The Housing Crisis will be the death of the Western World

All those places experiencing mass immigration too.

No, the non-Anglosphere doesn't have the same crisis as America, Canada, Australia, etc. The problem isn't a demand one, it's a supply one. People must be allowed to build more housing. I read a statistic that showed NYC produced more housing in the 60s than in the last decade.

....and wha'ts crazy about that is that NYC grew far more (in percentage terms) in the last decade vs the 60s.

I dont have a problem with regulations per se, but this is something I can point to where California screwed up. The legislature should have been focusing on preserving the middle class (i.e., limiting corporate and foreign investors buying up single family homes) years ago

it's not just building more housing, it's not allowing corporations to buy uo all the available housing and raise rents by 50-100 percent.

[quote] The problem isn't a demand one, it's a supply one. People must be allowed to build more housing.

Bullshit.

I live in a city with tons of homeless, and I see CONSTANT construction and building with no occupancy.

NO ONE CAN AFFORD to live in these new places they're building.

But as I read on a different thread, most of these new homes and condos are built just for rich foreigners to park their money and launder their dirty money. They don't actually live there. These places sit empty.

So stop the bullshit about building more and building more.

We don't need more building and construction. That is NOT the solution.

We need to stop foreign ownership, and impose regulations on house flipping.

Homes MUST be for people to live, and NOT to be used as a money making venture.

It is completely out of control.

A home is not like stocks or gold. A home is supposed to be a place for people to actually LIVE.

All that constant construction is for the foreign market.

Any time you see the words “luxury housing”, we are being scammed

[quote] A home is not like stocks or gold. A home is supposed to be a place for people to actually LIVE.

Except that's not how most people in America view it. Certaintly not most people who currently own homes. They view it as an asset that needs to appreciate greatly over time.

[quote] We don't need more building and construction. That is NOT the solution.

Interesting how that's not the case in Austin, Texas. Austin continues to build homes and it's rents are actually decreasing. Unlike cities like Chicago, NYC, LA, etc. where housing construction is minimal.

*its, not it's

It's a vicious cycle, places want employees to work for the businesses there in restaurants and stores but there's no olace anyone can live within an hour or two of the place. Who can afford to travel for suck low pay? Then cities have the nerve to complain that no one wants to work. No one wants to travel hours a day to work somewhere they can't afford to live.

Burlington Vermont has built thousands of apartments and still has less than 1 percent availability for housing. Studios are going for 1600 a month, 1 bedrooms for 2500 and 2 bedrooms for 3000+. The average worker here makes 20 bucks an hour.

Our homeless population per capita is, going off memory, third in the nation. Businesses in town are closing because no one will work for the wages paid and people won't go downtown because of the homeless. Minimum wage workers are tasked with being threatened all day by the homeless while at the same time being on the verge or homelessness themselves.

That turned into a rant but it's a topic that really pisses me off.

Hundreds of thousands of housing units sit empty from coast to coast.

The idea of building more is developer propaganda - who of course want to build more cheap nasty overpriced shit (and wipe out historic centers wherever they can).

The real crisis is one of financing.

In the U.S. an average home today is nearly 3 times larger than an average home in 1950.

The permitting process is onerous/expensive so only large developers can afford it, and they only build large homes.

Current land use laws only allow for one type of development: Suburban sprawl.

In conclusion affordable, sustainable housing and human-scale communities are illegal to build.

[quote] Except that's not how most people in America view it

Well that's what's wrong with the system.

Real estate developers and agents have twisted the narrative about housing.

All of these fucking HGTV house flipping shows have changed the mindset from home LIVING, to home flipping.

Fuck the people who actually need a place to live. It's all about MONEY MONEY MONEY.

Homes are no longer viewed as a place for a single person or family to live, and put down roots, and build a community.

Homes are now like stocks and bonds, buy and sell, buy and sell.

That is so FUCKED UP, and it is so uniquely American.

THAT is why our society is so fucked up, and that is why we have so many homeless.

Governments must regulate the system, or the housing problem will only get worse.

I don't care what some idiot real estate agent with no education tells me. A home is NOT for profit. A home is a place to LIVE.

[quote] That is so FUCKED UP, and it is so uniquely American.

But it's not. It is just as bad in Canada, Australia, the UK, etc. These countries have housing issues that are as bad, if not worse, than America.

I would like to buy a smaller house but there really isn’t anything like that here, and I am reluctant to buy a condo. There’s got to be a market for normal-sized houses. I don’t need a screening room or a wine cellar.

If governments do not start moving on this in terms of policy, they risk destabilizing - or better said, further destabilizing - entire nations.

I pay 2000 a month for a 650 square foot 2 bedroom and consider myself LUCKY with that. In Vermont. I think that sums up everything pretty well.

It's shocking to me in the video at op that Australians in Sydney are paying 800 per WEEK for a 2 bedroom apartment, and 650 per week for a 1 bedroom apartment.

No wonder the homeless population there is skyrocketing.

And it's just for an average apartment. Nothing fancy at all.

r10 laid it out nicely. So many problems right now, and nothing is being done about the insane cost of housing.

Where I live the lowest you can get for a one bedroom is around $1500 per month, and that's in an old building with no frills, nothing fancy at all. And in a neighborhood that's not very great either. If you want a one bedroom in a nice neighborhood in a nice building or complex you're looking at a bare minimum of $2000 per month. It's fucking ridiculous.

[quote]I would like to buy a smaller house but there really isn’t anything like that here, and I am reluctant to buy a condo. There’s got to be a market for normal-sized houses. I don’t need a screening room or a wine cellar.

This is also my situation. I live alone and don't have kids. I don't need a frigging four bedroom house with a finished basement, "bonus rooms," a kitchen the size of a helicopter hangar and all that shit. A nice little two bedroom house would be just fine but there aren't that many around here.

Yes this is my problem as well. I live alone and would love to have a small home with 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom but newer homes are only built for huge families. I guess single people are all expected to be renters and live in apartments.

