Another article showing concern in the housing market- yet the author may have lacked critical thinking

[tbm5690]

Lol, nobody I know pays for TV. Your descriptions aren’t of all “youth” either.
I think people just don’t notice the dirt poor homeless “youth” because they have a cell phone instead of a home. (Yes homelessness has increased over the years)

I'm assuming he means YouTube, Hulu, Fubo, etc...yes many people pay for those.

On a calorie basis cheap garbage fast food is cheaper in most areas than a home cooked meal, unless your eating rice, even ramen has gotten “expensive “

I disagree...I budget $900/month for groceries for me, my wife, and my 2 year old. We eat mostly organic and very good quality, nutritious meals with plenty of fresh fruit and veggies. Yes it's gotten more expensive, but still nowhere near what you would spend eating out the same amount.

“Ownership”. What percentage of homes are paid off? (Hint true ownership peaked long ago coinciding with debt to income ratios)

The general home-buying population that is my age (20s/30s) I find are less willing to buy "starter" homes. They straddle themselves with stupid debt on 30 year mortgages for homes that are in excess of their needs and only put down 3%.

The days of working for yourself and making a living are gone unless you want to talk YouTube poop as an influencer.

I work, my wife works 25ish hours a month as a flex nurse for a little extra but otherwise is stay at home. We are basically a single income family (gasp...that's impossible these days!) live comfortably and I make $0.00 from social platforms.

Not trying to come off too critical but I feel that the general sentiment is that everyone is stuck living in the gutter and it's never their fault.

 

[SeaJay]

As boomers have aged they have grown greedy modifying the laws they enjoyed to screw their children benefiting the elderly.

Which specific laws were the boomers responsible for changing that benefit themselves by screwed their children?

I do recall that social security started before boomers were born, and medicare started I believe in the 1960's when very few boomers were of voting age.

 

[Rmay635703]

I'm assuming he means YouTube, Hulu, Fubo, etc...yes many people pay for those.


I disagree...I budget $900/month for groceries for me, my wife, and my 2 year old.

I work, my wife works 25ish hours a month as a flex nurse for a little extra but otherwise is stay at home. We are basically a single income family (gasp...that's impossible these days!) live comfortably and I make $0.00 from social platforms.

Not trying to come off too critical but I feel that the general sentiment is that everyone is stuck living in the gutter and it's never their fault.

In this area With coupons (I seem to get piles of them) fast food is $2 a meal (no drink)
$2x3x30=$180/person
I can do it for less at home but typically do not because when I cook my own stuff I tend to overeat and use certain more expensive ingredients.

In terms of work…
I was able to be my own boss without employees or brick and mortar doing something fun and making money on my own schedule and hours.
That is very different than working for a company, a contractor or entity and is mostly impossible unless you like working 80+ hours a week earning far below “typical wages”.
Many poor states have large numbers of female business owners who make less than minimum wage as an example (based on public data)

I don’t believe everyone is living in a gutter at all but I do believe a lot of folks in the generation after me are pigeon holed into mediocre jobs without insurance, benefits or the number of hours they want. (Pretty stupid when you have to work 3 jobs to get 40 hours which is common in this area)
The number of folks who are doing great is less than the number who aren’t thriving. Look at the metrics of children in poverty or talk to anyone teaching or working in ED to break your rose tinted glasses.

I don’t need to look far to see the same story playing out for most everyone younger than me. The exceptions prove the rule.
My own nieces who had more advantages than me took an extra 10 years to get “real” entry jobs in their field than I did having to work unpaid and crap jobs along the way, so despite so called desperation for workers most businesses still don’t take a chance on new grads. Motivation and ability played no role. But it took longer for them to get there in the best of circumstances compared to me and my father was able to get out of poverty and up faster than me and that is the trend I see, it’s not everyone but many more are left “out” of the good side of the job market than in the past.

It’s easy to blame kids for their situations but the truth is that the poorest people have the most kids who get none of the supports to reliably be successful and make good decisions.
And even the kids that have the support needed still have much higher barriers to entry to “real” jobs.
More unfortunate is the nobody applied online narrative which is plain false, many positions get hundreds or even thousands of applicants but most or all get blocked by the algorithms used by the job service. Some companies are finally opening up the unrealistic requirements to apply.

https://time.com/magazine/us/5280431/may-28th-2018-vol-191-no-20-u-s/

 

[zzyzzx]

I’m curious as to why one generation would do so much to spite their children?

