quote:

Originally posted by ScreamingCockatoo:
Here's what will happen.
Eventually we will become outnumbered.
And private property will become nationalized.
Land real estate will become nationalized.
Government housing will be built on it.

You get enough people feeling they are being marginalized, they will vote for communism.

Yes, but .... there seems to be a growing resistance to all of the vilification of whites, especially males, Christian and Jewish, conservative, and successful. I don't think things will go peacefully along your sequence. Some states or cities may decree it and get away with it for a while, but not nationally. I believe our society has crossed the Rubicon in accepting political violence (the left has embraced it vigorously for the past decade). Such drastic measures as you describe will be, I predict, met with kinetic opposition. I'd wish otherwise.

Congress or a commie Potus will likely also try to confiscate retirement accounts and possible precious metals. These are treacherous times.

Investors buying non primary residence homes was 27% of sales.
Driving up prices.
Yes large PE firms only have 3-6% overall but look at the share in each market location.
Blackstone doesn't buy in Podunkville. They buy in growing trendy urban.


Inherited grandad's land is now being sold off to developers to build swanky in-town homes. Pricing out locals.
I've seen it here in Dawsonville now that urbanization is pushing up here.
And consumer-tourism has take hold.

The commies are coming. Alpharetta that once was solid red, is filled with Yankee commies now.

quote:

Originally posted by Fly-Sig:
Such drastic measures as you describe will be, I predict, met with kinetic opposition. I'd wish otherwise.

These are treacherous times.

Do not think for a moment they are unarmed or weak.
All you see are the blue haired freaks up front.
If you know how/where to look, the orcs are gathering.

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:
Blackrock is a big culprit as well.

Except they are not. BlackRock is a significant investor in mortgage securities, helping make capital available to individuals and families seeking to purchase homes. BlackRock invests in multifamily properties, apartment complexes, and other residential real estate.

They are not heavily involved in single family home purchases.

The investors buying those properties are flipping them for rentals.

More investigation shows that small investors are buying up houses to the tune of 30%. Not Wall Street. Locals buying stuff that has been on the market for a while and hasn't sold - offering below listing prices.

Seems some of the problem right now is seller's expectations, thinking they really doubled their money in 5 years and not wanting to settle for less than "what it's worth".

quote:

Originally posted by reloader-1:

@ReyHRH, I’ll write a long post in what I believe could be a potential fix. Some sacred cows might be slaughtered in that. Likely just after Christmas, spending time with the family!

I hope you enjoyed spending time with your family. Have you also had enough time to collect and organize your thoughts to present a potential fix? You piqued my interest and I trust you have explored the issue deeper than on a superficial level.

quote:

Originally posted by Lefty Sig:
More investigation shows that small investors are buying up houses to the tune of 30%. Not Wall Street. Locals buying stuff that has been on the market for a while and hasn't sold - offering below listing prices.

Seems some of the problem right now is seller's expectations, thinking they really doubled their money in 5 years and not wanting to settle for less than "what it's worth".

More investigation shows that small investors are buying up houses to the tune of 30%....
30% of what? 30% of all houses sold? Or in a particular area?

And almost the only one who really doubled their money in the last 5 years has been the tax man. Taxes on phantom gains are killing people.

If there are property taxes, there needs to be a capped based on original purchase price or something. It's ridiculous to pay taxes that are in the ballpark of the monthly mortgage.

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
If there are property taxes, there needs to be a capped based on original purchase price or something. It's ridiculous to pay taxes that are in the ballpark of the monthly mortgage.

I agree.
And... it's been done in some states.
It's very simple: get rid of the reassessment process altogether. The value remains at the value of the last sale price until the property is sold again.

Would this encourage people to remain in a house longer than they otherwise would want to?
Maybe... but it would also reward long-term homeowners who are likely by then too old to have kids in school anyway, which is where the majority of real estate taxes go.

I paid $7,633 as the school portion only of my tax bill. Totally ridiculous.

I’ll try to write out my thoughts this evening.

They are just my opinion, likely won’t solve anything, but happy to share.

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
If there are property taxes, there needs to be a capped based on original purchase price or something. It's ridiculous to pay taxes that are in the ballpark of the monthly mortgage.

Isn’t Proposition 13 one of the good things in CA? It freezes property tax valuation to the purchase price or lower if market conditions allow.

quote:

Originally posted by Rey HRH:

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
If there are property taxes, there needs to be a capped based on original purchase price or something. It's ridiculous to pay taxes that are in the ballpark of the monthly mortgage.

Isn’t Proposition 13 one of the good things in CA? It freezes property tax valuation to the purchase price or lower if market conditions allow.

Yup, that is exactly what Prop 13 did.

Property tax was set on the value of the home during the last purchase. It can go down like when the last bubble burst. It is capped at raising 1% per year.

This had a huge impact in places like San Francisco where folks are still paying property tax on a $36k home while their neighbor is paying property tax based on their $900k+ home.

I have friends who stayed in their parent's homes for just that reason. They couldn't afford to live in The City otherwise and would have extended commutes to keep their jobs

You guys are also missing that a lot of single family homes are being bought up and rented as Air BNB and VRBO vacation rentals. That takes up a decent amount of available homes in major cities and vacation friendly spots.

US Housing Crisis

First, in order to address the issue, we have to face the facts; housing in the US is unaffordable, relative to the past. I will use 1970 as my baseline for much of this post, to illustrate the decline.

In 1970, the median U.S. household earned roughly $71,300 in today’s dollars, and the median home price was about $160,000 in today’s dollars—approximately 2.2× household income. By 2025, median household income had increased to around $83,730, while the median home price rose to roughly $410,800, or nearly 5× income.

