7 minutes ago, Paul852 said:

Do you want to actually have a discussion about the problem or split hairs? It was clear he wasn't implying people were trying to buy 4 million dollar homes. I'd imagine most everyone here has taken part in the homebuying process. It's not that complicated so we don't need it explained to us.

There is a housing crisis on top of the alarmingly high costs of raising children in general. A "starter" home in a desirable area with good schools to raise a family will run you 500k.

Yup, agreed 500 is closer to a reasonable starter home. Not 750k

1 minute ago, Phillyterp85 said:

And as Vikas already pointed out though, the government caused this problem. So if they try to "fix” it, they’ll just make it even worse than it already is. As happens every time they try to "fix” an affordability problem.

The fix is more supply opening up and I fear that people are just going to need to wait 10-20 years for that supply.

Guys, I don't understand what you're even talking about. Trump already fixed this issue on day 1.

Just now, Paul852 said:

The fix is more supply opening up and I fear that people are just going to need to wait 10-20 years for that supply.

The problem is we can't build more supply at reasonable prices because of the insane regulations and costs. Want more affordable single family homes? Get the local politicians to dial back on the insane regulations.

4 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

The problem is we can't build more supply at reasonable prices because of the insane regulations and costs. Want more affordable single family homes? Get the local politicians to dial back on the insane regulations.

Oh no, that's not what I'm getting at. I'm implying we need to wait for the homeowners to....."move on" if you will.

Silver 114

14 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

The problem is we can't build more supply at reasonable prices because of the insane regulations and costs. Want more affordable single family homes? Get the local politicians to dial back on the insane regulations.

All solutions start with getting rid of a ton of the regulations.

1 hour ago, Paul852 said:

Do you want to actually have a discussion about the problem or split hairs? It was clear he wasn't implying people were trying to buy 4 million dollar homes. I'd imagine most everyone here has taken part in the homebuying process. It's not that complicated so we don't need it explained to us.

There is a housing crisis on top of the alarmingly high costs of raising children in general. A "starter" home in a desirable area with good schools to raise a family will run you 500k.

Yea, no reasonable person would read gannan's post and assume he was referring to young people being upset that they can't buy a $3.75M home. The fact he began arguing with himself and even threw a counter point in his own post is further proof that the Notorious BLT must be having a rough start to his week.

You guys are making this way too complicated. The solution is simple

15 minutes ago, we_gotta_believe said:

Yea, no reasonable person would read gannan's post and assume he was referring to young people being upset that they can't buy a $3.75M home. The fact he began arguing with himself and even threw a counter point in his own post is further proof that the Notorious BLT must be having a rough start to his week.

Yeah I often don't get responses like that. I can't tell if he's joking with a dry sense of humor or if my writing is hard to follow. I try not to read too much into some of the arcane responses I get here from time to time. That said even 500k for a starter home isn't great in the context of the current situation. Vikas offered the best explanation, but its not an easy fix. This one is way outside of my area of expertise so I'm mostly just reading people's points on this one. I just wanted to make the point that while most of us aren't personally negatively affected by this problem directly, we will all be indirectly affected by it, and it isn't good. I actually had an interesting conversation about it with my family at Christmas and Thanksgiving. They are all Trumpers and we managed to talk about politics and political issues without talking about Trump or any specific politicians. Just issues like the high cost of housing, the impact of AI on the labor market, etc. Because we avoided talking about political parties and politicians it stayed civil and interesting. We all agreed that this kind of thing is a problem.

26 minutes ago, Gannan said:

Yeah I often don't get responses like that. I can't tell if he's joking with a dry sense of humor or if my writing is hard to follow. I try not to read too much into some of the arcane responses I get here from time to time. That said even 500k for a starter home isn't great in the context of the current situation. Vikas offered the best explanation, but its not an easy fix. This one is way outside of my area of expertise so I'm mostly just reading people's points on this one. I just wanted to make the point that while most of us aren't personally negatively affected by this problem directly, we will all be indirectly affected by it, and it isn't good. I actually had an interesting conversation about it with my family at Christmas and Thanksgiving. They are all Trumpers and we managed to talk about politics and political issues without talking about Trump or any specific politicians. Just issues like the high cost of housing, the impact of AI on the labor market, etc. Because we avoided talking about political parties and politicians it stayed civil and interesting. We all agreed that this kind of thing is a problem.

I think first time home buyers are probably gonna have to settle for something on the smaller side if this trend continues to play out. Our parents and grandparents grew up in homes a fraction of the size of the ones we grew up in or live in now. A 3BR, 2BTH, 1600 sq ft house can still be liveable without feeling too cramped and help someone build equity. Compared to a dorm room or apt, it's still a noticable "step up" for them.

5 minutes ago, we_gotta_believe said:

I think first time home buyers are probably gonna have to settle for something on the smaller side if this trend continues to play out. Our parents and grandparents grew up in homes a fraction of the size of the ones we grew up in or live in now. A 3BR, 2BTH, 1600 sq ft house can still be liveable without feeling too cramped and help someone build equity. Compared to a dorm room or apt, it's still a noticable "step up" for them.

Yeah, but then what will I show off to my friends when I host a party twice a year? I need 5000 square feet or no deal.

You're never going to get rid of red tape at the local level, so it's gonna take some type of pre-emption law to spur development wrt cutting back regulations.