Someone posted this in the "Mixed-Use Condo Thread":

[bold]OP let me explain something to you.

See this? This little tropical slice of Blade Runner? This is Brickell Avenue. This used to be the Central Business District.

Can you name on single corporation off the top of your head that is headquartered in Miami?

These are all condominium towers.

Most of these are less than twenty years old.

The year round occupancy for these buildings is I imagine, less than twenty percent. Have you been to downtown Miami in the summer? You could take a shit in the center of Flagler Street and nobody would notice. Nobody lives here. Fifty, sixty story skyscrapers are completely dark in the evening.

Developers do not want home owners associations to have powers because the point of these towers is for nobody to live there full time.

These are safety deposit boxes. Money is laundered, parked in real estate and then the condos are rented out or used as hotel rooms. The owner may come for a week or two during Art Basel. But then it’s back to Taipei or Medellin or Jakarta or Doha or whatever fucking kleptocracy they came from. Nobody is supposed to take up residence in these residences.[/bold]

I need one of those story book houses in Carmel - except not in Carmel. I need a seating area, a kitchen area, and a sleeping nook. I should be able to clean the entire place in three hours. I don’t need a fireplace or a designated big screen tv wall.

In my state they have recently passed laws allowing multiple houses on single lots and so forth. However, people seem slow to jump on these opportunities (including me). I own a vacant lot behind my home, but the effort to develop it myself seems overwhelming, and relinquishing it to a stranger or group of strangers giving them complete control over what might turn out to be something monstrous blocking my views is also a non-starter. However, I recognize, intellectually, that people have to live in smaller homes than they feel they "deserve", because I don't see any mechanisms in place to lower the prices of the current larger homes spread across most cities and suburbs. I know lots of people from families where 4 people shared a 1000 sq foot home, and they turned out just fine. But I notice they don't rush to recreate that living situation for themselves if they can avoid it.

There is no lack in supply. It is just that hedge funds are outbidding people. Then they are raising rents to high heaven which is a mean to stimulate growth of house prices.

The new feudalism.

I also think that a lot of people bought up houses when prices and interest rates were lower and have been using them for airbnbs. This takes them out of the market, turning what could be permanent housing into temporary housing.

Spiralling rents and sky-high property prices risk becoming a key battleground of European politics as far-right and populist parties start to exploit growing public anger over the continent’s housing crisis, experts have said.

Jerusalem Demsas and Annie Lowrey in the Atlantic have done solid writing on this topic over the past few years. Summary: there is indeed a massive shortage of housing.

I hate the term 'housing crisis'. It's like saying 'climate change'. Call it what it is- plain, old overpopulation.

It doesn't matter how many new homes are built.

The corporations and foreign investors will just snap up all the new inventory, because they're the only ones who can afford it, and they can outbid any single buyer who makes an offer.

Then once they own the new properties, they just jack up the rents and home prices to amounts which are completely unaffordable.

It truly is the new feudalism.

The government must intervene to provide affordable housing for people.

There's no other choice.

The "free market" has proven to be not so free, because the rich are locking the middle class out of the process.

The problem could be easily solved if Biden and EU rulers weren't shameless corporate shills.

Just use commercial and residential property for their real purpose, as should be lawful. If a building is residential it has no business being commercialized and serve as hotel, like the flats that serve as Airbnb. I think that this is already not legal, but it is tolerated, because big corporations that hold Airbnb and Booking.com platforms are involved. I have read an article from a lawyer stating that this should not be permitted (using property registered as residential for commercial purposes, which is tourism) according to EU laws, but governments are turning a blind eye.

Second, if the property is residential, corporations should be banned from owning them. They can own commercial property, but have no business in residential.

Housing should be protected and given special treatment, because it is necessary for people. It is basic human rights. It should not be left to greedy and sociopath investors. It is as if, in times of pandemics, you permitted corporations to buy all the vaccines and sell them for extremely high prices. Investors should invest in stocks, bonds, gold, luxury products. Keep them away.

Plus, not even people should not be allowed to buy houses as investment, they should not be allowed having more than what they need for personal usage plus maybe one or two they would rent (and not hold them empty.)

The most recent Australian 2021 Census reveals that 10.1% (1,043,776 homes) of Australia's 10,318,997 private dwellings were unoccupied on the night of the Census. 20 Jan 2024.

A lot of them are foreign owned properties. Then there's Airbnb. Then there's the lack of workforce to build the new dwellings required. Then there was the point where homes became an investment portfolio for the well off who are now able to outbid everyone else to get what they want because they can afford it. My neighbour directly across the road owns 11 different properties which they rent out. There are so many interconnecting problems. Australia doesn't have a large homeless population but that could change.

A lot of people can't afford to buy their own home anymore. Where are they going to live when they get old?

R30 No, overpopulation is not the main reason.

My country had significant decrease in population. It have lost about half a million of young people who went to live in western Europe last ten years, since we joined the EU. Yet, the prices went to high heaven. It is because of foreign investors buying property, particularly on the coast. Dubrovnik has become the most unaffordable town in Europe, even though most young people moved out and older people already have homes. Then also there are domestic schemers who have too much money on them and are buying houses. It is estimated that about 600000 units (in a country of less than has 3,5 mil. inhabitants) are empty, because owner don't want to bother with renters. They are just saving in bricks and concrete.

In the meantime young people can not afford to buy or rent so they live with their parents. Or move to Germany.

R31 they like to refer to free market when they are outbidding people, but they were not such die hard when Obama was saving their bank with billions of taxpayers money or when they were thrown helicopter money during the pandemics.

I believe that the exact helicopter money they received from governments is the same money they use to buy off people's homes. So we gave them the money to pull us out of the housing market.

The product of globalism is cheap t-shirt, tacos and TVs. But the pirc eis unaffordable healthcare and housing

Everyone will soon be levered up to his/her eyeballs in max debt, real estate will be priced for absolute perfection (meaning absolutely nothing can go wrong) and then it'll happen: Something WILL go wrong, and the great unwinding will begin. Any little hiccup in the economy or God forbid: A RECESSION!!! will rip these overpriced homes away from their overstretched "owners" so fast it'll make their heads spin. Reversion to the mean. It always happens eventually. Tick-tock.

