make it cost far more than necessary if they are so burdened.
Sounds like the solution is to nationalize a good chunk of the home construction industry and run it at cost
Ultimately, change will only happen when the institutions start listening to the people. But we know that won’t happen as long as corporations can buy out and bribe the institutions meant to regulate them.
I can’t speak to other markets but in California, the housing bubble is in part supported by investment from around the world. Chinese and Russian nouveau rich are buying homes in CA because it’s a safe place to keep their money relative to their other options. They might even just leave them empty and watch them appreciate. It’s disgusting, when people are struggling like hell just to live.
Perhaps the state could regulate this and ban international purchases or empty homes but I highly doubt it since the horse has left the barn decades ago and this would deeply impact many rich people, and those people have influence. It would also tank the home values of many average Americans, which would be deeply unpopular as many of those folks are banking on taking that value with them to Mexico or Ecuador to retire on. So this regulation would be bad for the rich and unpopular at large. It would help the young and the poor, the two chronically underrepresented groups.
So unless we can change the entire world order, I don’t see this wholly going away. Can we make it better? I think so. We need more supply, and it needs to be high density and low cost. Those are not insurmountable. But right now, private developers and the government don’t have what it takes to do anything.
I know someone who works for a low income housing non profit and they manage 8 big apartment buildings that their non profit built or bought and they operate them as homes for low income people. They are funded by philanthropists large and small as well as some public money.
If we could find a way to direct more money to such things, we could make a real impact. Perhaps a wealth tax that goes directly to such housing.
But even then, it’s like MediCal - it will only help those in abject poverty. It wont help my cousin who is making $125k and still can’t afford to buy a home. Middle class will never get help, basically, and this is why you see them moving elsewhere.
It’s not just the Russians and Chinese. In rural wine country where I grew up, more than a third of the properties have been bought up by millionaires that visit maybe two weeks out of the year, hollowing out the town, and gentrifying anyone who was middle class or lower out of the area. Another third of what used to be rental housing is now air BnBs. Teachers and EMTs can’t afford to live within an hour drive, so public service quality has cratered. None of the kids I went to high school with still live in the area (although many commute in, as they tried to make their careers where they grew up).
While recently we’ve seen more Chinese, the Russians haven’t really made an impact. The trend (in this locality), however, was absolutely started by New York financiers, and had been ongoing for at least 15 years before foreign investment capital showed up.
This is what irritates me when people say there isn’t enough housing supply. There are 16 million vacant homes in the US. It’s not a supply issue. It’s a class and economic issue.
I know it sounds radical, but I support a law would force landlords with property that has been vacant more than six months to offer it to section 8 recipients as a rental. I think this would cause a significant positive adjustment in the market, making housing more affordable and expanding access to those who need it most. Many landlords refuse to rent to section 8 whatsoever, so if they still want to avoid those tenants, they’d have to ensure their property is rented, opening up more housing and driving down rents.
+1 to everything you said
Airbnb type situations is part of the problem too. They’re buying apartment buildings to rent out as airbnb’s. Those need to be regulated and corporations can only buy above a certain amount (maybe 10-30) or be regulated as a hotel.
Yes, that too.
Not until people get off their asses and show the 1% they have no real power. In order to make an omelet, you need to break some eggs. It is long past time to crack some shells.
The only way that the 1% lose their power is if the rest of us unanimously decide they no longer have power. Which is why there is so much effort put into preventing any kind of agreement.
It’s obvious that rich billionaires sometimes make poor decisions. There has to be a way to exploit that.
There is, but you practically have to be in their inner circle to do that.
I’m sure there’s a way to get into that.
Problem is, the 1% have so much wealth that they do indeed have the power.
In order to make an omelet, you need to break some eggs
— Joseph Stalin
they have no real power.
Wuahaha. They’ll crush that tiny rebellion of yours with hired forces aka police, who’s prime purpose is to protect property, not people.
The problem is not suitable housing, there’s plenty of that in the US, the problem is getting people to states where housing is affordable without significant drops in quality of life due to lack of access to services and such.
Like, you could buy land in Detroit for the price of a decent car, put a trailer on it and you’re already on the property ladder, but you’re in Detroit.
This sounds great, but when people start moving, pricing goes up. There’s too much investing and too little self-ownership of housing.
The rise would be slow if it’s spread out. In my country it’s one of the better ways to build equity. Buy where it’s cheaper and wait for prices to go up.
Then sell it in 10 years and buy where you want to live, you’ll have atleast half the money and definitely more than what you paid for it
Only if capitalism falls. Otherwise zero chance. Sry.
Well, birth rate is steadily dropping. As people die the housing market could change. There are free houses in rural Japan because their population has been declining and young folks all moved to the cities. In 30-50 years we could see something similar.
That’s a good point. Well now I’m much happier to not have kids.
No. Not because of overpopulation or such, but because the powers that be have simply discovered how lucrative it is to use housing as a business investment, and the fact that everyone NEEDS housing, no exceptions.
This is essentially a supply problem, so the “supply side” of this equation is the side with all the power. The end.
No. Not because of overpopulation, but because the central bank is devaluing the currency. That transfers wealth from all of us and gives it to TPTB.
Costs of housing have grown significantly faster than most other costs, it’s not just regular inflation
And some things have experienced price deflation. It’s all still related. Point still stands - central banking is the primary issue.
I suspect that a strong push for fully remote work would help the US with housing costs due to a chunk of the workforce moving out of the cities and into the boonies.
That already fucked long island. “Everyone” moved out of NYC and bought all the housing on l.i when COVID hit and WFH started, now it’s completely unaffordable for anyone under the age of 40 and/or unmarried.
The listings have just become a joke. 300k+ for a twice burned down shed posing as a house in a flood zone and in the worst towns. It’s absolutely asinine…
Just keep building, and change zoning laws to make that easier.
Yesterday I caught this little tidbit from the Denver news as I walked through my company’s break room:
Consumers are facing a double whammy as housing is both too expensive and there’s not enough of it.
As someone who grew up before macroeconomics was declared evil and apparently purged out of higher education, it’s no mystery to me that a market with inadequate supply will have high prices.
I’m not necessarily familiar with the exact definition of “macroeconomics” in this context, and I’m far too young to understand the cultural nuances you describe.
But I’m pretty sure it doesn’t take more that two brain cells to understand that the latter point is almost always the direct cause of the former.
It’s been 20 years since I took the class, but I think basically microeconomics is individual decision-making, and macroeconomics is market-level trends.
So an average market price over time is a macroeconomic model and a household’s maximum budget for groceries is a microeconomic model.
Supply and demand curves exist in macro.
What’s the deal with it being declared evil then? It makes a lot of sense.
Consumers are facing a double whammy as housing is both too expensive and there’s not enough of it.
oh Denver. It’s been that way in Portland for several years now.
No. With climate change more land will be unlivable, there will be more conflicts and more immigration (legal and illegal). Housing will increase because demand is high and supply will shrink further b
