We're starting to see prices decrease right now, since high interest rates are holding. The big analytics firms think we will see a return to affordable housing in 2024 as long as the fed continues to raise interest rates. The reality for larger cities is that prices will most likely stabilize and possibly decrease slightly, but never return to reasonable. Lots of people are in 2% mortgages right now on homes with inflated values. Those people are never moving unless life forces them to. So while rising interest should decrease housing affordability and force prices back down, inventory will remain low, keeping prices pretty stable. Areas with abundant inventory should see a return to normalcy, but for big popular cities, this is probably the new normal. Unfortunately nobody has a crystal ball, and we can't be sure of anything. But this is what the experts think.
Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected].
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
The point is that those price declines would benefit only the wealthy who had the money in cash, but regular people are not having so much savings and for them even those "lower" prices are actually higher when considering the interest they will pay to the banks.
I'm just hoping I can find a decent job before I die. I'm on a string of progressively worse and worse jobs that are driving me to the brink.
Same. I had a decent job in my late teens early twenties, decent as in it paid really well and I liked the hours even though they were weird and long. I left because it wasn't the type of job that got me "adult points" and I was sick of being looked down on for what I did (it wasn't anything NSFW or anything, just more of a teen job type that I excelled at and got myself promoted up the ladder). I told one of my co-workers "I like this place, and it's paying me good money, but I don't want to be 30 and still working here."
Well fuck me, because it turns out that I'm in my 30s now and that's still the most money I've ever fucking made. My boss from that job actually just texted me the other day and offered me my job back even though it's been over 8 years and if I hadn't moved 1,000 miles away I might have considered it because he would have almost doubled what he had been paying me before.
I'm back doing the college thing trying to better myself and get into the tech sector, and fuck I hope it works out because if not I might just decide to finally opt out of this world. I've fucking had enough of trying and trying and busting my ass just to keep having the rules change and the goal posts move.
Fate will decide whether we see this in out lifetime, and it will depend a lot on where you live. Several factors affect these prices, and I probably don't have an exhaustive list but here are some.
There is the boomer bubble. Boomers possess most of the houses. When they die, a lot of house will enter the market. Fortunately for us, heat waves and pandemics should accelerate this process.
There is the financial bubble. Housing earns money, and all actors ensure it stays this way. To solve that, you need to kill housing as a finance product. The most effective solution (and I think the only effective solution) would be ceiling to location prices. And with that, forbid, through taxes or rule, empty houses. Let the landlords deal with market shit. This would instantly crash the market, which is an excellent thing for everyone but people who rent houses or plan to sell their house.
There is the actual market: we usually need more houses, but building too fast would crash the market. So if you let building to the market, it will never build enough for prices to go down. You need a government that will force construction. You also need laws or taxes against empty houses.
A note on empty houses: it is a very important factor because it allows landlords to control the market by removing or releasing houses on the market. The only empty houses that should be allowed should be for repair or hostel.
There is the globalisation, especially planes. Planes make connected cities kind of neighbours, which means their house prices will become similar over time. This means that changes in plane traffic, laws or airports can affect local housing market. It's not such a big deal though.
There is probably more to say about finance. Loans are probably a factor too, but I don't know enough of it, and what I say in the finance part will affect it too, an probably in greater proportion.
Tl;Dr is simple : you need a brave government to apply simple and known solutions to the problem. Landlords will be ruined and that shouldn't be a concern but that will probably be the reason why nothing will be done.
I'm trying to get a mortgage atm. Long term disabled / self-employed with low income, got dad as a guarantor, I feel amazed we managed to get a single lender, we now have a mortgage in principle.
I'm also horribly unlucky so I can predict with near-certainty that yes house prices will crash immediately after I'm on the hook at 7.5%, at which point interest rates will also plummet.
Can't put a price on having my own space and not being evicted on the whim of a greedy landlord though (my current situation, 13 years, £70k in rent, not so much as a thank you or goodbye, just off you fuck so I can get someone in paying more).
You can always refinance if rates plummet. But rates and prices have an inverse relationship. Prices fall when rates increase and prices rise when rates fall. So your ideal scenario is to get in with high rates and low prices, then refinance later for a lower rate. Although right now we have the worst of both worlds, high rates and high prices. Prices are starting to stagnate due to rising rates, and may eventually start trickling back down as high rates hold.
All of my friends joke about going in together on buying some property and starting a commune. It’s a passing joke but in the back of our minds I think we’re all seriously considering it. Logistics is the only reason it hasn’t already happened
Not until people quit buying them. And it's not sarcasm or trolling or whatever. There are tons of cheap housing, but it's in places people don't WANT to live. Until people start wanting cheap housing more than a certain location/ job, prices won't come down.
It's not even the "location," it's the people that come with the location. If I could live in a rural area ANYWHERE in the US without having to look at Confederate flags or deal with out and proud bigots, it would be amazing. But that's not the country we've let happen.
In 2007, I might have said "no."
It's just gonna get worse until everything crashes completely in a way that nobody will own anything they can't carry on their back.
I think it is achievable. But someone has to start doing the economic planning to make it happen in each local area.
One approach is to take political control of each city and resolve the problem by applying sufficient government. Either you make enough housing for the people who are there, or you seize enough stuff for the project that people start leaving. But that can be hard to muster the political will to do.
Alternatively, "housing" per se is not unaffordable: at whatever reasonable fraction of a normal wage, there is somewhere on Earth that you could pay to live. Plenty of empty space in small towns scattered across the US, for example. The problem is that you can't actually live there, because you also need to have a job to pay for the housing, which isn't where the housing/empty land is. Also many of these places are so under-served by municipal services as to be practically uninhabitable: you can afford an RV and you can afford an acre of desert with no electric, water, or sewer service, but you cannot combine the two to create acceptable housing.
If the people who control the cities where the work and services are are unwilling to accommodate residents, then work and services need to be organized in places not under the control of these malicious actors. Ideally with new mechanisms in place to prevent the same failure modes from reoccurring.
With more of a push for WFH (which could be legally required as an option in some cases) and ensuring smaller towns have good internet access, smaller towns could be a lot more viable. They aren't to everyone's taste, but there's plenty of people who would love to live in a small town if not for the hellish commuting they'd have to do and the shoddy internet access.
Having decent transit options to the nearest big city would also help. Small towns often struggle with cars being a necessity because you'd have to go into the big city for many things.
In Australia, they are bringing in a shared equity program that has given me hope. Roll on 2024...
If we have affordable housing, that would lower the prices for landlords, and we can't have the leeches hurt
If curious if "affordable housing" has an actual definition? Like is there some formula that we could use?
If the average habitant in a country can buy a house and pay the whole credit in his lifetime, I consider this as affordable housing
Depends, do you want that person to be able to have a partner, kids and something to eat? If no then yeah, probably.
At this moment in The Netherlands:
- starter: forget buying one (you need to bring loads and the student loan that wouldn't impact your chances on a mortage, guess what, it does)
- unemployed or on benefit, social letting (waiting time for a place to live mesured in decades)
- earning more then minimum wage: free letting market, costs about half your income (you won't get a mortage when it would cost you more then a 3rd)
Oh, and there is a huge shortage and building has dropped to less then 10% of what is needed, due to inflation. The only way hiusing is affordable is when you already live in a bought house and have been living there for about 15+ year. (Bought mine in 2000, before the prizes exploded and after that the mortage rates exploded)
Either the income needs to improve a lot (with constant prizes and rates), or the prizes need to collaps (when that happens nobody will move, to expensive)