Gonna be real hard to pay that 'priced for perfection' mortgage payment (not to mention the property taxes, maintenance, HOA fees, etc) when you've got no job!

R24

This (allowing three homes on one lot) is about to happen in Austin at the same time hideous apartment complexes as well as high rises are going up left and right - this city has become utterly dystopian and we’re watching it in real time. So depressing.

The rich are the problem.

Even in Slovenia, which has one of the better examples of welfare state preservation, when the administration was preparing ground for property taxation, they discovered that 10% of inhabitants held almost 40% in property value.

Something should be done about the house collectors. Either nationalize it or tax them so heavily they would get rid of the property themselves. Because, they are not just buying villas and luxury penthouses, they are buying one bedroom apartments.

This is what we supposedly have a government for.

Another argument for regulated capitalism. Human greed is a fact of life and needs to be checked in all areas of capitalist markets from securities to real estate.

Absolutely R41. But when big corporations get in trouble they get all the help from the government, Obama gave them billions of taxpayer money after the 2008th world crisis. They got taxpayer billions once again during Covid crisis.

Never did it occur to Biden and his administration to demand these mfs he was pumping with money during the pandemics to refrain from price gouging when it comes to bare necessities like food and housing or to stop outbidding people on housing market. Let alone do something, try to regulate it this.

He is just their puppet, when it comes to wars, when it comes to economy. It is silly when people call him a leftist. Only if they mean the socialism for big corporations he is enabling. While there is feudalism for ordinary people.

Actually it's another argument against capitalism.

I noticed years ago that there were no more normal-sixed homes being built. People with some wealth buy the big, new homes, the rest have to buy what they can afford: old homes, 50-100 years old, that require more upkeep.

Corporations are buying up all the real estate. Governments need to pass laws that to significantly restrict what companies can acquire regarding residential property.

Unfortunately where I am a lot of those old normal-sized houses are in very expensive areas. The further out from the city you go, the houses aren't quite so old (1970s and 80s) but these are being torn down and replaced by enormous new houses.

Gov't wants high home prices because that means more property taxes for their fat asses! And then there's the "wealth effect." We ain't gonna see any help from the very gov't that blew this gigantic bubble to begin with.

R30 isn’t wrong. Specialization leading to industrialization leading to globalization has distorted our relationship to our food sources and labor sources to such a degree that massive (still growing!) populations are now balanced upon fragile towers of western debt and 3rd world labor. Most countries couldn’t even feed themselves if they needed to, which is kind of insane.

R47 exactly. I don’t know who are people that still support Biden and his administration. Must be upper middle class pricks or elderly people who bought few properties for 5000 dollars back in 70s and are now living off rent or have a house and managed to save some money in better days. People who only care about their own ass and keep repeating how they will lose their rights under Trump. While it is exactly the politics they supports that will bring Trump and European right in power.

Plus they don’t care that Biden government already took off basic rights of anyone who is not upper class. Not to mention the victims of wars he is supporting.

Talk to people, they don’t give a shit anymore about your lies.

Corporations aren't buying up all the real estate. The housing market is still frozen because people aren't going to trade their 1.5% mortgage for a 7.5% one. It will only unfreeze when house prices drop, which is supposed to be happening with quantitive tightening, but they're not dropping enough. Corporations are actually selling the RE they picked up for cents on the dollar during the financial crisis.

Now the biggy big landlords like Invitation Homes are getting into build-to-rent communities. Building professionally managed communities of single-family houses for rent, with their own leasing and maintenance office, is the hottest trend in new house construction.

“Build-to-rent” has attracted homebuilders, from the biggest on down. And it has attracted the biggest single-family landlords that, instead of buying houses scattered all over the place to be rented out, are buying entire build-to-rent communities from homebuilders; and some also have their own build-to-rent construction programs where they buy the land and build these communities and lease them out.

Having entire communities of new build-to-rent houses with their own leasing and maintenance offices is more efficient for the landlord than older houses with more maintenance requirements scattered all over the place.

And the biggest landlords have begun selling thousands of older houses scattered all over the place, given their higher management costs and the sky-high prices they bring in this overpriced market.

[quote] The legislature should have been focusing on preserving the middle class (i.e.,

As good progressives the California legislator types despise the middle class (i.e.𝘭𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘨𝘦𝘰𝘪𝘴𝘦)

Foreign owners should pay higher property taxes. It’s not like they can’t afford it.

R52 I have read that Italy havd avoided the bubble because they have very high taxes for properties their owner is not using as his permanent residence.

Renting is better. The expenses and work of home ownership can be staggering. Spend as you go and enjoy life more instead of amassing wealth for an old age which may never come, or for a future which may be unrecognizable in 20-30 years with all that's sitting out there.

^Klaus Schwab

And let's not forget it takes two incomes, now (dad and mom), vs the old days when there was usually only one.

R54 Klaus, just the tiny detail that rent has doubled in last few years, tends to go up even more and that no laws are protecting renters.

What about when you get old, have the small pension and won't be able to pay the rent?

R50 Wrong. At least regarding big cities like NYC. Real estate management and real estate investment companies are buying up all the properties. ALL. Most of the existing 1-3 family houses are long paid off by the owners and are selling then because they are being offered very generous and even above market values to investment companies. They raze them and replace them with 6-8 story apartment buildings and condos .

Most of the new housing stock that's being built in my area are McMansions that are ridiculously large, ridiculously overpriced and butt-fucking-ugly. They take up most of the lot, and they're built with cheap materials that will start falling apart in ten or so years and of course that will be a maintenance nightmare. They're such eyesores but that's all that's being built these days throughout the US.

[quote] They're such eyesores but that's all that's being built these days throughout the US.