In general, people seem to be incredibly short sided. I doubt it's otherwise intentional.

 

[alarmguy]

deleted

 

[DejaVue]

The number of folks who are doing great is less than the number who aren’t thriving. Look at the metrics of children in poverty

That's what happens from literally importing poverty.

Which goes back to my earlier question: How can there be a big housing market collapse when 10 million new migrants are allowed into the country every year now? They won't be living in Martha's Vineyard, but they'll be somewhere.

 

[Rmay635703]

That's what happens from literally importing poverty.

Which goes back to my earlier question: How can there be a big housing market collapse when 10 million new migrants are allowed into the country every year now? They won't be living in Martha's Vineyard, but they'll be somewhere.

The number of residences with “many” individuals per unit has been increasing in recent years. The number of edge homeless individuals has gone up in recent years.

I neither view this as good or bad as historically it wasn’t uncommon to have packed multigenerational homes.
but the number of “evictions” due to excessive occupancy has become a “thing” since about 2011. (My own rinky dink corporate landlord was very hesitant to allow me to have a pre-existing roommate in a 2 bed house, who would place a 1 occupant limit on a 2 bed home?)
If I have a relative visit I have to get it approved and may have to pay extra and they can’t visit more than 3 days.

There has also been an uptick in officer involvement removing people from non-living structures and even some city’s do not allow excessive occupancy in a single family home via noise, nuisance, “parking limitations “ or even outright bans.
In my moms “aging” neighborhood there are homes with 25 folks in them, they are large 3 bed raised ranches, but she hasn’t seen that since the 1950’s farm life when you had to rent bunks to hired men.
When those houses have a party the whole ruralush block gets boxed in by cars Parking in the gravel edges of the road.

 

[Pew]

As boomers have aged they have grown greedy modifying the laws they enjoyed to screw their children benefiting the elderly.

This trend will eventually fold over as that generation dies but the following generations are developing shorter lifespans and likely won’t get to use the upcoming windfall

I'm glad you brought this up. I've been thinking hard about the whole "back in my day...blah blah blah" sentiments from folks. I used to be on that train but the past couple years have strongly changed my attitude towards this. Younger generation and "luxuries" today are no different than older generations and their own luxuries, cars, TV, VCR, Newspaper, Radio, lawn mower, supermarkets, a rotary phone. Certain folks even got their own water fountain.

I wrote a huge post but deleted it to leave this one statement; old generations like to brag about how they climbed the ladder, but they never talk about how they kicked it out from under them.

Anyways; houses. Somebody mentioned 1960. $5,400 average annual wage while the average house was $11,900. In today's money that would directly equal $54,000/annual with a house of $112,848. Just where are you going to find a $112k house that's not run down, in some nasty area, and in an area where there's actual real job and tech growth? Not to mention people used to be able to buy a decent house and raise a family with both parents working at a grocer. Try doing that now and you can't even afford gas.

 

[PimTac]

The number of residences with “many” individuals per unit has been increasing in recent years. The number of edge homeless individuals has gone up in recent years.

I neither view this as good or bad as historically it wasn’t uncommon to have packed multigenerational homes.
but the number of “evictions” due to excessive occupancy has become a “thing” since about 2011. (My own rinky dink corporate landlord was very hesitant to allow me to have a pre-existing roommate in a 2 bed house, who would place a 1 occupant limit on a 2 bed home?)
If I have a relative visit I have to get it approved and may have to pay extra and they can’t visit more than 3 days.

There has also been an uptick in officer involvement removing people from non-living structures and even some city’s do not allow excessive occupancy in a single family home via noise, nuisance, “parking limitations “ or even outright bans.
In my moms “aging” neighborhood there are homes with 25 folks in them, they are large 3 bed raised ranches, but she hasn’t seen that since the 1950’s farm life when you had to rent bunks to hired men.
When those houses have a party the whole ruralush block gets boxed in by cars Parking in the gravel edges of the road.

