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Insane Housing Market, y'all be fuked

DanteFox

Member
Yeah, unfortunately it's less and less affordable for a larger and larger portion of the young population. It's also widening a wealth gap, because young people who have a house, or some amount of wealth are taking loans or early inheritances from their parents to do a down payment, and afford a mortgage. Those without wealthy parents or such a lifeline are simply locked out of the housing market as home values continue to climb. And of course boomers who made smart moves are now buying second and third homes, and renting them out, and continuing to invest and generate wealth. So it really is a case of the haves and have nots.
 

Trogdor1123

Member
When development of homes is heavily curtailed and over regulated in addition to immigration being high, this can definitely be an outcome.

Where I live, we among the highest national income and still way lower house prices. The disaster isn’t everywhere. Also, people think it would be great if there was some big “correction “. It wouldn’t be a pretty sight if there was. Be careful what you wish for.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Yeah, I missed my opportunity to be a homeowner years ago and now I'm fucked. Getting in now is nearly impossible if you're not making six figures it seems.
It will correct itself. Market is currently being propped up by wall street. I bought a 140k house in a decent suburb in columbus back in 2014 with just a 50k salary. sold it 5 years later for $185k. now that house is worth $328k on zillow. That is simply insane. That was a starter house with the smallest of living rooms... my 1 bedroom apartment's living room was bigger. And that is now going for $325k? BTW, thats around what i paid for my current house in 2019. Thats gone up to $488k but that house is way bigger. some 2.5x more square feet with more features than my starter house.

None of this makes any sense. This is wall street fuckery. Nothing more.

G2SLxi6.jpeg
 
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Aesius

Member
Yeah, unfortunately it's less and less affordable for a larger and larger portion of the young population. It's also widening a wealth gap, because young people who have a house, or some amount of wealth are taking loans or early inheritances from their parents to do a down payment, and afford a mortgage. Those without wealthy parents or such a lifeline are simply locked out of the housing market as home values continue to climb. And of course boomers who made smart moves are now buying second and third homes, and renting them out, and continuing to invest and generate wealth. So it really is a case of the haves and have nots.
My in-laws' house is on the water in FL and increased in value about $400k since 2020. It's now worth nearly $1 million.

I hate to be the "fuck boomers" type but honestly, the younger ones who avoided Vietnam have had the greatest and easiest lives of any generation ever. And they are still winning well into retirement. And now there's the trend of them spending up basically most/all of their money on travel before they die, which means their kids get little to no inheritance (the very thing that likely drove wedges between them and their siblings when their own parents died because of how much they coveted it).
 

tommolb

Member
Yep, housing is f**ked alright. Bought my house in 2011 in a town about 30 miles from London, but price of it has doubled in that time. I wouldn't be able to afford to buy it now, even thought my salary has doubled (my other half's salary hasn't kept pace).

Only stopping folks owning more than one house, stopping private landlords buying up all the stock (and making them sell some of their stock), stopping foreign firms/individuals buying houses as investments, stopping nibyism that prevents house building and allowing local councils to build council houses will stop it. Alas, no government is going to do any of this, cos the old folks like the feeling of being rich living in their homes worth 1 mil + that they bought for 30k back in the 80's.
 
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Cyberpunkd

Member
They say that it is foolish to time the market...but I say...if you truly have the patience, the discipline, and are doing other smart things with your money in the interim, it will work out just fine.

Change is coming...If I could tell you when, I would be a billionaire.
We bought at the bottom tier of housing market, 1.1% fixed for 20 years. The rates are 3-4% now but started to drop, targeting 2 years from now.
 
It is crazy. My wife and I were talking about how we couldn't afford to buy our house now if we were trying to get into the market. We got lucky that we decided to buy when we did. Our property value went up almost 100k since we purchased it a little over 5 years ago. Good for us mostly, but insane for the general populous around us.
 
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RJMacready73

Simps for Amouranth
Government really needs to step in and outlaw corporations from buying up homes, it's madness to me that we're sleepwalking into a dystopian nitemare where American corporations are going to own the roofs over everyone's head and simply keep increasing rents to appease shareholders with more money than sense, same with multiple home owners I'd tax the absolute fuck out of them once they buy a 3rd house and make it neh on impossible to own a 4th without paying a heavy price and don't get me started on foreign ownership or those that buy houses as capital storage and never set foot in them.

We need to free up as much tied up stock and allow ordinary working people and families a chance to own a home at an affordable price, I wouldn't give a shit if my home decreases in value if it meant homes becoming more affordable for future generations
 

Tams

Member
Part of the issue is houses being treated as an asset and appreciation is expected.

In Japan, the actual building depreciates in value. The land doesn't, but at least it often doesn't get to quite so silly values.