Funny but that all was just what was said about all those cookie cutter post-war suburban housing developments

[quote] Real estate management and real estate investment companies are buying up all the properties. ALL

Absurd. Try doing some actual research instead of going all MARY! without any sourcing. I hate corporations meddling in real estate but the housing crisis isn't just about corporate villains:

The actual imprint of very large-scale investors on the single-family home market is much more modest, though not insignificant. The Urban Institute released a report in April 2023 called “A Profile of Institutional Investor-Owned Single-Family Rental Properties” and it is very clarifying. As of June 2022, the report estimates that roughly 574,000 single-family homes nationwide were owned by institutional investors, defined as entities that owned at least 100 such homes. This comprises 3.8 percent of the 15.1 million single-unit rental properties in the US. Those single-family rentals, in turn, are about a third of the total rental housing units (46.6 million) in the country; the other two-thirds are in multifamily apartment buildings. And single-family rentals are only about 17% of America’s 90 million single-family homes.

R60, the houses of the mid-century, when not glass-walled follies designed for the wealthy, could indeed be architecturally dull.

They were not the bloated grotesqueries today's houses are.

Bring back Sears kit style homes

R61, forget it. Some of the people on this thread would rather believe the problem is evil foreigners and corporations buying property versus the fact that housing has been underbuilt for almost two decades now.

R63 - Bring back Levittown NY- 17,000 detached single family houses built from 1947 to 1952. The first Levittown houses sold for $7,900 . In today’s money $113,000 for a brand new house.

Home and rent prices never go down.

As much as people like to say that the market goes up and down, it really doesn't.

It just goes up.

The only problem now is that it has gone up exponentially, to prices that are unattainable for most people besides the very rich.

Unless you had your foot in the door when prices were still affordable, it is now completely out of reach for the average person.

And prices are never coming down, because there is an endless line of wealthy people, corporations, and foreign investors willing to buy up the inventory.

I'm not sure of the current trends in small towns or suburbs or rural areas, but in big cities the overwhelming majority of the desirable private home properties changing hands are being sold to companies, not other individuals. Companies buy them sight unseen before private individuals can get a chance to see them. Why? Because they care about the lot's location, they don't give a shit about the house itself.

This is a perfect example of what's wrong with the system.

Real estate has only become about making money, at the expense of the average person who is just looking for a place to live.

[quote] ‘I made millions for doing nothing!’: How rapper Vanilla Ice built a real estate and media empire

There’s a long list of celebrities who made a fortune and lost it all. Burt Reynolds, Mike Tyson and Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson have all filed for bankruptcy in the past. Francis Ford Coppola has filed for bankruptcy three times.

Many believed Robert Van Winkle, better known as Vanilla Ice, would find himself on that list after his music career withered away.

However, the rap star has managed to build a business empire after he left the spotlight. Divorce records obtained by the Daily Mail showed that he was worth $9 million in 2018. According to Celebrity Net Worth, his net worth is now at $20 million.

“I made millions for doing nothing!” Van Winkle told comedian Steve-O on a recent episode of his podcast "Steve-O's Wild Ride!"

Here’s how the one-hit-wonder built a lucrative real estate and media empire.

Van Winkle’s biggest career break was his hit song “Ice Ice Baby” released in August 1990. The song was an instant hit and went on to become the party anthem of the 90s. “We were selling a million records a day, easy!” he told Steve-O.

Unfortunately, Van Winkle’s rap career nosedived after “Ice Ice Baby,” but the track was successful enough to help him accumulate a large portfolio of real estate.

He said he bought homes "all over the country" that he "never used." When he decided to offload his properties, Van Winkle says he was surprised by how lucrative the investments had been. “They sold really quick and I made millions for doing nothing! I didn't even change the carpet ... and I go holy s— let's go buy a bunch more of them.”

When one of his homes was destroyed by Hurricane Andrew in 1992, he decided to renovate it himself and sold it. This experience sparked a lifelong fascination with real estate. Van Winkle says he went to design school and worked as a general contractor for several years.

As of 2018, he was making $800,000 a year, according to court documents released during his divorce at the time.

All this experience buying and renovating homes gave him the tools he needed to craft a long-term business strategy.

After 30 years of investing in real estate, Van Winkle says he has developed a game plan. He says he prefers to buy properties that are off-market and not listed on the multiple listing service (MLS).

Off-market deals are rare. Only 3% of homebuyers surveyed by the National Association of Realtors in 2023 said they purchased their property directly from the seller or knew the seller instead of going through agents or online listing services.

He also buys distressed houses and property tax liens. He says he "puts out tax dockets on properties" which gives him a chance to buy the assets "for pennies on the dollar."

Renovating these properties adds value, but Van Winkle also uses the renovation process for content. His reality TV series "The Vanilla Ice Project" on the DIY Network has 180 episodes across 13 seasons, adding another source of income for the savvy entrepreneur.

This diversified real estate and media empire has helped the former rap star expand and preserve his wealth.

When the competition becomes brutal enough, many will choose to just exit the market. At a certain point, the delusion just isn't worth it.

There is no "greater good" when it comes to Real Estate developers.

It's always and only ever about money.

Here's a story about the only Greyhound Bus terminal in Dallas having to close, because the building housing the terminal was bought out by a real estate developer who wants to turn the location into a giant building.

Who does this affect? The POOR, naturally.

Poor people who rely on the bus will have to go without service, until Greyhound can find a new location.

Never mind that it's their only source of interstate transportation, because of the low cost.

It's really sad what has happened to this country.

This country has never been anything BUT a massive real estate bubble.

In the story at R70, watch this point in the video.

It's the most important part of the story.

Alden Global Capital, a Manhattan HEDGE FUND company, is buying up all of these Greyhound stations across the country. 33 in total for $140,000,000.

That's cheap real estate for them to come in and demolish the stations and put up monstrous buildings where they can charge 10-50x the rent for people to lease out their space.

Interestingly, they're also buying newspaper companies, and gutting the staff.

These real estate companies are "diversifying their portfolios" and buying other types of businesses, gutting their staff and cutting costs, so they can turn a profit and in turn buy more cheap real estate to build high-priced buildings, and charge exorbitant rents.

