The whole housing issues these days seems like either a reflection of the widening gap between the "haves and the have nots" or a cause of it or both. I went through some years being semi-homeless years in the mid 90's and it was tough climbing out of that hole then. Today, it would be difficult to the extreme. This is evidenced by the huge rise in homelessness. It's increasing rapidly here in the small city of Placerville, and it's growing like wildfire a little less than an hour from here in Sacramento.
Not much different here in Canada. Same stuff going on:
1) Immigration seems to have exceed our capacity to build, which leads to shortages. Stuck in a catch 22, because we need more working age people paying taxes to try and keep our social programs afloat.
2) Properties are getting bought up as investments. Not just to flip, but to generate cash flows. Gobbled up by individuals and corporations, so percentage of homes available to people needing a primary residence reduces.
3) Low Interest Rates
4) Where I live is desirable so contant migration of people from other parts of Canada.
My house has pretty much doubled in value in 7 years. It's insane.
I'm worried about younger generations. In addition to building more, I think we need to curb investment. Reduce how many residential properties an individual can own, and ban corporate ownership all together. Otherwise I think we shift from an ownership economy to a rental one which isn't great.
Well said, Zod, I agree,
And rentals too are going crazy high. I just found out a friend of mine is paying $1600 a month for a basic two bed room apartment. She uses one room for her office. But she's also in her early 70's and the chances of her owning her own home are getting slim. With rents like that, how do you ever stop working? It's super concerning.
In Ontario if you own a home your sitting on a nice little nest egg if you choose to sell and move to an apartment…
bought my home in 2018 and I have gained 120 grand in value…and increasing.
Its nothing for people to receive 10 bids on their house…all blind bidding.
From what I understand those blind bids are companies.
It's almost like shill bidding on ebay. It's nuts.
Not in most cases. I’m sure in Toronto that may be the case sometimes, but around my area is mostly people just wanting a house to live in…I know a fellow, retired GM worker went in with a bully bid at 150 grand over…but he got the house..
So hear me out. I mentioned this somewhere on here before.
You have companies competeing w cash offers for houses so it puts the normal buyer at a disadvantage, so to overcome that disadvantage they have to raise their bid price to be attractive.
Take your buddy that went OVER 150 for the house. That over paying number is now the new number that everyone else uses to justify pricing.
So when the new numbers get used the cash person is looking even better now in future sales and when they rent, they aren't taking a loss so they will charge rent accordingly.
There was a time when rent didn't pay the note on an overpriced house. People just stopped caring it seems or they are made of money.
Yes, that would be the new standard for that area and it pulls all the other houses in area up…he bid on 4 houses before he went in hard with a bully offer. We also have gotten an influx of people coming here to retire that used to live in the Toronto area. Sell your million dollar home in Toronto and buy a 3000 + sq foot home for 1/2 million where I’m at…complete with roomy yards…we have some of the most desirable weather in Canada..For years this place was one of the more affordable areas to live in Ontario…someone let the secret out…
Probably Trudeau
He claimed he was going to ban blind bidding, except real estate is provincial…and banning blind bidding is pointless…you’d have people upping their bid 10 bucks at a time.
So like to me... this seems plausible. It would need to stand the test of time but I like the idea.
It would be fascinating to see and I think this has happened historically... but if a major developer is raking in tons of dough selling condos and sub divisions.... a regulation could force them to contribute to something like this. Government funds some, corporations fund some, residents fund some. But again.... will smell too much like socialism and communism to some.
Here in NY every development has to have 10% of it's dwellings at "affordable or adjusted income" housing. It does happen.
They are talking about doing that here in Austin...Of course its Marxism so it will never happen...and I don't think 10% of units would be enough. We pay 1600 for a 2br2ba on the north edge of the city..its crazy. All of the housing prices are beyond insane. People have told us to just move somewhere cheaper, I'm like duh if there was a magic place with high paying jobs and low home prices we would be there already.
Dude, Austin was our Brooklyn. Cheap affordable, good music good food, not crowded. My cousin moved there when it started to be a mover and up and comer.. What they did to the freeway system and made u pay extra for the fast lane? Really?
They screwed up by not having a light rail too.
The amount of houses that they built there and the closer to the city the more they became.
The whole housing issues these days seems like either a reflection of the widening gap between the "haves and the have nots" or a cause of it or both. I went through some years being semi-homeless years in the mid 90's and it was tough climbing out of that hole then. Today, it would be difficult to the extreme. This is evidenced by the huge rise in homelessness. It's increasing rapidly here in the small city of Placerville, and it's growing like wildfire a little less than an hour from here in Sacramento.