But grass is greener and all that, and a Japanese Yen income is worth fuck all.
 

Rival

Gold Member
I probably make double what I made when I purchased my house 9 years ago. With interest rates and what it would cost now I wouldn’t be able to afford to buy it today.
 

Lord Panda

The Sea is Always Right
I hear ya OP. I've already begun saving for my little boy because I'm not liking his chances of being able to enter the market on his own.
 

Miyazaki’s Slave

Gold Member
I grew up in the back Back BACK woods of the east coast and moved out as soon as I could. Since then I have lived all over the US and chose to settle in Texas for a bit and purchased a place in 2016.

I looked at apartment prices for my mom the other day, just to see what I would be looking at in terms of suppling her with an easier place to live and JESUS CHRIST!!! Two bedroom apartments, in a County who's average age is 54, they have 1 high school, 1 middle school, and 3 elementary schools that serve a County with a 497 square mile area.

The apartments are $2200 a month.

It is bat shit insane.
 
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RJMacready73

Simps for Amouranth
I hear ya OP. I've already begun saving for my little boy because I'm not liking his chances of being able to enter the market on his own.
Yeah its not good, thankfully my folks are leaving their house to the kids which when the time comes they can either move into it, rent it out or simply sell it and split the money and use as a deposit to get them onto the ladder
 

Go_Ly_Dow

Member
London prices are fucked up. My girlfriends cousin is a journalist in London and just dumped 450k on a two bedroom flat in Peckham.

Meowwolf GIF by PIZZA PALS PLAYZONE
That's insane. Could have got a detatched 4 bedroom house with that kind of money where I live with a front garden private driveway and a huge back garden. 25-30mins drive/bus to central Cambridge, 45-60min direct train to Central London.
 

Tams

Member
Fucking hell

London is utterly fucked. My best friend lives in a shoebox bedsit in west London, without even a tube station, and it costs him a fortune.

Places that used to be affordable and vibrant (if rough in places), like Notting Hill and Wimbledon are now completely gentrified. More central places... yeah, no. It really got going in the 90s and 2008 really didn't dent it much.
 

Liljagare

Member
It seems it is the same all over in the western world, how the heck are young people supposed to get a place of their own nowadays? Add, 10-30% down in alot of nations to get a loan.

You better have rich parents.

We are looking at moving ourself in Sweden, it is just nuts, 300-500K for a 2-3 bedroom, even in the middle of the boonies.

Unless you move to a little dinky town two hours away from everything and no Public transport, then you can get down to a 100K. Oh, and also no jobs in those areas.

I am actually looking at a place where mom and dad can move into too, they are getting up there and need more help, the return of generational living. Not a bad thing necessarily, but you are still screwed if you don't have the cash for the money down on a mortgage.

Forget about renting here unless you have spent 10-15 years in the queue.

Governments all over really need to step in.
 
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At the end of the day, it really doesn’t matter how high rates are or how low supply is because if the homeowner doesn’t want to sell, or wants to sell at a high price there’s nothing you can do about it except hope and pray the guy is desperate to dump it to live in a retirement home asap, there’s a big crisis forcing people to dump, or your city amps up home building production in all types of homes way faster than the population growth. If you’re not getting these, then the home owners will just wait it out for a good price.

What doesn’t help keep prices down is ever since the internet got running and checking for listings became the norm in the 2000s, prices go up too because every guy in the city, country or overseas can see and bid on the same property. That’s why you got tons of bidding wars. It wasn’t like this before the net when people would only see a listing if your agent told you or you saw it in a weekly sales binder at a brokerage (like a used car classified ad booklet) or you saw it driving by by luck.

You can only build so many homes with two hands and cranes. But you can get a million eyeballs all seeing homes for sale.
It is completely possible to build many homes, China has been overbuilding for decades and now faces a property crisis where they have 25%+ more homes than they have population to house. It's an open joke that people suggest to China that they tear down all their empty housing units and send the materials to the US to build homes there.

There are many reasons no one wants to build houses in Western countries including excessive regulations and zoning, cost of materials going straight up, lack of space in desirable areas for building, but the biggest reason is simply because people like it when their property values go up and they don't give a fuck about the other guy who is struggling to afford a house. You don't think housing builders in the developed world would love to build more houses to take advantage of the insane property market right now? Of course they would. But they aren't, because of so many fundamental structural issues preventing construction of new housing in so many developed economies.
 
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Kings Field

Member
Had the opportunity to sell our house for double what we paid but decided against it. We live in the middle of nowhere and have 10 acres.

A new development was built up about two years ago and about 80% of the houses sit empty and the builders refuse to drop the price more than $5-6k.