Pay attention, people. This is what's happening behind the scenes, and it's what's driving the high home and rent prices.

You would never imagine that a bus station closing down or a newspaper being bought out, would affect real estate prices.

But it does.

Alden Global Capital.

Private equity is only getting started. Having both privatized healthcare AND utilities will be like having the worst of the US and the UK at once

The return of feudalism

TPTB are gearing-up for a Russia-like future of vast, tiny apartments to house all the aging people without retirement savings.

Seems like we need Comrade Tito to solve this.

When he came to power in Yugoslavia on 1945, he expropriated and nationalized the surplus of square meters families, individuals and companies had and gave them to one who needed them.

Not a bad idea. Maybe people will lose their patience eventually and people will seek the same solution.

House Flippers are vile POS. They should be outlawed.

Well, R78, you better learn how to do your own fixer-upper then -- gut, carpentry, dry wall (a m'fucker), masonry, flooring, basic plumbing and wiring, stripping, sanding, painting, installing new bathrooms and kitchens, landscaping, etc etc. Do it yourself and see. Pay now or pay later -- but you will pay one way or another if you want decent housing.

It can all be fixed within two years.

-Stop foreigners who don’t LIVE in a country from buying property in cities, force sellers to at current market value of existing city propertied owned by foreigners.

- Make it law that 75% of new developments should be made up of affordable unity, with pricing and applications regulated by the state.

- Build 100% state-owned apartment buildings in said cities, with controlled rents

[quote] Build 100% state-owned apartment buildings in said cities, with controlled rents

It's been done. Didn't work out very well

Well they should do a better job then. Garden apartments, how hard is it?

Vienna has shown the way since the 1920s how well run, beautiful built public housing works. And that is why it’s one of the few affordable metropolises left.

Vienna urban renewal got a big head start

There’s always a reason why we can’t have nice things. Not even a concrete apartment building.

These comments nail some of the factors -- but another one is, this crisis is a massive example of the "drawbridge syndrome." (You know, where I made it over the drawbridge and now I want to pull it up so you can't make it over too because that works out better for me)

Any push to build more entry-level housing units tends to run into huge opposition from those who "made it" into the homeowner market and don't want to risk their property values falling. That, together with NIMBY protests, e.g. "well okay sure we have nothing against new affordable housing BUT NOT HERE, NOT NEAR US!"

It’s true. They should just build in the Grand Canyon or something, we have plenty of room in the US. Build outer exurbs, let us work from home.

People do need to leave overpopulated areas. But even random places like Lincoln Nebraska are expensive

The government needs to build middle-class homes - end of story. Provide good paying jobs and sell them with low to minimum profit.

The housing companies are only interested in the higher end, maximum profit builds - and it's not working.

So fuck them and we got to start building ourselves - and not expect this dream of middle class housing to suddenly be built. It won't.

damn Damn DAMN!!

R89 the situation has gotten so out of control that this will bring far right to power.

In Europe, it was young people voting far right, boomers voted for center right or center left to preserve what they got. In US, the greed of liberal elites will bring Trump back.

I got the feeling that the far right is the corporate back up, even though rnow the corporations are hissing at them through their mainstream media, because they very much prefer center, like Dems or EPP in Europe (corporate centre right, which is not really right, it is a centrist globalist party similar to Democratic party). Just like fake left, the Fraud squad or European Greens are corporate back up.

They all serve to prevent real left, who would care for working majority emerging. Have you noticed how "left" parties turned to minorities exclusively, pushing the majority away. This is not left politics. Even French Communist party has become party that has Muslim and middle upper class voters. Workers turned to le Pen. The fake left is actively pushing working and middle class to the right. The capital probably expects to be saved from unrests this way.

Is it housing that's expensive, or has the Fed just successfully killed the value of the dollar with their reckless and limitless printing?

[quote] Is it housing that's expensive

Median home prices are running between $500,000 on the lower end in less popular markets, and well over a million on the higher end in the most popular markets.

Clearly, it's the house that's expensive.

The housing crisis is not identical with large homeless populations. Those are partially related but separate issues. Many homeless struggle with addiction and for some, being homeless is the consequence, not the cause of their misery. Drugs aren't cheap and need to come from somewhere.

Everything else is expensive now too, R94. The Fed destroyed the value of our dollar. We were robbed.

Maybe instead of foreigners being allowed to buy up whatever they can to park their money, they should stipulate that foreigners can only park their money in affordable housing - either existing or creating.

There's a danger in overbuilding for a population that is shrinking. The Japanese real estate market has cratered. People bought tiny expensive condos in Tokyo for hundreds of thousands of dollars back in the day, and now are having trouble unloading them for 25,000. The US population is still expanding, albeit very slowly. (It would be declining except for immigration). In the US, the current problem isn't a shortage of housing everywhere. There are lots of dying rural communities where the housing stock is virtually worthless, because people don't want to live in such small communities with no amenities. For 50 miles around my town, the housing is very expensive. Go to 60 miles away, and suddenly house prices drop by hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's just a little too far to commute. But almost all medium to large cities are growing and having a housing shortage and/or prices that are out of reach for the average buyers. However, it has been that way for a long time in the larger cities. When's the last time that a middle-class person would be buying a stand-alone house or a town house in Manhattan? Maybe 1910? Condos or coops, yes, but not stand-alone houses.

You make a good point, R98. Housing prices in the Philadelphia area are ridiculous, just like every other major metro area. But drive 90 minutes into Pennsylvania and you'll find old industrial towns and small cities that are shrinking fast. The housing is cheap, but it's all old stock, mostly outdated and in bad shape. There's no incentive to build new housing or renovate up to modern standards because no one is moving in.

The people who used to live there, or their children, live in the Philly area now, or (more often) in NC, FL or TX. They move because that's where the jobs are. I don't think it's lack of amenities so much as lack of jobs that are causing people to leave small cities that don't have a strong economic base in the form of a university or the like.