The US is viewed as the land of opportunity; if you grow up in a slum in Rio, Lagos, Mumbai or Istanbul, you are stuck. In the US, that has not been the case historically, and that is something we want to fight and preserve. That kid in Rio will never earn enough to buy even a starter home; we don’t want the kid in Nashville to face that same future.

What has changed? My background is in finance/economics/history, and I currently work in the housing industry. In a nutshell:

1. Open land near cities is no longer available - Stanford is no longer a farm, Miami doesn’t have orange groves, and Levittowns cannot be built easily with access to cities. Is this important? Yes; with the shift in the US from manufacturing to white collar labor, work tends to be concentrated in cities.
2. Immigration and population growth - there are 140 million more people in the US today than in 1970, which only had 200 million to start with. That’s an astronomical growth, with no new cities built, no new regions developed… 70% more demand at a bare minimum for housing near cities, assuming everyone has the same living arrangements as 1970, which is not the case…. Divorced parents are much more prevalent, which increases demand.
3. The ancillary costs of owning a home have skyrocketed - property taxes and insurance.

Starting from the economic standpoint: if the US doesn’t turn into a highly distributed, manufacturing economy, then jobs will remain concentrated in larger metro areas. That means that we have to tackle the problem in the top 20ish cities that hold 70% of our young adult population.

There are two main levers to pull: supply and demand. I’ll go through each in turn, and finish with a “structural” section that address more governmental issues.

Supply:

No new land is really available, at least not in significant quantities. Low interest rates have locked people in homes, and they are reluctant to sell and incur a higher rate. Permits and the construction process varies from city to city and county to county, let alone state to state.

1. Home loans are now portable - interest rates stay with you, and move from home to home. This incentivizes sales, increasing supply.
2. Zoning is now handled at the state level, with time bound constraints. Fees are nominal, and if approval time exceeds x days (15? 25?), the plans are automatically approved. State level determination of minimum lot size, setback, etc - a home plan in one city can be used for all.

Demand:

Immigration has increased the number of buyers for homes. Concentration of jobs means that there are more individuals competing for the same amount of homes.

1. Immigration crackdown - remove excess demand. Pair this with significant immigration reform, through the lens of “until housing prices drop to inflation adjusted 19xx level”, we hold immigration levels low.
2. No foreign ownership of single family homes, even with a green card. Only citizens.
3. Second homes are property taxed at 500% first homes. Third homes at 1000% first homes, and you can do linear trend for more houses. I’m a huge free market proponent, but homes are limited - you can’t generate more land on Long Island, for example. That means that excess demand has to be tolerated, but at a price that makes it a must-have, not just a nice to have.

Structural:

1. Companies are incentivized through taxes to hire in tier 2/3 cities throughout the US; those with cheaper housing or more open land to build on.
2. Construction code - national code review, with significant easing for smaller, single family starter homes. Remove union and some licensing constraints, and focus on making construction costs as affordable as possible (permitting, delays, etc.)

This isn’t complete, but this is a start to discuss.

I think a lot of those things can be refuted. But lets talk 1970. Most of the families in our neighborhoods were making between $8-12k a year for (blue collar, teachers. etc) in rural and semi suburban America. Houses were $ $25-30kish max Smaller homes and/or older ones.
Not sure with today's family incomes and housing cost's it is all that much different.
You have to figure out what you can afford and buy it where you can get it.

There has been lots of conversation as to why things are difficult for many young people. It boils down to them not sacrificing like everyone else did in previous generations to buy a home. It is a totally different mindset and you are not going to find a lot of sympathy for complainers especially when they don't roll up their sleeves and put their nose to the grindstone. But blame others. That will accomplish nothing. And that is what you get if that is what you do.

And "tax the rich" is always the answer.

quote:

In 1970, the median U.S. household earned roughly $71,300 in today’s dollars, and the median home price was about $160,000 in today’s dollars—approximately 2.2× household income. By 2025, median household income had increased to around $83,730, while the median home price rose to roughly $410,800, or nearly 5× income.

ORC, see above for the exact numbers. It’s a very different world than 1970.

quote:

Originally posted by reloader-1:

quote:

In 1970, the median U.S. household earned roughly $71,300 in today’s dollars, and the median home price was about $160,000 in today’s dollars—approximately 2.2× household income. By 2025, median household income had increased to around $83,730, while the median home price rose to roughly $410,800, or nearly 5× income.

ORC, see above for the exact numbers. It’s a very different world than 1970.

That is what you keep saying. Of course it is. But on the other hand its the same.
On both coast's real estate has distorted median prices. Across most of this country prices are relatively affordable. Also remote work has also had an effect on where people can live. Younger generations want to live in cities for one and two is many of that generation is not interested in home ownership. If you want to buy a house, you can. It is and has always been a huge commitment. And that is were some of the problem lies for younger folks.

ORC, there’s data for everything. We have to talk facts always, leaving opinions aside.


You talk about relatively affordable away from the coasts; where? Dallas? Kansas City? Nashville? Happy to give detailed data for any city you choose.

Dallas, for example, in 2025 dollars - the median income has shifted from $83k to $87k since 1970, with the median home price rocketing from $137k to $425k.

There’s a hidden variable that most people overlook - there’s a minimum amount of money you need to spend to live and pay taxes, so those $80k incomes all of sudden turn into $30k max possible excess savings.

That means a 1970 house was about 4.5x your max yearly savings, while a 2025 house is 14x your max yearly savings.

You can make all the statistics you want come up with your desired out comes. How about towns all across the country. Ones from 500 residents to 50k. I mean come on. There have been numerous posters in this thread that have pointed out the obvious and you guys just choose to ignore. So go ahead and continue to complain and blame others and see what that gets you. Good luck.