(01-17-2024 08:34 AM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(01-16-2024 09:07 PM)bobdizole Wrote:  A piece of annecdotale perspective. I just looked up the starter home my wife and I bought for $80k 14 years ago. That little shithole is on the market for $305,000 today.

Everything is more expensive now, but there is no suffering families can do to magically get the income/debt ratio loaners are looking for to make up for the housing price increases vs the wages needed to buy a starter home.

I know my area is high $$$ for housing, but the further you move out for cheaper housing the wages decrease.

As compared to my parents. The house I grew up in with one parents working a union trucker job and one parent in school to be a nurse is a damn mansion on 5 acres in Cordova.

If you are in your 30s/early 40s our grandparents/parents lived like royalty if they worked their asses off. It's not the same for our generation.

Exactly. I live in what would be considered a "starter home" by any standard. It's just under 1300 square feet. My aunt bought it for 79k in 1987. Zillow has it listed at around 400k right now, and the house right beside it with essentially the same square footage and lot size sold this year for 505k in June of 2023, so what Zillow has the house valued at is probably low.

My parents in 1985 on 2 teachers salaries were able to build in a small town in eastern NC of 3200 people a 2500 square foot house. Buying the land and building the house cost them around 80k. Same house now in a town where population is declining (population dropped from 3800 in 2010 to 3200 now so not a boom town) zillow values at 366k. My dad lived at home till his early 30's when he married my mom so he certainly lived within his means, but I'm pretty certain even doing that today the idea they could build a house like that on 2 teachers salaries is high comedy.

I've got a divorced friend who is a teacher in Atlanta who has a house similar to that. Its a nice pocket, but not in a trendy area. My old townhouse I just looked up. Its 1200-1250 sf and is appraised at 125k in the Houston burbs. Not a good neighborhood anymore, but adjacent to nice areas and its a gated community. You have to make compromises, especially when younger. It doesn't come all at once. My wife and I married in our early 30s and were only worth 50k at the time combined, 75k in cash and a negative 25k equity in my townhouse. You build wealth in your 30s/40s/50s.

If you're looking for cheap housing, try Frayser (Memphis suburb). Median home price there is ~$1,250 I think.

I'm only kinda kidding.

(01-16-2024 05:12 PM)olliebaba Wrote:  What's wrong with buying a double-wide. It's a house right? And you won't be saddled with an outrageous mortgage payment. With the money you save you can double what you would accumulate owning a wheel-less abode. So who cares if people make fun of you, at least you have a roof over your head and probably could pay off that trailer off really quickly. I think this way because I'm a very practical, humble and unmaterialistic person. I've told my wife that the only thing a man needs is a good car to take you to work, a roof over your head to come home to sleep in, and a full refrigerator to keep your stomach happy.

Before my wife got sick we had an idea of selling/renting our house and go someplace and rent a house/apartment and use that as headquarters to meander the area. After we sampled all the attractions go someplace else and repeat. I used to own a trailer but my wife nixed that idea as she said it was too much work, which it is. So we kinda agreed on the above. Now we can't but that's how life is, like the saying goes, "one makes plans and God laughs".

I'd be perfectly content living in an apartment as I would be free of any home emergencies because that would be someone else's job to fix. If I didn't like the setup there's other apartments and other cities. Most of the money after you pay it off is paying utilities, fixing what's broke (along with the headaches) and TAXES. In an apartment you do not have those worries. Even if the rent is expensive it would still be cheaper than all the above and the headaches that come with them, oh, and can't forget home insurance. So going the apartment route is a better deal in my mind, afterall you can't take a home with you when you die, can you.

Nothing is wrong with a double wide. My grandmother lived in a single wide trailer for years until the end of her life. Feel like you are also imagining those are super cheap. Average cost of a new double wide ranges between 120k to 160k, and from a quick google a lot at a trailer park seems to average around 400 a month. Obviously there are cheaper options on the trailer you could find a used one for I'm sure less than that and then hope you don't get something that ends up costing you a fortune in repairs and maintenance. The idea though that I would spend that kind of money on a depreciating asset similar to a car is very silly. Owning a trailer is all the downsides you mention regarding homeownership with the costs of repairs and maintenance being completely your responsibility, without the whole underlying appreciating asset and equity backing it up.

https://www.ramseysolutions.com/real-est...bile-homes

As far as renting an apartment there are a lot of upsides to it, in a world with semi reasonable rents. As far as your bolded part, since the entire point of this thread is talking about the American dream the American dream as I remember it was if you work really hard and do everything right you will have the chance to build yourself a stable middle class life, own your own home, and set your family up to be in a better position after you are gone. No you can't take a home with you, but owning that home sets your children up for the future to either be able to live in that home or sell it to better themselves. It's a fundamental part of the "setting your children up to be better off than you were" portion of the American dream, and for most normal people the largest portion of their net worth is tied up in the equity of their home.