The problem is not that people can not afford a real house, but a one bedroom apartment neither.

In the 1950-1980s a young married couple with a single income could afford to buy a house and manage the mortgage , children, living expenses, etc. Today buying housing is a pipe dream to most.

OP- Off topic but that guy in your photo is hot. Someone on another thread said discussing a guy's looks even if the thread has nothing to do with that is NEVER off topic.

I would provide him with housing if he provided me with himself 😉

R80 reads practically like gibberish. English. Proofread. Try both.

R101, Not the 1980s. No.

But you now touch upon much larger economic topics: Wages. Salaries. Unions. Pensions. Ratios of $, CEO to Employee. Post-War Industrial America vs. Post-Industrial Global Capitalism America. Tax laws favoring and abetting the 1%, who in turn bribe politicians to give the wealthy more, such as hedge fund license to prey. De-regulation. Citizens United decision that "corporations are persons."

Looming above and behind all is this country's tacit admission that our only god is Mammon.

If Trudeau loses the next election a major factor will be the housing crisis here in Canada.

This summarizes what many have realized. The anglosphere attitude towards housing as an investment needs to change if we want to help prevent housing speculation.

How exactly would we change that attitude? Only having a nation of renters would cause that kind of shift in values. Too many people are bought in, and they give their kids down payment money to perpetuate the cycle.

Ban HGTV and their endless stupid fucking house flipping shows, for one.

Dismantling Airbnb would be a good start.

R108, I am kind of a doomer about it for that reason. The "housing as an investment" thing really took off after WW2. So generations of people have been raised on that idea. It will take some kind of disaster to turn people around. Crises always seem to inspire action so let's hope for that.

2008 was the only chance for action, but the bankers put a gun to our heads and made themselves whole again and kicked the can down the road. Not much new construction in the US since then either.

R109, That horse is practically the last one to leave the TV barn!

Remember the 1980s "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous"? There's your Ur. We then went from admiration to grasping aspiration. From satisfaction to discontentment. From sufficient to never enough. From Haves to Want Mores.

And then the addiction to wealth kicked in, as the Dividend Class called the rest of us "Useless Eaters and Takers," as they picked the benefits from our pockets and charged more for our gruel.

Yet television only reflects what we value. Trump and Musk have hosted SNL, FGS. No shunning there!

Whatever is causing this housing crisis goes to our national psyche.

I would love to have bought a house, but it was always just out of my reach. I spent my 30's and 40's paying back my 9% interest student loans that I took out in 1993. Finally had them paid off fully in 2014. That was money that would have gone towards a house payment. My parents were poor. I was poor. No money for college, no money for cars or house down payments. They had four kids because they were religious and gave no thought to how they would be able to afford to raise them.

I'm 55 now. Even IF I was suddenly able to afford a house, it would never be paid off before I die. There's no point to it now. I wouldn't look at it as an investment, but rather just a place to live and call my own, even though while I'm making payments on it, it's not really mine.

This country is really fucked up when simply wanting the safety of a home is out of reach for so many.

Student loans are fucking so many people. It's making them truly unable to live like actual adults.

On Friday, Google and real estate group Lendlease called off plans to build 15,000 homes in the San Francisco Bay Area, as housing developers continue to exit the troubled region.

Construction on Downtown West was paused in April after the demolition phase had already begun, according to CNBC. The project risks becoming a permanent eyesore to the San Jose community, at a time when investments can’t come soon enough.

San Jose’s opioid overdoses have tripled since 2018, according to the San Jose Spotlight, and real estate sales in Santa Clara County have dropped 14% this year, according to NBC. Issues that are, unfortunately, common in California these days continue to batter the Bay Area, and Google pulling investments in the community does not help.

[quote] On Friday, Google and real estate group Lendlease called off plans to build 15,000 homes in the San Francisco Bay Area, as housing developers continue to exit the troubled region.

In other words, the Bay Area was there for Google, but Google isn't there for the Bay Area.

Pretty typical of land developers.

It's been about profit for a long, long time this thing about "real estate developers, agents, and house flippers hav[ing] made it a game, turning what used to be homes for living, into homes for profit."

The difference is in degree. In the U.S. the massive corporate investment in housing (new and existing) is new. Where before it investors were involved only so long as it took to develop and unload a property, now there is a long term view on a scale big enough to tip the whole market, not just affect it at the edges. In Europe, many cities have waited far too late to catch on to the long-term effects of real estate markets in tourist destination cities that have shifted very heavily to touristic apartments, legal and illegal. In my city, the steep rise in cost generated by touristic apartments means that people who five years ago rented for 600 or 800 a month can't compete with the attraction of a landlord making 7500 a month letting it out two and three and four days at a time to tourists, likewise affecting the sales market where every property in described in terms of maximum number of bedrooms and suitability for touristic rental. Long term residents disappear when neighborhoods lose grocers and affordable bars and restaurants and everyday goods services in an every expanding center.

1 - Stop foreign ownership

2 - Place minimum mandatory time limits on resales. Nothing less than 2 years.

3 - Restrict single family home sales in residential areas to individual buyers. No corporations.

Every large town of significance and major city in Australia has at least one university and those are filled with international students whose money keeps the place running. Totally coincidentally, the home shortage in certain suburbs pretty much aligns with the amount of international students enrolled.

I bought 19 years ago, and the my flat has tripled in value despite me doing nothing but repainting and replacing the carpets with floorboards. I could not afford to buy now.

Do you have a feeling that in few years it will colapse like in 2008?

I think that another recession is coming. It might be prolonged with money printing and military industrial complex being busy, but eventually it will end.

OP, you're not wrong but go from an even more high level view.

This is the sign of corporate power in the world, and the corporate mindset. Housing is just another commodity to be traded on the stock market and held in reserve by rich people.

exactly, there were snipes online about nestle buying up all the water rights in a south american country. that sounded outrageous, but the alarm was warranted as Huge multi-national corps can simply buy up all the real estate instead

This is why I find so funny when people believe that the western governments, who don't give a shit about their own citizens, care about Ukraine. Ukraine has been promissed to Blackrock, and poor people are victims of the beef between psycho Putin and greedy US corporations over their fertile land.