I live in a low cost of living area and between me and my wife we make middle ground six figures and for us to move it doesn’t make sense. We were going to move to New Hampshire a couple years ago but decided against it for now until the market goes down.
 

Toons

Member
I've just accepted im never going to have a house until a major crash comes.

My mom sold the house i grew up in 25 years ago(bought by my parents for 50k) for almost 150k. Folks that bought it were a whole family.

Im single, on my own, about to be working 2 jobs and barely covering my rent. And my rent is pretty fair.

Whole system is cooked. Just gonna wait for the inevitable crash/revolt when enough people in the population are either too broke to afford basic living or are priced out of the stuff they do have.

Altho a buddy of mine who's a handyman was able to get a house on foreclosure but he had the knowhow to fix it up himself. Put maybe 30k into it and its fine. Hes one of the lucky ones and if he's smart he'll sit on it.

Long as I can get work that consistently covers my meager expenses I ain't moving.
 
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AV

We ain't outta here in ten minutes, we won't need no rocket to fly through space
London :messenger_tears_of_joy:

Come up north.
 

haxan7

Banned
All you have to do is move slightly farther away from the major population hubs and prices go down drastically. It's never been easier to do that with the proliferation of working from home.
 
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Hugare

Member
I'm a brazilian with european citizenship and I'm thinking on moving to Europe, but the housing market is fucked everywhere

It's unanimous. Ask anyone, from anywhere and they'll say that most of their income goes to paying rent, and that it has increased tremendously lately

Portugal is beyond fucked. Spain too, France, Italy, England, Germany ...

And it's not just with the bigger cities. Small cities are also fucked 'cause with the home office boom, people go where rent is cheaper despite earning way more than locals.

My sister lives in Vancouver and the rent price there right now is crazy. It's a global thing.

I'm thinking on trying my luck with Denmark or Netherlands. Will see.
 
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MaestroMike

Gold Member

A $10 Billion Real-Estate Fund Is Bleeding Cash and Running Out of Options​

The Starwood Real Estate Income Trust, known as Sreit, has three choices—none of them appealing​


The $10 billion fund from Starwood Capital Group has been trying to preserve its available cash and credit by limiting investor redemptions. In the first quarter, the fund was hit with $1.3 billion in withdrawal requests but satisfied less than $500 million of them, according to regulatory filings.

Even with these limitations, the fund’s liquidity, consisting of cash, marketable securities and a bank line of credit, has been drying up. It totaled $752 million at the end of April, down from $1.1 billion at the end of last year. It was $2.2 billion at the end of 2022, according to filings.

“They don’t have a lot of liquidity left,” said Kevin Gannon, chief executive of Robert A. Stanger, an investment bank that specializes in real-estate funds.

These developments have left the Starwood Real Estate Income Trust, known as Sreit, with three options—none of them appealing. It could take on more debt. It could sell properties into a tough market. Or it could halt completely or limit further redemptions, a move that would greatly impair the fund’s ability to raise new money. Unless it takes one of these three steps, Sreit looks poised to run out of cash and credit before year-end if the current pace of redemptions continues.

Other real-estate funds are handling the pressure from the long queue of redemptions in varying degrees. The largest of the funds, Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust, or Breit, has $7.5 billion in liquidity and earlier this year was able to fulfill all redemption requests. But withdrawals continue to exceed new fundraising.

Sreit was one of the most prominent real-estate funds launched between 2017 and 2022, second in size only to Breit. These funds, known as nontraded real-estate investment trusts, invest in commercial property similar to publicly traded REITs. In all, these vehicles raised about $95 billion, mostly from individual investors, according to Stanger.

The funds also were very popular when interest rates were low because they paid dividends in the 5% range. Sold through financial advisers, they also gave small investors the opportunity to participate in what was then a hot commercial-property market.

But investors started to bolt as interest rates jumped and commercial real-estate values fell. In late 2022, Sreit and others began limiting redemptions to as much as 2% of their net asset values a month and up to 5% a quarter.

New fundraising also has dropped sharply as some analysts have criticized the structure of the funds and financial advisers have raised warnings. Sreit’s new fundraising has dwindled to about $15 million a month, down from more than $600 million a month in the first half of 2022.

Sreit’s ability to make redemptions will help determine whether the funds will be a long-term feature of the real-estate market or fade away. Some analysts believe that the funds are proving themselves through a tough commercial-property market. Others say the funds are showing major problems.

Because it can’t raise enough new funds to make up for even its limited redemptions, Starwood has been considering a number of difficult options, say people familiar with the firm’s thinking.

The fund could borrow more, but that would be costly at today’s high interest rates. Sreit’s current debt is already equal to 57% of its assets, which is more than many comparable real-estate funds. Sreit’s target leverage is 50% to 65%.