Not much different here in Canada. Same stuff going on:
1) Immigration seems to have exceed our capacity to build, which leads to shortages. Stuck in a catch 22, because we need more working age people paying taxes to try and keep our social programs afloat.
2) Properties are getting bought up as investments. Not just to flip, but to generate cash flows. Gobbled up by individuals and corporations, so percentage of homes available to people needing a primary residence reduces.
3) Low Interest Rates
4) Where I live is desirable so contant migration of people from other parts of Canada.
My house has pretty much doubled in value in 7 years. It's insane.
I'm worried about younger generations. In addition to building more, I think we need to curb investment. Reduce how many residential properties an individual can own, and ban corporate ownership all together. Otherwise I think we shift from an ownership economy to a rental one which isn't great.
Well said, Zod, I agree,
And rentals too are going crazy high. I just found out a friend of mine is paying $1600 a month for a basic two bed room apartment. She uses one room for her office. But she's also in her early 70's and the chances of her owning her own home are getting slim. With rents like that, how do you ever stop working? It's super concerning.
Completely agree on the rental market. Our mortgage is about $1500/mo, but we pay about $2200. In any case, they built some brand new apartments about 1.5-2 miles from us and the rent for a 1BR/1BA *starts* at $1450/mo. What the hell?!? We live in KC---not a huge city. It's nuts.
That’s always been the case every place I’ve ever lived. If it wasn’t, rentals wouldn’t be a thing. But if you can buy a house for $1000/month and then rent it for $1800, then there’s money to be made. If your mortgage is $1000 but can only rent for $1200 or less, there’s no point and no one would be a landlord. Always been cheaper to own in my experience. The problem is it’s getting more expensive to own.
Because investors are buying up properties. Sure. Its the crappy schools and crime driving up the rents and real estate prices.
Investors bought a record share of homes in 2021. See where.
An analysis of 40 major metro areas revealed unequal levels of investor activity, with southern cities and Black neighborhoods disproportionately affected
Last year, investors bought nearly one in seven homes sold in America’s top metropolitan areas, the most in at least two decades, according to the realty company Redfin.
Those purchases come at a time when would-be buyers across the country are seeing wildly escalating prices, raising the question of what impact investors are having on prices for everyone else. Investors were even more aggressive in the final three months of the year, buying 15 percent of all homes that sold in the 40 markets.
Real estate investors can be large corporations, local companies or wealthy individuals, and they generally don’t live in the properties they are buying. Some look to flip homes to new buyers, while others rent them out.
Neighborhoods where a majority of residents are Black have been heavily targeted, according to a Washington Post analysis of Redfin data. Last year, 30 percent of home sales in majority Black neighborhoods were to investors, compared with 12 percent in other Zip codes, The Post’s analysis shows.
Because investors are buying up properties. Sure. Its the crappy schools and crime driving up the rents and real estate prices.
Investors bought a record share of homes in 2021. See where.
An analysis of 40 major metro areas revealed unequal levels of investor activity, with southern cities and Black neighborhoods disproportionately affected
Last year, investors bought nearly one in seven homes sold in America’s top metropolitan areas, the most in at least two decades, according to the realty company Redfin.
Those purchases come at a time when would-be buyers across the country are seeing wildly escalating prices, raising the question of what impact investors are having on prices for everyone else. Investors were even more aggressive in the final three months of the year, buying 15 percent of all homes that sold in the 40 markets.
Real estate investors can be large corporations, local companies or wealthy individuals, and they generally don’t live in the properties they are buying. Some look to flip homes to new buyers, while others rent them out.
Neighborhoods where a majority of residents are Black have been heavily targeted, according to a Washington Post analysis of Redfin data. Last year, 30 percent of home sales in majority Black neighborhoods were to investors, compared with 12 percent in other Zip codes, The Post’s analysis shows.
Mayor Eric Adamsand Comptroller Brad Lander have promised that New York City will block Wells Fargo from any new contracts for banking services. The move follows revelations that last year Wells Fargo denied 52.6 percent of refinancing applications from Black residents in the city with conventional primary mortgages for single-family homes.
The bank’s 2020 denial rate was reportedly more than double its counterparts in New York City, and nearly double that for white applicants to Wells Fargo.
Silly question. Tent cities and extreme homelessness are in Democratic run states only? I live in NY traveled in Cali and Seattle and saw this. Florida, Maine, Connecticut, nodda.
Texas a few years back i didn't see any of the sort either.