I have seen this situation as well. Back in the day it was fairly common to have a family member or two living with you like grandparents or an uncle. What I am seeing is non-family residents in the same house. The financial structure is the mystery. Is it one or two breadwinners supporting everyone or multiple income earners paying bed space rents each month to live there?

 

[alarmguy]

I'm glad you brought this up. I've been thinking hard about the whole "back in my day...blah blah blah" sentiments from folks. I used to be on that train but the past couple years have strongly changed my attitude towards this. Younger generation and "luxuries" today are no different than older generations and their own luxuries, cars, TV, VCR, Newspaper, Radio, lawn mower, supermarkets, a rotary phone. Certain folks even got their own water fountain.

I wrote a huge post but deleted it to leave this one statement; old generations like to brag about how they climbed the ladder, but they never talk about how they kicked it out from under them.

Anyways; houses. Somebody mentioned 1960. $5,400 average annual wage while the average house was $11,900. In today's money that would directly equal $54,000/annual with a house of $112,848. Just where are you going to find a $112k house that's not run down, in some nasty area, and in an area where there's actual real job and tech growth? Not to mention people used to be able to buy a decent house and raise a family with both parents working at a grocer. Try doing that now and you can't even afford gas.

Anyone willing to work hard can buy a home in the USA and if not that’s life, your fault and no one owes you one. You did something wrong.
BTW averages mean nothing in regards to income and home price.
I’m surprised no one else pointed this out.

Median income, that means half the population lower half the population higher not average is the number to use.
If anybody wants a house and sustainable income with no skills or higher education than simply go to any car manufacturing plant in the United States or one of their suppliers.
You’ll make the wage with incredible benefits and you’ll be able to buy a house and this is just one very tiny tiny tiny example of all the opportunities in this country.

Social media has added a whole new class of whining people thinking it’s someone else fault for their incompetence or laziness.
Can’t buy a house? I ain’t buying one for you go figure out what your doing wrong.

Homeownership rates are the highest in the history of mankind in the USA, for the last couple decades it’s never vary more than 4% and we all know that it’s just from economic cycle swings and don’t forget the world health event just a couple years ago, gosh the complaining and whining drives me

Let’s stick to facts instead of commentary =
https://dqydj.com/historical-homeownership-rate-united-states/

 

[andrew_j]

The barriers to home ownership compared to 30 years ago with my first home are considerable.

My first home was only 2.5x my starting engineering salary , only required 3% down payment . Locally the $110k home approx $550k however salary starting is not 5x. Also more downpayment(20%) is required.

I thankfully took a 15 year mortgage.

 

[alarmguy]

The barriers to home ownership compared to 30 years ago with my first home are considerable.

My first home was only 2.5x my starting engineering salary , only required 3% down payment . Locally the $110k home approx $550k however salary starting is not 5x. Also more downpayment(20%) is required.

I thankfully took a 15 year mortgage.

Actually you do not need 20% down you could go 0 to 5% down, as posted above homeownership hasn’t changed for the last four decades, make that five.

Just because you live in the area with homes over half million, the first home buyer goes to a community with the homes of $200,000 and if there are none around they move to a state where there are.

When you bought your home people didn’t make coffee in a coffee shop or stack paper towels in target for over $40,000 a year like they do now but that’s all the relevant it has nothing to do with income, the fact of the matter is homeownership hasn’t changed in five decades

 

[wpod]

That's what happens from literally importing poverty.

Which goes back to my earlier question: How can there be a big housing market collapse when 10 million new migrants are allowed into the country every year now? They won't be living in Martha's Vineyard, but they'll be somewhere.

All the empty office buildings at the taxpayers expense.

 

[Dave Hess]

The barriers to home ownership compared to 30 years ago with my first home are considerable.

My first home was only 2.5x my starting engineering salary , only required 3% down payment . Locally the $110k home approx $550k however salary starting is not 5x. Also more downpayment(20%) is required.

I thankfully took a 15 year mortgage.

How many parents today help their children (no adults) buy a house ?

We did with 30% down payment….. no fancy weddings.

 

[GON]

Lots of good thoughts and discussions, thanks for the contributions.