(01-17-2024 03:13 PM)BartlettTigerFan Wrote:  

Am I the only one who never sees anything when you try to post an image?

https://media.gab.com/system/media_attac...58855.jpeg

(01-17-2024 08:56 AM)BartlettTigerFan Wrote:  

(01-17-2024 08:46 AM)ericsrevenge76 Wrote:  

(01-16-2024 12:32 PM)BartlettTigerFan Wrote:  And it's all on purpose

There is the key truth here. Its not by accident or mistake, its by design at the highest levels of our government.

The globalist agenda will never be fully accepted in America until the people are struggling to the point they will willingly give over the freedoms and liberties to the globalists just for some peace and security.

And the convenient "truth" for the youngest couple of generations is it's all the "Boomers" fault. Of course this is just a perpetuated lie, and most of them couldn't even tell you what a "Boomer" is.

This 2023 article indicates that 31% (nearly a third of retiring boomers) reach 65 or older having less than $10K saved for retirement. Like every other generation, there are plenty of Boomers who made poor decisions will have accumulated very little over a lifetime of work. That said, due simply to age, Boomers have had longer to amass assets than most any other current generation---so plenty of them have accumulated some wealth. What people seem to be foregetting---when those boomers were in their 20's----the vast majority of them didnt have much in the bank either. However, over time, those boomers that made good decisions slowly built some wealth for themselves. One place I do think Boomers had an advantage is that credit was much more difficult to obtain in the 70's (even in the early 80's this was somewhat true) --so it was harder to bury yourself in debt at a really early age.


https://finance.yahoo.com/news/63-americ...12718.html

Topic worthy. From the 60s I believe. Who knew John Kay was a prophet? Well worth the watch.

Since 2007, the United States has only had 2-3 years of conservative governance. 2008 was dominated by the housing crisis (which government facilitated), and 2020 was dominated by left wing governors shutting down the economy in high population centers.

So 2018 and 2019 were truly the only years that a Republican POTUS was able to effect policy. Bush 43's last year or so was marked by Keynesian economic theory.

It truly is a mystery why the dollar has **** itself since then. Housing and overall cost of living at all time highs.

(01-18-2024 12:54 PM)WalkThePlank Wrote:  Since 2007, the United States has only had 2-3 years of conservative governance. 2008 was dominated by the housing crisis (which government facilitated), and 2020 was dominated by left wing governors shutting down the economy in high population centers.

So 2018 and 2019 were truly the only years that a Republican POTUS was able to effect policy. Bush 43's last year or so was marked by Keynesian economic theory.

It truly is a mystery why the dollar has **** itself since then. Housing and overall cost of living at all time highs.

Blaming Biden at least admits there's something that's fundamentally broken. I'd argue it ignores the actions of the FED in early 2020 at the start of the pandemic to prop up the stock market, but whatever we are quibbling here. I'll be excited to hear the GOP housing policy proposals that I'm sure will be coming at some point! I'll be waiting just as eagerly for the Dems to offer theirs LOL.

What is your housing policy proposal?

What do you want exactly? Subsidies? Government built price controlled sprawling neighborhoods(projects)?

It's not fair by a Bernie Bro isn't much of a policy.

(01-18-2024 01:03 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(01-18-2024 12:54 PM)WalkThePlank Wrote:  Since 2007, the United States has only had 2-3 years of conservative governance. 2008 was dominated by the housing crisis (which government facilitated), and 2020 was dominated by left wing governors shutting down the economy in high population centers.

So 2018 and 2019 were truly the only years that a Republican POTUS was able to effect policy. Bush 43's last year or so was marked by Keynesian economic theory.

It truly is a mystery why the dollar has **** itself since then. Housing and overall cost of living at all time highs.

Blaming Biden at least admits there's something that's fundamentally broken. I'd argue it ignores the actions of the FED in early 2020 at the start of the pandemic to prop up the stock market, but whatever we are quibbling here. I'll be excited to hear the GOP housing policy proposals that I'm sure will be coming at some point! I'll be waiting just as eagerly for the Dems to offer theirs LOL.

That toothpaste is out of the tube. You can't let let things get so bad to the point where you're dealing with sky high interest rates...

The issue was neglected for decades and now the payment is here.