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another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
The benchmark price of homes in Vancouver is $1.36 million. The average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment is $2200. It's fucking insane. I rent obviously - I don't know who the fuck is paying all this money to buy here, but how average people might come up with the 20% down payment and then manage the mortgage is beyond me. I have lived in the same rental apartment for 20 years! And that is because I can't afford to move. There is a limit on how much rent can increase each year, so since I have lived here so long I am paying many hundreds of dollars less than most people with a comparable apartment. It scares the shit out of me though, because I can't really afford to pay more than I already am, so if something forces me to move (like the property gets purchased and redeveloped or something), I'm hooped.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy. ~ Desiderata
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brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,289
The benchmark price of homes in Vancouver is $1.36 million. The average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment is $2200. It's fucking insane. I rent obviously - I don't know who the fuck is paying all this money to buy here, but how average people might come up with the 20% down payment and then manage the mortgage is beyond me. I have lived in the same rental apartment for 20 years! And that is because I can't afford to move. There is a limit on how much rent can increase each year, so since I have lived here so long I am paying many hundreds of dollars less than most people with a comparable apartment. It scares the shit out of me though, because I can't really afford to pay more than I already am, so if something forces me to move (like the property gets purchased and redeveloped or something), I'm hooped.
That sucks. I hope you are able to maintain your place!
And I totally get it. If I were to move to a big city, my city of choice would be San Francisco. I lived there from 1969 to 1973 and the last place I called home there was a three bedroom flat upstairs in the upper Haight Ashbury with a terrific northerly view out toward Golden Gate Park and the Golden Gate. I had two roommates and the place had hardwood floors, we had sole use of a one car garage, shared use of small yard, sole use of roof as a deck. We were young working stiffs making low wages. Total rent for the flat was $200 a month.
Today, the average house in the city runs around $1,580,000 and average rent for a 3br apartment is $5,127 per month. It's fucking insane. There is no way I could ever move back to my once beloved home city. I really don't know how it is that so many people can afford to live there.
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
That's the thing Brian... How are so many people affording this shit??? I don't get how these prices are sustainable. I know that foreign ownership and investment through homes is a huge problem where I am and is not even close to adequately controlled, and that is a big part of it, but it can't be all of it... I'm thinking most people must just be drowning in even more debt that I realized (and I already thought it was a lot). I dunno... I don't think this can be sustainable forever.... Maybe the bubble really will burst. God I hope so!!!!
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy. ~ Desiderata
That's the thing Brian... How are so many people affording this shit??? I don't get how these prices are sustainable. I know that foreign ownership and investment through homes is a huge problem where I am and is not even close to adequately controlled, and that is a big part of it, but it can't be all of it... I'm thinking most people must just be drowning in even more debt that I realized (and I already thought it was a lot). I dunno... I don't think this can be sustainable forever.... Maybe the bubble really will burst. God I hope so!!!!
I'm always baffled by that...not so much that certain cities are more expensive than others, but the sheer number of people owning 7-figure homes. Our household is upper-middle-class DINK and we could not dream of making a purchase in some of these places. Neither would we if we combined with two other couples in the same place. It's amazing to me that so many million-dollar homes are owned.
My one trip to Vancouver (2016) I was taken aback by all the skyrise condos. I never priced them or anything but I assumed they were expensive. The location was great (as was the city overall).
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0
brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,289
That's the thing Brian... How are so many people affording this shit??? I don't get how these prices are sustainable. I know that foreign ownership and investment through homes is a huge problem where I am and is not even close to adequately controlled, and that is a big part of it, but it can't be all of it... I'm thinking most people must just be drowning in even more debt that I realized (and I already thought it was a lot). I dunno... I don't think this can be sustainable forever.... Maybe the bubble really will burst. God I hope so!!!!
I hope so too but (and I hate sounding negative) my concern is that we are seeing this great divide between have and have nots widening and that for desired areas like Vancouver and the Bay Area, the divide my continue where the very wealthy live and the rest of us are pushed out. Shades of Soylant Green!
That's the thing Brian... How are so many people affording this shit??? I don't get how these prices are sustainable. I know that foreign ownership and investment through homes is a huge problem where I am and is not even close to adequately controlled, and that is a big part of it, but it can't be all of it... I'm thinking most people must just be drowning in even more debt that I realized (and I already thought it was a lot). I dunno... I don't think this can be sustainable forever.... Maybe the bubble really will burst. God I hope so!!!!
I'm always baffled by that...not so much that certain cities are more expensive than others, but the sheer number of people owning 7-figure homes. Our household is upper-middle-class DINK and we could not dream of making a purchase in some of these places. Neither would we if we combined with two other couples in the same place. It's amazing to me that so many million-dollar homes are owned.
My one trip to Vancouver (2016) I was taken aback by all the skyrise condos. I never priced them or anything but I assumed they were expensive. The location was great (as was the city overall).