One thing I think to add to the home ownership discussion. VA loans. The Army, the national guard, and reserves are not meeting their recruiting end strength numbers as mandated by Congress. Lots is sign on bonus available, some for very nice five figures. Along with bonuses, a VA loan is a awesome loan with no money down. Lenders love VA loans, as it protects the lender against some losses in case if borrower default.

So, maybe serving in the guard or reserve is a great way for younger adults to be part of something larger than themselves, serve their country, and recive great benefits like a VA loan. The guard and reserve have some crazy good jobs they will train people on, like electric distribution, fire fighter, finance, cyber, etc.

Just a thought on how a younger person can get into a home.

 

[2strokeNorthstar]

Doesn't take critical thinking to see the change happening. In my area houses went from selling over asking price in a day or 2 to sitting for weeks and prices being cut. Open houses are ghost towns

 

[2strokeNorthstar]

How many parents today help their children (no adults) buy a house ?

We did with 30% down payment….. no fancy weddings.

We got married at the county recorder, got a tux on Ebay. Bought a house and paid off all of my student loans by working 2 jobs and overtime. Zero help. Not even a boomer story, I'm only in my 40's but still drive a 20+ year old vehicle

 

[Donald]

“There’s a housing demand”


“People can’t afford a house at 7-1/2%”

“Builders can’t afford to build houses people can afford”



Ok….. how does this get solved without something worse than 2009-2013?


(I know how, but the discussion isn’t allowed here and many under 50 crowd don’t like it)

Mortgage rates were 12.9% in 1979 due to high inflation and the Vietnam War.

 

[PimTac]

Mortgage rates were 12.9% in 1979 due to high inflation and the Vietnam War.

Yes and they went even higher. A lot of people do not understand that 5 to 7.5% mortgage rates are the historical normal range. We have had very low rates for a long time and that has changed expectations.

My first mortgage in the early mid 80’s was 14.25%.

 

[Pew]

Anyone willing to work hard can buy a home in the USA and if not that’s life, your fault and no one owes you one. You did something wrong.
BTW averages mean nothing in regards to income and home price.
I’m surprised no one else pointed this out.

Median income, that means half the population lower half the population higher not average is the number to use.
If anybody wants a house and sustainable income with no skills or higher education than simply go to any car manufacturing plant in the United States or one of their suppliers.
You’ll make the wage with incredible benefits and you’ll be able to buy a house and this is just one very tiny tiny tiny example of all the opportunities in this country.

Social media has added a whole new class of whining people thinking it’s someone else fault for their incompetence or laziness.
Can’t buy a house? I ain’t buying one for you go figure out what your doing wrong.

Of course anybody that can work hard can buy a house. I'm not saying hard work doesn't work, except today's generation is working twice as hard in order to succeed in their own life and make up for the greed of previous generations.

The first people I've seen to complain were always older generations. "Back in my day we worked hard!" "Back in my day there were real men!" "Back in my day we made things work!" "This new generation doesn't know what real work is!" Those "back in my day" guys lived in a world where they benefitted from half the world being bombed out, with lead paint, pipes, and hid under a desk in case a nuke fell.

Your link shows the home ownership boom entirely within the boomer era. Home ownership must have been easy to achieve back then.

EDIT: Maybe I'm just angry when people blaming younger generations. The 'back in my day' people are insufferable. I like talking and learning from the older generations, but it irks me bad when they start blaming younger generations.

Lots of good thoughts and discussions, thanks for the contributions.

One thing I think to add to the home ownership discussion. VA loans. The Army, the national guard, and reserves are not meeting their recruiting end strength numbers as mandated by Congress. Lots is sign on bonus available, some for very nice five figures. Along with bonuses, a VA loan is a awesome loan with no money down. Lenders love VA loans, as it protects the lender against some losses in case if borrower default.

So, maybe serving in the guard or reserve is a great way for younger adults to be part of something larger than themselves, serve their country, and recive great benefits like a VA loan. The guard and reserve have some crazy good jobs they will train people on, like electric distribution, fire fighter, finance, cyber, etc.

Just a thought on how a younger person can get into a home.

I don't tell kids to go into the military anymore. If they're adamant about it, I tell them do not waste their time in the reserves since you're nothing more than a civilian in the government's eyes until you do 2 years active service. Do their 4 years active and get out; the benefits aren't worth the BS that goes on after service.