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Member |
Thank you, Lefty Sig. This is an American problem (and Canadian, and UK, and a host of other countries). The exception does not disprove the rule. Heck, I’m one of the exceptions; I’m not arguing out of self benefit. | |||
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| Left-Handed, NOT Left-Winged! |
The groupings for Indianapolis are odd - Indianapolis, Carmel, Anderson. Indy is all over the place with ghetto neighborhoods that are not expensive, and big expensive historic homes on the north side, and lots in between. Carmel is the most affluent suburb. Anderson is a factory town that was decimated by the departure of GM and the only thing new there is a Casino. Anderson is definitely dragging down the average. | |||
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| Member |
It depends on how you want to do it. 2000-2022 with interest rates at 3% one could absolutely buy a house. Now one should wait for the next bubble to burst, but at the same time you could buy a 2/2 condo in a ok neighborhood for $200k. You have to start somewhere and everyone forgets that. A tri-plex just sold in a good neighborhood, 2 blocks east of US-1 and walking distance to the beach in a neighborhood with $2-3 million homes about a mile from my house for $775k with a new roof and impact windows and doors. It had 2-2 bedrooms and a 1 bedroom apartment. Grosses $6k a month, $3400 mortgage. You could easily put 200k down, live in a 2/2 unit, still take in $4k a month in rent, and live pretty cheaply. While you are seeing property appreciation you stack money for the next move or stay there forever. But there will be another recession and property prices will take a good dip, and that's when you pounce. But right now it's being done every single day, houses are selling. Who said owning a home was supposed to be easy???? People forget their parents had 1 car, ate at home all of the time and had very few toys. | |||
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Sigforum K9 handler |
This is a self inflicted problem. Self inflicted by the consumer. You can continue to try to make it say what you want, but until you grasp WHY prices doubled (to which it appears you don’t) the problem will continue. ________________ People hate you. Train like it. | |||
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| Member |
So, that’s the rub. Homes are expensive for a variety of reasons: Record low interest rates - in 2020-2022 made payments affordable for more and more expensive houses. Immigration - huge upwards push in demand Foreign ownership - same Second/third/fourth homes aren’t taxed appropriately - there’s only so much land in the US. It is not an asset that we can make an infinite amount of. (I’m talking SFH) From a demand standpoint, every idiot with a Starbucks/Iphone addiction is one less competitor for an affordable house, so I welcome them all. | |||
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| Savor the limelight |
Self-inflicted is exactly what I was going to say.
I’m not sure what you mean by this. We get the same property tax break on our main home everyone else does and we pay a ton more on our second home without that break, just like everyone else with a second home does. | |||
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| Staring back from the abyss  |
Dated a gal from there. Great little town…until it wasn’t. Globalism at its best.  That Delco factory kept food on a lot of tables and roofs over a lot of heads. ________________________________________________________ It is long past time for a Convention of States. The Founding Fathers gave us this tool to fix an out of control government and we need to use it. | |||
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| No More Mr. Nice Guy |
I bet the average age of marriage and first child have both increased dramatically over the past 40+ years. My son, for example, is a few months from 30 with no marriage or family plans. I had 2 kids and was living in my second house by then. Young adults spend typically more years in college now. We were determined to be out in 4, but 6 is typical today. There are a lot of factors, including huge student debt today. My observation, not a scientific study, is that those of us between about 50 and 80 yrs old were in an abnormal economic environment. Better than previous and later generations had it. Today's young adults have no worse of a situation than my parents' or grandparents' generations. Blaming and whining doesn't change things. | |||
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| In the yahd, not too fah from the cah  |
Around here, all of the affordable homes are being bought up by developers who bulldoze them and build McMansions and then sell them to people who come from overseas with a boatload of cash. | |||
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| As Extraordinary as Everyone Else |
Agree Jimmy. Housing is available to those who look hard and are willing to live in a modest home. As an example. Our DIL’s sister who lives in Palm beach County, not exactly a slum area by any means, got divorced about 2 years ago. They have a young daughter that was one at the time. She ended up moving in with her Dad in his condo for two years while she got her life in order. She fortunately was able to save during that time and two weeks ago bought a 3/2 house with a recent roof and storm windows for around $450K in a gated community which she wanted. She works from home and makes about $85k/yr so the opportunities are there even in a high income area like Palm Beach. ------------------ Eddie Our Founding Fathers were men who understood that the right thing is not necessarily the written thing. -kkina | |||
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| Left-Handed, NOT Left-Winged! |