I wonder how widely this situation fan out from Vancouver? I'm curious because I mentioned the high cost of housing in San Francisco, but it really spreads out quite a bit out from the city there. For example, I grew up in a cracker box suburban tract house in Palo Alto, a stones throw from Mountain View, California. My folks bought that house in 1952 for $12,500. True, that's a lot of years ago and inflation would account for it being so cheap, but the average price of one of those houses on our little dead end street today runs between 3 and 4 million dollars. Using an inflation calculator, if that house had a value today comparable to 1952, the cost of that house would be $135,615, not 3 to 4 million. Craziness!
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
That's the thing Brian... How are so many people affording this shit??? I don't get how these prices are sustainable. I know that foreign ownership and investment through homes is a huge problem where I am and is not even close to adequately controlled, and that is a big part of it, but it can't be all of it... I'm thinking most people must just be drowning in even more debt that I realized (and I already thought it was a lot). I dunno... I don't think this can be sustainable forever.... Maybe the bubble really will burst. God I hope so!!!!
I hope so too but (and I hate sounding negative) my concern is that we are seeing this great divide between have and have nots widening and that for desired areas like Vancouver and the Bay Area, the divide my continue where the very wealthy live and the rest of us are pushed out. Shades of Soylant Green!
That's the thing Brian... How are so many people affording this shit??? I don't get how these prices are sustainable. I know that foreign ownership and investment through homes is a huge problem where I am and is not even close to adequately controlled, and that is a big part of it, but it can't be all of it... I'm thinking most people must just be drowning in even more debt that I realized (and I already thought it was a lot). I dunno... I don't think this can be sustainable forever.... Maybe the bubble really will burst. God I hope so!!!!
I'm always baffled by that...not so much that certain cities are more expensive than others, but the sheer number of people owning 7-figure homes. Our household is upper-middle-class DINK and we could not dream of making a purchase in some of these places. Neither would we if we combined with two other couples in the same place. It's amazing to me that so many million-dollar homes are owned.
My one trip to Vancouver (2016) I was taken aback by all the skyrise condos. I never priced them or anything but I assumed they were expensive. The location was great (as was the city overall).
I wonder how widely this situation fan out from Vancouver? I'm curious because I mentioned the high cost of housing in San Francisco, but it really spreads out quite a bit out from the city there. For example, I grew up in a cracker box suburban tract house in Palo Alto, a stones throw from Mountain View, California. My folks bought that house in 1952 for $12,500. True, that's a lot of years ago and inflation would account for it being so cheap, but the average price of one of those houses on our little dead end street today runs between 3 and 4 million dollars. Using an inflation calculator, if that house had a value today comparable to 1952, the cost of that house would be $135,615, not 3 to 4 million. Craziness!
Looks like if you go a few towns south prices “normalize” to under one million. Still one heck of a mortgage payment.
Either people insist on living near the birthplace of the dead, or it’s a very desirable place for internet capitalists to shack up?
That's the thing Brian... How are so many people affording this shit??? I don't get how these prices are sustainable. I know that foreign ownership and investment through homes is a huge problem where I am and is not even close to adequately controlled, and that is a big part of it, but it can't be all of it... I'm thinking most people must just be drowning in even more debt that I realized (and I already thought it was a lot). I dunno... I don't think this can be sustainable forever.... Maybe the bubble really will burst. God I hope so!!!!
I hope so too but (and I hate sounding negative) my concern is that we are seeing this great divide between have and have nots widening and that for desired areas like Vancouver and the Bay Area, the divide my continue where the very wealthy live and the rest of us are pushed out. Shades of Soylant Green!
That's the thing Brian... How are so many people affording this shit??? I don't get how these prices are sustainable. I know that foreign ownership and investment through homes is a huge problem where I am and is not even close to adequately controlled, and that is a big part of it, but it can't be all of it... I'm thinking most people must just be drowning in even more debt that I realized (and I already thought it was a lot). I dunno... I don't think this can be sustainable forever.... Maybe the bubble really will burst. God I hope so!!!!
I'm always baffled by that...not so much that certain cities are more expensive than others, but the sheer number of people owning 7-figure homes. Our household is upper-middle-class DINK and we could not dream of making a purchase in some of these places. Neither would we if we combined with two other couples in the same place. It's amazing to me that so many million-dollar homes are owned.
My one trip to Vancouver (2016) I was taken aback by all the skyrise condos. I never priced them or anything but I assumed they were expensive. The location was great (as was the city overall).
