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Who Can Afford These Homes Anymore? USA/Costal States

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
When it comes to pricey homes which really took off the past decade, I'd reco if you dont or cant afford living in expensive towns and cities, look elsewhere. I know it's not a metro area which has the best jobs and all your friends and fam are nearby. But if you got to do it, it'll be more fiscally affordable.

Typically, smaller towns that still have cheap homes will have shittier jobs. But the skew isn't linear like a home is 1/3 the price so you get paid 1/3 the wages. You'll probably get paid less but the cost of living ratio will still be improved so it will be more affordable. Then again, small town life isnt for everyone. Its great for people who dont like busy places and enjoy lots of outdoors activities and green trees and lakes nearby and such. But if youre someone who can only live in metro areas where most are expensive to live in, then youre shit out of luck.

But not all places are expensive. You just got to scour around. People always post picks of what sweet house you can get in Texas or Florida for a reasonable price. You can also get nice places in Nova Scotia. But again it comes down to if you want to move.
 
What also doesn't help is Air BNB. I know some houses on my street that do them. And they can make more money per month renting them out for $400/day than renting it out to a tenant for $3000/month. You dont even need to rent it out everyday on Air BNB to make more money. You can have it filled just for Fri-Sun and be better off. For those of you who dont have experience using or renting out Air BNB, it might sound crazy why someone would pay $400/night over a hotel. But you got to remember it's not a person or couple renting them out. It's like 4-8 people, or a wedding party or group who want a house so everyone can stay together, cook, have a driveway and backyard and if you split $400 across 6 people that's only $70/person. I use Air BNB myself when I do road trips with friends.

With Air BNB it's better too since you avoid tenant laws and deadbeats not paying or ruining your place. And you can adjust the price to what you want. Depending where you live, tenant laws cap rent increases to maybe 2% or whatever.

So that makes buying a home harder. Landlords got a good thing going with Air BNB, so no need to dump the property anytime soon.

So add it up with my post above, and it's really government allowing home prices to fester. They are in charge of immigration, city planning and Air BNB enforcement. If they dont want to control things then you get high home prices. Their only recourse is raising rates hoping that tanks home prices, but raising rates hurts home buying anyway because the high the mortgage rate, the less money you get approve for to buy a home and your monthly payments are higher.
Air BNB's are great until it's the next door neighbor. They didn't even have the decency to come introduce themselves as the new owners or even give me a point of contact should problems arise. I fucking hate my last neighbors for selling their shit and the new owners doing that. HATE.
dave chappelle hate GIF


I didn't choose to buy a house by a business and now I get to roll the dice on whether a psycho might choose to randomly rent out the house next door. They leave their trash which used to blow over into my property and never take there garbage out and leave it to accrue and get nasty. Fuck Air BnB's. I wish they would just choose to segment themselves into only AirBNB neighborhoods exclusively. I'll support any politician or local mayor that is getting on the anti-Air BNB bandwagon that seems to be growing in sentiment in this area.

But consequently, I've put up a big ass privacy fence, and I don't think they are too pleased with it. Definitely makes their property looks smaller and less appealing. I think I'm gonna put barb-wire on the top of it now too to really seal the deal.
 
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LordCBH

Member
I can’t afford anything where I live and it fuckin sucks…shit was already too expensive, and the problem is getting made worse by all the fucking smelly Californians coming in who don’t give a shit about the price.
 

Aesius

Member
My wife and I went under contract on our house in January 2022 and it feels like we slid under the door of affordability as it was closing.

We would have gotten a better price even one year prior for sure, but we did get a 3% rate and our house is up $60k on Redfin already.

It was actually scary to buy then because everyone knew rates were about to increase and many people were expecting prices to drop. But they’ve only gone up since then.

If we bought our same house today at its current value and mortgage rates we would pay an extra $1,200/month. Wild.
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
Air BNB's are great until it's the next door neighbor. They didn't even have the decency to come introduce themselves as the new owners or even give me a point of contact should problems arise. I fucking hate my last neighbors for selling their shit and the new owners doing that. HATE.
dave chappelle hate GIF


I didn't choose to buy a house by a business and now I get to roll the dice on whether a psycho might choose to randomly rent out the house next door. They leave their trash which used to blow over into my property and never take there garbage out and leave it to accrue and get nasty. Fuck Air BnB's. I wish they would just choose to segment themselves into only AirBNB neighborhoods exclusively. I'll support any politician or local mayor that is getting on the anti-Air BNB bandwagon that seems to be growing in sentiment in this area.

But consequently, I've put up a big ass privacy fence, and I don't think they are too pleased with it. Definitely makes their property looks smaller and less appealing. I think I'm gonna put barb-wire on the top of it now too to really seal the deal.
No offense, but sounds like you need an HOA to protect property values and enforce specific conduct within your neighborhood. We don't need laws, we need neighbors to look out for neighbors.
 

Sybrix

Gold Member
Here in the UK, and especially where I live, many people buy them as second homes or rent them out as holiday homes.

It's absolutely killed communities. Schools with almost no pupils. The single shop in villages closing down because most of the year there are next to no people to be customers.

The other issue now is that the 1st generations of the working class who owned properties have now died leaving there home to their kids.

I work with a few people who are in their 50s who's parents moved to the coast/countryside who have now passed away, leaving their homes to their kids, who now rent them out on air bnb.
 

Vyse

Gold Member
No offense, but sounds like you need an HOA to protect property values and enforce specific conduct within your neighborhood. We don't need laws, we need neighbors to look out for neighbors.
Mrs and I built in a new neighborhood around 7 years ago. HOA will not allow AirBNB, but folks from California sold their house and purchased multiple houses in my neighborhood. Have a bunch of renters, but mostly everyone is pretty cool.

Thankfully we got 2.25% fixed on a 15 yr mortgage, big down from our last house sale and are able to make extra payments to principal. Expect to have my house paid off in 5 years.

House next to me sold in 4 days cash 200k above asking. It’s crazy.

No way my kids could afford a house unless we help them.
 
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