(01-18-2024 01:12 PM)rath v2.0 Wrote:  What is your housing policy proposal?

What do you want exactly? Subsidies? Government built price controlled sprawling neighborhoods(projects)?

It's not fair by a Bernie Bro isn't much of a policy.

You're fu*ked is not much of a policy either. I'd probably guess there is a middle ground somewhere between those 2 positions.

What would be my housing policy proposals? Well first of all I would start with something you'd probably like, greatly reducing zoning regulations to allow for a lot more construction of housing and to make it easier to convert a whole bunch of office spaces that are basically going to be useless in the WFH era into housing.

Past that you probably would hate anything I'd want to propose to greatly increase the overall supply of housing, and I know you'd probably hate even worse anything that resembled government pricing controls (to be fair I don't really think this would be a good thing either). So really you are getting into how do you get the free market to act in a way that benefits society as a whole but might not fully align with profit maximization? The answer to that is nothing unless an outside force (government) makes it happen.

So you just want handouts. Or state ownership. Got it.

(01-18-2024 01:43 PM)rath v2.0 Wrote:  So you just want handouts. Or state ownership. Got it.

So you just want to say "MUH YOU JUST WANT FREE SH*T" instead of offering up how the free market could handle this situation. Got it.

Unless you are a moron I think you have a basic understanding that to get prices down in a market with demand that far outpaces supply the supply has to increase. Do we have a basic agreement on how a supply/demand curve works?

You have no idea what you want. Weird.

Like an overly tired toddler.

(01-18-2024 02:00 PM)rath v2.0 Wrote:  You have no idea what you want. Weird.

Like an overly tired toddler.

Okay, can I spell this out slowly for you?

If demand in a market outpaces supply prices will rise until price equilibrium is reached. Right now price equilibrium in the housing market is out of reach for large segments of the US population. Do we even agree on this or do I need to start speaking in grunts?

I wonder if the high price of lumber when Old Foggy took over and made everything expensive has to do with very few housing units being built. I'm sure that it did and even if things got cheaper you know that sellers are not going to down price their houses. Once they reach a certain level price wise it's going to either remain the same or greed will supercede anything and the house price will rise again. Once the genie is out of the lamp he ain't gonna want to go back.

I know I preach a good story about moving to an apartment but really if push comes to shove I'd probably stay here and pay the huge taxes, high utilities, high insurance rates, high maintenance costs instead. But, life is short, who knows what I'd do. I might kick the bucket before my wife and for sure she'll have to sell and move into a nursing home. Life is a mystery because you don't know how it will end.

(01-17-2024 04:14 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(01-17-2024 08:56 AM)BartlettTigerFan Wrote:  

(01-17-2024 08:46 AM)ericsrevenge76 Wrote:  

(01-16-2024 12:32 PM)BartlettTigerFan Wrote:  And it's all on purpose

There is the key truth here. Its not by accident or mistake, its by design at the highest levels of our government.

The globalist agenda will never be fully accepted in America until the people are struggling to the point they will willingly give over the freedoms and liberties to the globalists just for some peace and security.

And the convenient "truth" for the youngest couple of generations is it's all the "Boomers" fault. Of course this is just a perpetuated lie, and most of them couldn't even tell you what a "Boomer" is.

This 2023 article indicates that 31% (nearly a third of retiring boomers) reach 65 or older having less than $10K saved for retirement. Like every other generation, plenty of Boomers who made poor decisions will have accumulated very little over a lifetime of work. That said, due simply to age, Boomers have had longer to amass assets than most any other current generation---so plenty of them have accumulated some wealth. That said---when those boomers were in their 20's----most boomers didnt have much in the bank either. However, over time, those that made good decisions slowly built some wealth for themselves. One place I do think Boomers had an advantage is that credit was much more difficult to obtain in the 70's (even in the early 80's this was somewhat true) --so it was harder to bury yourself in debt at a really early age.


https://finance.yahoo.com/news/63-americ...12718.html

It was pretty much impossible to get credit cards getting out of school in the early 80s. Everybody turned me down and I had no debt and a job with a Big 8 accounting firm, so I was better paid that the vast majority of college grads. All I could get was Amex and that's not really a "credit" card. I didn't have a credit card until 1990.

Most people do live paycheck to paycheck. That's not anything new. A lot of younger people just don't seem to understand that. Housing in prime locations has gotten ridiculously high, but it is much more "luxurious" than the norm in the past and you aren't required to live in prime locations. Salaries have gone up a lot. I know a number of 4 year college grads making 6 figures right out of school.