I have always wondered why is corporate US, Wall street particularly, so much against Trump, when he is pro corporate libertarian politics of low taxes. You would have to be really stupid to think it is because of lgbt, African americans, women etc.

I believe that the answer is Ukraine.

My folks had a 7 room Dutch colonial (it had a two-room addition) built in the 1920s. They bought it for 16,000 in the early '50s. Sold it in 1969 for 24,000. Not ending up finding any house they wanted to buy in the same town (didn't want to uproot the kids) they ended up renting a house. Then, when some kids moved out, an apartment. Eventually they bought a small condo in the same town. If they'd somehow held onto the house, it's worth around 600,000 today. Due to renting for a long time my folks had very little money to live on and only a two bedroom condo.

So would say: don't rent.

The 2008 bailouts need to be seen for what they were: the greatest fuck job ever perpetrated against the American people in history, the turning-point in the death of the middle class and the entrenchment of a plutocracy, and they will never be dislodged.

Jamie Zhu is cute.

R1277 The big banks got a bail-out for their risky and speculative activity and the American taxpayers picked up the bill. Limited bullshit regulations were installed after the fact that actually do not prevent similar violations from happening again. What should have happened is all the major banks that had above a specific asset number should have been broken up. No bank should be too big too fail. Otherwise we are all involved in a perpetual Ponzi scheme.

Funny how’s there is 100 billion for Israel and 100 billion for Ukraine every few months. When it comes to housing people there is no money. Is it evident what those in power value yet.

R130 Poor Ukrainans will pay an even higher price. Destroyed in war, just so their land is taken by Monsanto and they must repay endless loans to Blackrock. Don't know which one is worse, Putin or these loan sharks.

Yep, never let a good disaster go to waste.

The smoking gun could be a mushroom cloud!

R125, Your parents paid way too much in the 50s and sold for way too little in 1969. Not too savvy, I'll agree.

R124, You think "corporate America" is "against Trump"?!

R115, You've heard of Joe Biden?

R99, I don't know in which direction you're going for 90 minutes, but I assure you that heading north to the Lehigh Valley will show you new housing developments of every type (urban spiffy apartments; planned over-55 developments; single-family suburbs). We have new medical facilities, including major hospitals, being built as we speak. A thriving higher-education community (Lehigh, Lafayette, Moravian, Muhlenberg, Cedar Crest, Allentown, PSU-Center Valley, and two Community Colleges). And much, much more for young people, families, and retirees.

R125 R134 My parents bought their first home in Brooklyn for $18K in 1958, they sold it for $45K in 1973. The second home they purchased in 1977 for $78k, which I later inherited, is now worth a bit over $2M.

Good job, R135.

R134 you can say anything against Trump, but you can not pretend not to notice thst the establishement is trying hard to put him out of the game. From silly processes for bribing the prostitute to no tell the neighbouthood that he had small dick through demonization in mainstream media.

Anyone in the right mind would be puzzled, because he is represent of pro rich, anti social politics.

Then I read an article about Blackrock's role in Ukraine. About Monstanto and similar corporation seizing Ukrainian land. And I thought to myself, here is the answer. They don't want him to screw good deals they have and Ukraine.

in Ukraine*

OP, stop posting YouTube trash.

"Ukraine is being sized up by neocolonial vultures from BlackRock to the EU for a carve-up after the war is over. On the menu is deregulation, privatization, and “tax efficiency” — measures that may have already begun."

This is what I was talking about. This is why the mainstream media is bullshitting you that they are worried that Trump will take away lgbt rights (btw. you have federal system which will assure conservative Reconquista in red states and woke policies in blue ones no matter who will be the president). In fact, they are afraid that Trump will screw big business in Ukraine by handing it to Vlad.

R137 let's see that article purportedly about Blackrock. You know the country needs to be rebuilt and the govt needs investment money. Link the article about Monsanto too. And fuck off for working in a Trump promo. He's scum and so are his supporters.

How on earth am I am doing Trump promo. Read with comprehension and you will see that I said that his policies are anti social, drastic reductions in spending and taxation, pro capital and pro rich policies. How on earth can this be promo, particularly on left leaning forum.

But one naturally starts to wonder is why is not US corporate world willing to accept the gifts Trump is offering. I mean you must think logically, with your own head, and it just not logical that exactly the same people who are robbing Americans of basic necessities like food and roof over their head would care so much about lgbt, blacks women's rights to abortion. Something sounds deeply fake there.

The answer came to my mind when I read about the plans to seize Ukraine and its wealth. Btw. Ukraine has the third of world's fertile land.

One year into the war, a new report reveals how oligarchs and financial interests are expanding control over Ukraine’s agricultural land with help and financing from Western financial institutions.

Monsanto in Ukraine

[italic]Funny how’s there is 100 billion for Israel and 100 billion for Ukraine every few months.[/italic]

That's some fever dream you've got going on.

[quote]The U.S. has given Israel $3 billion to $4 billion a year in military aid during the past decade and a half.

Yeah just tens of billions. Money well spent, right? 🤢

Boris is really ramping up the panic about Ukraine, even in threads like this that have nothing to do with it. Shit must be about to fall apart for Putin there, and everyone's on high alert.

Actually, yes it is, r146. Israel is the only democracy in the middle east and as such, they are our first line of defense against the Islamic nations that would do harm to the US. They are our allies and would have our backs when/if they were needed. We supply them with aid because we need them. Israel isn't going anywhere, despite your Nazi wish that would all die.

I don’t like my tax dollars being spent to murder people.

Don't worry about being off by two orders of magnitude. It's not as though you had any credibility left.

I think the “we love your money, not your values” people will do just as much.

Me either, r149. But I do understand that sometimes our allies get attacked by terrorists who want to wipe them off the face of the planet. In that case, I'm perfectly fine with our allies retaliating and defending themselves.