I have listed the reasons home values increased dramatically in the last few years several times in this thread, as have others, so we don't need to do it again. The point is that regardless of the cause, young people are telling us home ownership is unattainable and they will vote for the person the promises to fix it. You can blame the consumer, you can blame the young people and call them lazy or entitled or whatever, but when they vote for marxists that promiss to socialize housing, like the idiot in NYC, a whole lot of other stupid shit will happen as well. | |||
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| Lawyers, Guns and Money  |
Yes, this is true. We can't just blow them off. The Marxocrats are trying to exploit the word "affordability" which of course is a crisis of their own making. Trump is doing a pretty good job of countering that. "Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." -- Justice Janice Rogers Brown "The United States government is the largest criminal enterprise on earth." -rduckwor | |||
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His Royal Hiney |
I'm slow. Would you please spell out what the problem is as you see it for the slow people like myself? I know that often, the solution to the problem can be found in the problem statement itself; hence, I want to understand the problem from your perspective. "It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life – daily and hourly. Our answer must consist not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual." Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, 1946. | |||
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Honky Lips |
Thank goodness the poor beat up boomers get up to an additional 8500 in tax deductions for 2025 taxes.  _____________________________________________ Proverbs 3:31 "Envy thou not the oppressor, and choose none of his ways." | |||
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| Member |
I don’t have the exact stats, but something like this: 1. 90% of working age young adults (21-35) are employed in these 50 or 75 metropolitan areas in the country. 2. If these young adults literally save every possible penny from their salary starting at day one of employment, the median 30-35 year old still cannot afford a home in 65%+ of these metropolitan areas. 3. If the answer to 2 is yes, we have a problem. EDIT: Just compiled the data. 70% of 20-34 year olds are employed in the top 30 metropolitan areas (including Cleveland, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Kansas City, Cincinnati, Nashville, etc - these aren’t all massive NYC/LA types). Median house price is minimum 5.8x median 20-34 salary (in the cheapest 2 markets), the average is well north of that. Historical affordability was 3-4x median 20-34 salary. That is the problem.This message has been edited. Last edited by: reloader-1, | |||
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Member |
How about some rough numbers that may be roughly regionally reflective (YMMV)? Not an expert so check my math and assumptions. 1. Median wages: $65K annually, $5400 monthly 2. Median house: $475K 3. 20% down: $95K 4. Mortage (30yr, 6%-ish): $380K = $2300/month; This is about 43% of wages (target is 28% or $1516/month). 4a: to afford this house, wages must be $98K ($8200/month) to meet the 28% rule. 4b: for these median wages, mortgage ceiling is about $250K resulting in payments of ~$1500/month. One common method to reduce the principle amount for a median price home is stock appreciation and bonuses (investments, stock grants, ESPP, annual bonuses, etc). One would need the ability to raise an additional $130K on top of the assumed $95K. Viability of this may vary but doesn't seem like it would be too far fetched living frugally / investing wisely / working hard. ETA: I moved regions in order to afford a house. Where I was living previously the housing prices were rising faster than my wages and equity growth. After working for 10 years, housing was less affordable then at year 0. "Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it." L.Tolstoy "A government is just a body of people, usually, notably, ungoverned." Shepherd Book | |||
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| Member |
The issue with a national median wage is that the median house is generally not where employment is. As someone alluded to earlier, a former factory town with no employment will have substantially cheaper homes, but no chance of 20-34 stable employment. Median annual wage for a 20-34 year old is $52k, by the way. | |||
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| His Royal Hiney |
The prices of houses is reflective of inflation. I offered the answer to the problem on page 3: “On how to make housing affordable, the real solution is for wages to grow faster than inflation. You can cut spending and save but if inflation is eroding the value of the money you’ve saved, you’re in a losing battle. Inflation makes you look foolish in saving money for a down payment as the real value of your money in your savings account keeps decreasing while the price of houses keep going up.” Do you have a better answer or restatement of the problem? "It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life – daily and hourly. Our answer must consist not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual." Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, 1946. | |||
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| Member |
I like your answer. For me, awareness is the first step. If a group of smart, well-meaning and conservative individuals doesn’t agree that there is a problem, then trying to find a solution is fruitless, as no one else will think it is a problem either. | |||
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| Member |
This scenario was supposed to be age agnostic. Someone making median wage trying to buy a median house. This supports the premise of DINKs in order to buy a house. But also why investments and other income sources (bonuses, ESPP/stock incentives) are considerable as part of compensation packages (YMMV, depending on industry which may also depend on region). "Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it." L.Tolstoy "A government is just a body of people, usually, notably, ungoverned." Shepherd Book | |||
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