I wonder how widely this situation fan out from Vancouver? I'm curious because I mentioned the high cost of housing in San Francisco, but it really spreads out quite a bit out from the city there. For example, I grew up in a cracker box suburban tract house in Palo Alto, a stones throw from Mountain View, California. My folks bought that house in 1952 for $12,500. True, that's a lot of years ago and inflation would account for it being so cheap, but the average price of one of those houses on our little dead end street today runs between 3 and 4 million dollars. Using an inflation calculator, if that house had a value today comparable to 1952, the cost of that house would be $135,615, not 3 to 4 million. Craziness!
Looks like if you go a few towns south prices “normalize” to under one million. Still one heck of a mortgage payment.
Either people insist on living near the birthplace of the dead, or it’s a very desirable place for internet capitalists to shack up?
You have Silicon valley and then Napa that surround San Francisco. It's a haven for money.
NY we have the city which is the center then it does get more affordable the further away you are but the commute and quality of life just isn't worth it...
That's the thing Brian... How are so many people affording this shit??? I don't get how these prices are sustainable. I know that foreign ownership and investment through homes is a huge problem where I am and is not even close to adequately controlled, and that is a big part of it, but it can't be all of it... I'm thinking most people must just be drowning in even more debt that I realized (and I already thought it was a lot). I dunno... I don't think this can be sustainable forever.... Maybe the bubble really will burst. God I hope so!!!!
I hope so too but (and I hate sounding negative) my concern is that we are seeing this great divide between have and have nots widening and that for desired areas like Vancouver and the Bay Area, the divide my continue where the very wealthy live and the rest of us are pushed out. Shades of Soylant Green!
That's the thing Brian... How are so many people affording this shit??? I don't get how these prices are sustainable. I know that foreign ownership and investment through homes is a huge problem where I am and is not even close to adequately controlled, and that is a big part of it, but it can't be all of it... I'm thinking most people must just be drowning in even more debt that I realized (and I already thought it was a lot). I dunno... I don't think this can be sustainable forever.... Maybe the bubble really will burst. God I hope so!!!!
I'm always baffled by that...not so much that certain cities are more expensive than others, but the sheer number of people owning 7-figure homes. Our household is upper-middle-class DINK and we could not dream of making a purchase in some of these places. Neither would we if we combined with two other couples in the same place. It's amazing to me that so many million-dollar homes are owned.
My one trip to Vancouver (2016) I was taken aback by all the skyrise condos. I never priced them or anything but I assumed they were expensive. The location was great (as was the city overall).
I wonder how widely this situation fan out from Vancouver? I'm curious because I mentioned the high cost of housing in San Francisco, but it really spreads out quite a bit out from the city there. For example, I grew up in a cracker box suburban tract house in Palo Alto, a stones throw from Mountain View, California. My folks bought that house in 1952 for $12,500. True, that's a lot of years ago and inflation would account for it being so cheap, but the average price of one of those houses on our little dead end street today runs between 3 and 4 million dollars. Using an inflation calculator, if that house had a value today comparable to 1952, the cost of that house would be $135,615, not 3 to 4 million. Craziness!
It's all of metro Vancouver Brian. Even a townhouse waaay out in Langley (say an hour and a half commute in rush hour) are going for $1M+. Actually, the problem is rapidly getting worse throughout the province too. The Island, the Okanagan, even shitholes like Prince George have skyrocketing prices. It's a real emergency honestly. Because at this point, people pushed out of Vancouver proper can't just go out to the burbs and drive in to work. If we're pushed out it more means pushed out of BC! Or at least to some little town in the middle of nowhere, where there are no good jobs for city folk to get. And then you look elsewhere in Canada... whoops, the people actually leaving places like metro Vancouver and metro Toronto are now driving up the prices in all the places we used to think of as cheap enough to move to to escape the housing crisis.... Not anymore! Fuuuuuck.
Post edited by PJ_Soul on
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy. ~ Desiderata
Amazon’s $2B housing push is mostly leaving out D.C. area’s poorest
Of more than 4,100 units funded by the company so far, about 6 percent are for renters considered ‘very low-income’
Amazon sought to tamp down fears about displacing residents around its new Northern Virginia headquarters with a pledge last year to create and preserve thousands of affordable housing units in the D.C. area’s notoriously tight market.
But more than 14 months and $750 million into that effort, the help is overwhelmingly flowing to renters with incomes on the high end of a range the company targeted, according to a Washington Post analysis of company data.
Amazon’s Housing Equity Fund is a voluntary endeavor, and many local officials have praised the tech giant for committing so much money to address a long-standing shortage of affordable housing. Others argue that Amazon can and should do more, in part because the company — which earned about $33.4 billion last year — stands to profit from interest on the loans it is volunteering. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Post.)