17 minutes ago, we_gotta_believe said:

I think first time home buyers are probably gonna have to settle for something on the smaller side if this trend continues to play out. Our parents and grandparents grew up in homes a fraction of the size of the ones we grew up in or live in now. A 3BR, 2BTH, 1600 sq ft house can still be liveable without feeling too cramped and help someone build equity. Compared to a dorm room or apt, it's still a noticable "step up" for them.

The issue is there's no profit to be made in building that type of house, especially when you have to dedicate 10-20% of any new development to the government's definition of "affordable housing" - usually multi-family buildings, sometimes even Section 8 available.

You can't mix government involvement with free market capitalism. Higher education, healthcare and housing - the three industries with the highest level of government interference have all become unaffordable over the last few decades. That's not a coincidence. Either go full socialist or let the market work. You can't be half way pregnant.

9 minutes ago, Bill said:

You're never going to get rid of red tape at the local level, so it's gonna take some type of pre-emption law to spur development wrt cutting back regulations.

That gets very thorny from a Constitutional perspective.

2 hours ago, vikas83 said:

The problem is we can't build more supply at reasonable prices because of the insane regulations and costs. Want more affordable single family homes? Get the local politicians to dial back on the insane regulations.

I’m in the middle on this issue, but imho, the local government is one of the biggest barriers to supply, and the rising cost of building. With that said, cutting regulations should be made with a scalpel, not chainsaw.

4 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

The issue is there's no profit to be made in building that type of house, especially when you have to dedicate 10-20% of any new development to the government's definition of "affordable housing" - usually multi-family buildings, sometimes even Section 8 available.

You can't mix government involvement with free market capitalism. Higher education, healthcare and housing - the three industries with the highest level of government interference have all become unaffordable over the last few decades. That's not a coincidence. Either go full socialist or let the market work. You can't be half way pregnant.

Sure, but presumably the people moving into the brand new 2,500-3,000 sq ft homes are in part coming from smaller homes, so there should be some level of upshift that frees up supply beneath them.

1 hour ago, we_gotta_believe said:

Yea, no reasonable person would read gannan's post and assume he was referring to young people being upset that they can't buy a $3.75M home. The fact he began arguing with himself and even threw a counter point in his own post is further proof that the Notorious BLT must be having a rough start to his week.

But his wife is a real estate agent! 😂😂😂

Just now, we_gotta_believe said:

Sure, but presumably the people moving into the brand new 2,500-3,000 sq ft homes are in part coming from smaller homes, so there should be some level of upshift that frees up supply beneath them.

Eh...you'd be surprised. Millennials and Gen Z are renting longer than ever, so they don't buy their 1st home until late 30s or 40s. So a lot of them are going straight into larger homes. And the smaller, older homes generally get sold to builders as tear downs.

13 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

That gets very thorny from a Constitutional perspective.

Feds, yes, but the states can preempt their own municipalities.

2 minutes ago, Bill said:

Feds, yes, but the states can preempt their own municipalities.

True, but a lot of the stupidity comes from the states. CEQA as an example.

36 minutes ago, we_gotta_believe said:

I think first time home buyers are probably gonna have to settle for something on the smaller side if this trend continues to play out. Our parents and grandparents grew up in homes a fraction of the size of the ones we grew up in or live in now. A 3BR, 2BTH, 1600 sq ft house can still be liveable without feeling too cramped and help someone build equity. Compared to a dorm room or apt, it's still a noticable "step up" for them.

Ours was a 2 bedroom one and half bath, but it had a huge living room and a finished basements so it was great for just the 2 of us. When I first got married I owned a one bedroom/1 bath condo which was great for a single guy but yeah my wife said it felt like a dorm room within a matter of weeks. That 2 bedroom townhouse would go around 450k now. Definitely outpacing what wages are for people starting their careers. I've been in this house for about 5 and a half years and its almost doubled in value in that time.

34 minutes ago, Paul852 said:

Yeah, but then what will I show off to my friends when I host a party twice a year? I need 5000 square feet or no deal.

What's funny about that is that one of the appealing things about moving to North Carolina was how much house you could get for your money. We had about 4,000 sq feet with five bedrooms and 4 full baths. The house was less than 5 years old and we paid 390k for it. That was less than 10 years ago. It's probably about 4 times that now. When we moved back to PA a few years later we paid much much more for much much less.

23 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

The issue is there's no profit to be made in building that type of house, especially when you have to dedicate 10-20% of any new development to the government's definition of "affordable housing" - usually multi-family buildings, sometimes even Section 8 available.

You can't mix government involvement with free market capitalism. Higher education, healthcare and housing - the three industries with the highest level of government interference have all become unaffordable over the last few decades. That's not a coincidence. Either go full socialist or let the market work. You can't be half way pregnant.

What you are saying bears out. All of the homes being built around here are over 1 mill, some much more than that. Well at least we will have well to do neighbors.

1 hour ago, we_gotta_believe said:

Yea, no reasonable person would read gannan's post and assume he was referring to young people being upset that they can't buy a $3.75M home. The fact he began arguing with himself and even threw a counter point in his own post is further proof that the Notorious BLT must be having a rough start to his week.

BuT He sAId tO cOMe Up wITh $750k!!!!11

Does that kind of autistic take seem familiar? Annoying isnt it? Reminds me of the time in 2006 when you said.....