The fund could sell assets. Sreit owns hundreds of properties throughout the country, mostly warehouses and rental apartment buildings in the Sunbelt. But the value of most commercial real estate has been hammered by high interest rates, which drive up costs in the high-leverage business. Rental apartments have also been hurt by overbuilding in many markets.

Most rental-apartment owners who bought in the years just before the interest-rate spike “would prefer not to sell in this market,” said Matthew Werner, managing director with asset manager Chilton Capital Management.

Finally, Sreit could halt or limit further investor redemptions. But analysts believe that would be a last resort because it would make it even harder to raise new money. One of the main selling points of Sreit has been that investors would be able to redeem their shares, subject to the 2% and 5% restrictions.

A redemption halt “would be fatal,” Stanger’s Gannon said. “You wouldn’t be able to raise another dime.”

Sreit was launched in 2018 by Starwood Capital, a private-equity firm headed by Barry Sternlicht, the storied real-estate investor and founder of the Starwood Hotels chain. Sreit raised more than $13.5 billion in equity, which it used to buy more than $25 billion in real-estate assets.

The fund attempted to sell properties last year as the redemption queues began to lengthen. Sreit sold a portfolio of single-family rental homes to Dallas-based Invitation Homes for $650 million, including debt.

But more recently, the fund has slowed sales because of depressed prices. Like other owners, Sreit is hoping prices will rebound later this year, especially if the Federal Reserve begins to cut interest rates.

Instead, Sreit has relied on its line of credit. But that won’t last much longer at the rate the fund is drawing it down. The line has $275 million of capacity, down from its original size of $1.55 billion.

 

bitbydeath

Member
The problem is everywhere.
Even movies are unnecessarily pricing themselves out to non-existence.

Somewhere a mindset was made that no matter how much money is made, you should always be making more and it is ludicrous, the only ones benefiting are big business.
 
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meeting with an architect today - any advice?

looking to transform our 1950s ranch by gutting it, expanding a bit on all sides, converting carport into garage, building up over garage and expansion. raising ceilings but not adding a second floor across all footprint. goal is to avoid it looking/feeling like a remodeled ranch. aiming to go from 1700 sqft to 3500-4000 sqft.

personally a big fan of tudor style as im from the tristate area...but tudors arent prevalent nor done well down here in the south... might just bring some arcs into the roof line and entrance
 
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Ownage

Member
Governments won't step in. They'll toss crumbs but no way on a broad spectrum. Why? They're in on the game too. They benefit from high property taxes.

Now say that out loud in George Carlin's voice.
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
meeting with an architect today - any advice?

looking to transform our 1950s ranch by gutting it, expanding a bit on all sides, converting carport into garage, building up over garage and expansion. raising ceilings but not adding a second floor across all footprint. goal is to avoid it looking/feeling like a remodeled ranch. aiming to go from 1700 sqft to 3500-4000 sqft.

personally a big fan of tudor style as im from the tristate area...but tudors arent prevalent nor done well down here in the south... might just bring some arcs into the roof line and entrance
Jeese dude, just move into an RV for a year then demo and rebuild from scratch.

If you are in the South I'd prioritize roof slope orientation for solar and maximize cooling efficiency with on-site power storage. The South is BOOMING, it's only getting hotter, but there ain't enough new power plants going up to cover summertime A/C demand. With a new build you can get great insulation, better windows, and a VS A/C that you can supplement with solar during the day and hopefully keep your house running during a brownout. IMHO every new house in the south should be using solar, all that roof space is wasted space.
 

Cyberpunkd

Member
meeting with an architect today - any advice?
1. Tell the architect what to do, do not let him convince you of the things he wants to do
2. You will have to supervise workers on a daily basis - they will fuck things up, the question is only how much and how often ; is this your first renovation?

On the housing market - prices are crazy, what can I tell you. Also many companies are showing their true faces and the times of "remote work" are over, sucks for all the people that maybe had a small place in 2020 and sold it to move out to the suburbs thinking they will be able to work forever in their pyjamas.
 

AJUMP23

Parody of actual AJUMP23
I have seen some stats that help the housing market go back to normalcy, Housing inventory is up, so there is more to choose from, buyers market. AirB&B profits for owned are down about %30. Meaning holding onto properties may not be a long term viable solution. and may be time to sell.
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
That's one up from Harry Potters cupboard under the stairs. 🤣
Having such an awkward space is almost worse than just sleeping in a long pod and having communal bathrooms and kitchens. I can only imagine the light in a girls eyes dying as some gent shows her "his place" for a night of romance :p

Or it beats an alleyway or back seat of a car, I suppose. Maybe the kids these days just rent hotel rooms if they get lucky at the club?
 
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