For now, though, Amazon’s efforts will likely do little to move the needle for the region’s lowest-income residents, many of whom are already stretching their paychecks to make rent every month. Just 6 percent of the units secured so far under Amazon’s fund have been set aside for the poorestrenters — hardly enough to address fears that they will have to move out as the company’s new office buildings go up.
“These are the people who we don’t think about until we want the handles clean or the floors swept,” said J. Walter Tejada (D), a former Arlington County Board member. “We have to consider the consequences: Do we push low-income residents and blue-collar workers further out so they can clog our streets on the way back to job centers?”
Catherine Buell, the director of Amazon’s Housing Equity Fund, said the company’s $2 billion effort is designed to address a specific “market need”: increasing the housing supply for low-to-moderate-income workers, who make between 30 and 80 percent of the area median income— too much to qualify for most public benefits but not enough to afford skyrocketing housing prices.
Amazon’s $2B housing push is mostly leaving out D.C. area’s poorest
Of more than 4,100 units funded by the company so far, about 6 percent are for renters considered ‘very low-income’
Amazon sought to tamp down fears about displacing residents around its new Northern Virginia headquarters with a pledge last year to create and preserve thousands of affordable housing units in the D.C. area’s notoriously tight market.
But more than 14 months and $750 million into that effort, the help is overwhelmingly flowing to renters with incomes on the high end of a range the company targeted, according to a Washington Post analysis of company data.
Amazon’s Housing Equity Fund is a voluntary endeavor, and many local officials have praised the tech giant for committing so much money to address a long-standing shortage of affordable housing. Others argue that Amazon can and should do more, in part because the company — which earned about $33.4 billion last year — stands to profit from interest on the loans it is volunteering. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Post.)
For now, though, Amazon’s efforts will likely do little to move the needle for the region’s lowest-income residents, many of whom are already stretching their paychecks to make rent every month. Just 6 percent of the units secured so far under Amazon’s fund have been set aside for the poorestrenters — hardly enough to address fears that they will have to move out as the company’s new office buildings go up.
“These are the people who we don’t think about until we want the handles clean or the floors swept,” said J. Walter Tejada (D), a former Arlington County Board member. “We have to consider the consequences: Do we push low-income residents and blue-collar workers further out so they can clog our streets on the way back to job centers?”
Catherine Buell, the director of Amazon’s Housing Equity Fund, said the company’s $2 billion effort is designed to address a specific “market need”: increasing the housing supply for low-to-moderate-income workers, who make between 30 and 80 percent of the area median income— too much to qualify for most public benefits but not enough to afford skyrocketing housing prices.
That's the thing Brian... How are so many people affording this shit??? I don't get how these prices are sustainable. I know that foreign ownership and investment through homes is a huge problem where I am and is not even close to adequately controlled, and that is a big part of it, but it can't be all of it... I'm thinking most people must just be drowning in even more debt that I realized (and I already thought it was a lot). I dunno... I don't think this can be sustainable forever.... Maybe the bubble really will burst. God I hope so!!!!
I hope so too but (and I hate sounding negative) my concern is that we are seeing this great divide between have and have nots widening and that for desired areas like Vancouver and the Bay Area, the divide my continue where the very wealthy live and the rest of us are pushed out. Shades of Soylant Green!
That's the thing Brian... How are so many people affording this shit??? I don't get how these prices are sustainable. I know that foreign ownership and investment through homes is a huge problem where I am and is not even close to adequately controlled, and that is a big part of it, but it can't be all of it... I'm thinking most people must just be drowning in even more debt that I realized (and I already thought it was a lot). I dunno... I don't think this can be sustainable forever.... Maybe the bubble really will burst. God I hope so!!!!
I'm always baffled by that...not so much that certain cities are more expensive than others, but the sheer number of people owning 7-figure homes. Our household is upper-middle-class DINK and we could not dream of making a purchase in some of these places. Neither would we if we combined with two other couples in the same place. It's amazing to me that so many million-dollar homes are owned.
My one trip to Vancouver (2016) I was taken aback by all the skyrise condos. I never priced them or anything but I assumed they were expensive. The location was great (as was the city overall).
I wonder how widely this situation fan out from Vancouver? I'm curious because I mentioned the high cost of housing in San Francisco, but it really spreads out quite a bit out from the city there. For example, I grew up in a cracker box suburban tract house in Palo Alto, a stones throw from Mountain View, California. My folks bought that house in 1952 for $12,500. True, that's a lot of years ago and inflation would account for it being so cheap, but the average price of one of those houses on our little dead end street today runs between 3 and 4 million dollars. Using an inflation calculator, if that house had a value today comparable to 1952, the cost of that house would be $135,615, not 3 to 4 million. Craziness!