Well I think they can stop now, R152. Job well done.

[quote]The Housing Crisis will be the death of the Western World

My understanding from the help is that the shiftless always talk like this.

No they can't, r153. Hamas has not surrendered. When they return all the hostages they took and surrender, then and only then can Israel cease fire. You can only win a war with people who wish to wipe you off the face of the planet by destroying them utterly and totally. That's how war works. If Hamas wants the war to end, they can end it easily.

So while they are waiting for Hamas to surrender they murder everyone else in the country? Got it, makes sense.

Oh wait, I forgot, they aren’t allowed to have a country. Everyone else behind the walls.

R155 That is why the US went into Afghanistan after 9/11 attacks. Because the Taliban would not give up Bin Laden and his group.

The Palestinians could have had a country decades ago. That isn't what they want. When Gaza was controlled by Egypt, did the Palestinians rebel? They want the destruction of Israel.

I recently used Zillow to look at every house for sale in Tempe, Arizona. Thanks to flipping, every single house is now identical inside. Wood or tile floors, gray walls, exactly identical. I used to enjoy looking at all the character in the old houses, but that doesn't exist anymore. Plus, townhouses and condos are now $300K and up and regular average houses are $500K, $600K and $700K now. How anyone can afford this, I can't understand. I'd have to buy with three other partners just to get a regular house on my salary.

[quote]I recently used Zillow to look at every house for sale in Tempe, Arizona. Thanks to flipping, every single house is now identical inside.

Truer words...

Those fucking Property Brothers are the new International Style, only this time the style is pervasively international and across classes.

I noticed on the home decor / interior design Reddits that every rental home in America has grey walls.

R124, the corporate world is not against Trump. That is a bold-faced lie

Hm R163

But R163, as U have mentioned before, it is completely logical considering how much they could lose if Trump leaves Ukraine.

I have mentionedd *

....

Big tech too.

Interesting article.

In London, almost half (48 per cent) of all social housing is now occupied by households that are headed by somebody who was not born in Britain. The most common households are headed by somebody who was born in Africa (18.4 per cent), the Middle East and Asia (11.7 per cent), or elsewhere in Europe (8.7 per cent).

Some of the other statistics are also completely mind-boggling. Like the fact that, in London, 74 per cent of all Somali households are in social housing. As are almost half of all households headed by people from Jamaica or Ghana, 44 per cent from Bangladesh, 42 per cent from North Africa, 41 per cent from Nigeria, 37 per cent from Turkey, 35 per cent from Afghanistan, and 28 per cent from Zimbabwe, compared to 23.5 per cent of the UK-born.

In the likes of Ealing and Haringey, close to 60 per cent of social housing is occupied by households that are headed by people born overseas, while in areas like Westminster and Brent it is at least 60 per cent, if not higher. And contrary to the popular claim that many of these people are born and bred Brits who have been paying into the collective pot for decades, have long roots in their communities, or belong to the ‘Windrush Generation’, this is simply not true.

University professors on social media might wail that their parents arrived in Britain 50 years ago and are just as British as everybody else – which is true – but these are not the people who are disproportionately more likely to be living in social housing, often in highly desirable areas that young Brits cannot afford. A substantial share of social housing is occupied by households headed by people who simply were not in Britain twenty or thirty years ago, but who have, nonetheless, been given social housing in some of the most well-connected, vibrant and culturally enriching parts of Britain, and at the expense of others.

The social housing occupancy rates of recent arrivals to Britain, for example, are a substantial 32 per cent in London, 25 per cent in Birmingham, 26 per cent in Manchester, and 30 per cent in Leicester. Longstanding British nationals, who have lived in the country for decades and have passed through the system – and who, along with their families, have contributed to the collective pot – are now finding themselves pushed out.

All of which raises a number of important questions that you would ordinarily expect to be addressed and answered by our political leaders: Why are so many young British people, workers, and their families forced to pay half their monthly income if not more to live out in the periphery, in places like London’s Zone 4 or beyond, sitting on expensive, packed and dirty commuter trains while wondering why they and other Brits are having to subsidise newcomers, who are frequently economically inactive?

Welcome to multiculturalism.

This is beyond crazy R169. The elites have gone batshit. They show complete scorn toward their own people. Preferring strangers to own people is even bigger disorder than xenophobia or racism.

There is a story about my great grandmother, my mother’s grandmother, in my family. She was very stingy towards her family members. She never gave anything to her sons family was living with her. She wouldn't give kids even an apple. But she was really generous toward strangers, guests. Beggars, gypsies that were selling door to door spoke of her as the most kind and giving woman. She probably wanted to impress strangers and have the image of local Mother Theresa.

Western governments and liberals always make me think of that granny.

R163

Miss R163....

Just imagine how many other such hookups he had that aren't known.

[quote] Justin Timberlake Sells 126-acre Nashville Property For $8M After DWI Arrest

Justin Timberlake made a real estate move that has seen him make some good profit after his recent DWI arrest.

The singer sold his sprawling 126-acre estate in Nashville, Tennessee, for a whopping $8 million, with the new owner listed as a limited liability company.

The real estate move comes amid Justin Timberlake's ongoing "Forget Tomorrow World Tour" and his recent comeback on Instagram, where he gave a shoutout to the New York Knicks.

According to The Sun, Timberlake sold his massive Nashville ranch for a mouthwatering $8 million 10 months after placing it on the market.

The "Sexyback" singer made a $4 million profit from the transaction after first buying the plot for $4 million in 2015. However, he took a $2 million hit after initially asking for $10 million.

The property sits on a massive 126-acre and boasts unique mountain views and lush green space perfect for horseback riding, fishing, and mountain biking.

It is only a few hours from his hometown of Memphis and is close to the lush village of Leiper's Fork. Famous people in the area include Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban, Trisha Yearwood, Tim McGraw, and Faith Hill.

According to the news outlet, the undeveloped estate's new owner is understood to be a limited liability company.

Chances this will be a topic at the debate tonight?