It's all of metro Vancouver Brian. Even a townhouse waaay out in Langley (say an hour and a half commute in rush hour) are going for $1M+. Actually, the problem is rapidly getting worse throughout the province too. The Island, the Okanagan, even shitholes like Prince George have skyrocketing prices. It's a real emergency honestly. Because at this point, people pushed out of Vancouver proper can't just go out to the burbs and drive in to work. If we're pushed out it more means pushed out of BC! Or at least to some little town in the middle of nowhere, where there are no good jobs for city folk to get. And then you look elsewhere in Canada... whoops, the people actually leaving places like metro Vancouver and metro Toronto are now driving up the prices in all the places we used to think of as cheap enough to move to to escape the housing crisis.... Not anymore! Fuuuuuck.
That's just crazy, Allison, and I totally get the frustration. And what a shame- the greater northwest US and southwest Canada are beautiful places and, like much of the Bay Area, becoming havens for the very wealthy only. .
When I lived on the Olympic Peninsula in the early 90s, almost the whole area (other than Port Townsend) was quite affordable. My brother still lives up there and is a farmer, but were it not for his long-time association with the farm, I suspect it would be difficult to maintain residency there. If C and I hadn't been in our place since 2004, I don't know what we would be doing or where we would be.
And since so many places on the west coast have become less and less affordable for the average person, where are people going? How do they get by? So very sad.
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
That's the thing Brian... How are so many people affording this shit??? I don't get how these prices are sustainable. I know that foreign ownership and investment through homes is a huge problem where I am and is not even close to adequately controlled, and that is a big part of it, but it can't be all of it... I'm thinking most people must just be drowning in even more debt that I realized (and I already thought it was a lot). I dunno... I don't think this can be sustainable forever.... Maybe the bubble really will burst. God I hope so!!!!
I hope so too but (and I hate sounding negative) my concern is that we are seeing this great divide between have and have nots widening and that for desired areas like Vancouver and the Bay Area, the divide my continue where the very wealthy live and the rest of us are pushed out. Shades of Soylant Green!
That's the thing Brian... How are so many people affording this shit??? I don't get how these prices are sustainable. I know that foreign ownership and investment through homes is a huge problem where I am and is not even close to adequately controlled, and that is a big part of it, but it can't be all of it... I'm thinking most people must just be drowning in even more debt that I realized (and I already thought it was a lot). I dunno... I don't think this can be sustainable forever.... Maybe the bubble really will burst. God I hope so!!!!
I'm always baffled by that...not so much that certain cities are more expensive than others, but the sheer number of people owning 7-figure homes. Our household is upper-middle-class DINK and we could not dream of making a purchase in some of these places. Neither would we if we combined with two other couples in the same place. It's amazing to me that so many million-dollar homes are owned.
My one trip to Vancouver (2016) I was taken aback by all the skyrise condos. I never priced them or anything but I assumed they were expensive. The location was great (as was the city overall).
I wonder how widely this situation fan out from Vancouver? I'm curious because I mentioned the high cost of housing in San Francisco, but it really spreads out quite a bit out from the city there. For example, I grew up in a cracker box suburban tract house in Palo Alto, a stones throw from Mountain View, California. My folks bought that house in 1952 for $12,500. True, that's a lot of years ago and inflation would account for it being so cheap, but the average price of one of those houses on our little dead end street today runs between 3 and 4 million dollars. Using an inflation calculator, if that house had a value today comparable to 1952, the cost of that house would be $135,615, not 3 to 4 million. Craziness!
It's all of metro Vancouver Brian. Even a townhouse waaay out in Langley (say an hour and a half commute in rush hour) are going for $1M+. Actually, the problem is rapidly getting worse throughout the province too. The Island, the Okanagan, even shitholes like Prince George have skyrocketing prices. It's a real emergency honestly. Because at this point, people pushed out of Vancouver proper can't just go out to the burbs and drive in to work. If we're pushed out it more means pushed out of BC! Or at least to some little town in the middle of nowhere, where there are no good jobs for city folk to get. And then you look elsewhere in Canada... whoops, the people actually leaving places like metro Vancouver and metro Toronto are now driving up the prices in all the places we used to think of as cheap enough to move to to escape the housing crisis.... Not anymore! Fuuuuuck.
That's just crazy, Allison, and I totally get the frustration. And what a shame- the greater northwest US and southwest Canada are beautiful places and, like much of the Bay Area, becoming havens for the very wealthy only. .
When I lived on the Olympic Peninsula in the early 90s, almost the whole area (other than Port Townsend) was quite affordable. My brother still lives up there and is a farmer, but were it not for his long-time association with the farm, I suspect it would be difficult to maintain residency there. If C and I hadn't been in our place since 2004, I don't know what we would be doing or where we would be.
And since so many places on the west coast have become less and less affordable for the average person, where are people going? How do they get by? So very sad.
We mentioned on here about LA and the antelope valley commute. People work in LA commute 1-2 hrs depending on traffic to work. We talked about the light rail being an option but it takes just as long...
I know people that drove 2+ hrs for work every day for work in that area...
Up in the Napa area they kept building houses on the outskirts and wanted to widen the roads for upcoming developments. The towns fought it and won. They have 2 lane rds that thousands have to commute on and it's nightmare of traffic because the local towns were tired of overdevelopment. This was in 2004. I can only imagine what it's like now.
Insane here in the midwest. We built at $365k in late 17' early 18' for 2800 sq feet. Homes in our neighborhood now with similar sq footage are not just being listed, but being sold for $485k. 1900 sq foot condo going for $365k just 2 miles from our neighborhood. Shit is INSANE.
www.cluthelee.com
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brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,289
That's the thing Brian... How are so many people affording this shit??? I don't get how these prices are sustainable. I know that foreign ownership and investment through homes is a huge problem where I am and is not even close to adequately controlled, and that is a big part of it, but it can't be all of it... I'm thinking most people must just be drowning in even more debt that I realized (and I already thought it was a lot). I dunno... I don't think this can be sustainable forever.... Maybe the bubble really will burst. God I hope so!!!!
I hope so too but (and I hate sounding negative) my concern is that we are seeing this great divide between have and have nots widening and that for desired areas like Vancouver and the Bay Area, the divide my continue where the very wealthy live and the rest of us are pushed out. Shades of Soylant Green!
That's the thing Brian... How are so many people affording this shit??? I don't get how these prices are sustainable. I know that foreign ownership and investment through homes is a huge problem where I am and is not even close to adequately controlled, and that is a big part of it, but it can't be all of it... I'm thinking most people must just be drowning in even more debt that I realized (and I already thought it was a lot). I dunno... I don't think this can be sustainable forever.... Maybe the bubble really will burst. God I hope so!!!!
I'm always baffled by that...not so much that certain cities are more expensive than others, but the sheer number of people owning 7-figure homes. Our household is upper-middle-class DINK and we could not dream of making a purchase in some of these places. Neither would we if we combined with two other couples in the same place. It's amazing to me that so many million-dollar homes are owned.
My one trip to Vancouver (2016) I was taken aback by all the skyrise condos. I never priced them or anything but I assumed they were expensive. The location was great (as was the city overall).
I wonder how widely this situation fan out from Vancouver? I'm curious because I mentioned the high cost of housing in San Francisco, but it really spreads out quite a bit out from the city there. For example, I grew up in a cracker box suburban tract house in Palo Alto, a stones throw from Mountain View, California. My folks bought that house in 1952 for $12,500. True, that's a lot of years ago and inflation would account for it being so cheap, but the average price of one of those houses on our little dead end street today runs between 3 and 4 million dollars. Using an inflation calculator, if that house had a value today comparable to 1952, the cost of that house would be $135,615, not 3 to 4 million. Craziness!
It's all of metro Vancouver Brian. Even a townhouse waaay out in Langley (say an hour and a half commute in rush hour) are going for $1M+. Actually, the problem is rapidly getting worse throughout the province too. The Island, the Okanagan, even shitholes like Prince George have skyrocketing prices. It's a real emergency honestly. Because at this point, people pushed out of Vancouver proper can't just go out to the burbs and drive in to work. If we're pushed out it more means pushed out of BC! Or at least to some little town in the middle of nowhere, where there are no good jobs for city folk to get. And then you look elsewhere in Canada... whoops, the people actually leaving places like metro Vancouver and metro Toronto are now driving up the prices in all the places we used to think of as cheap enough to move to to escape the housing crisis.... Not anymore! Fuuuuuck.
That's just crazy, Allison, and I totally get the frustration. And what a shame- the greater northwest US and southwest Canada are beautiful places and, like much of the Bay Area, becoming havens for the very wealthy only. .
When I lived on the Olympic Peninsula in the early 90s, almost the whole area (other than Port Townsend) was quite affordable. My brother still lives up there and is a farmer, but were it not for his long-time association with the farm, I suspect it would be difficult to maintain residency there. If C and I hadn't been in our place since 2004, I don't know what we would be doing or where we would be.
And since so many places on the west coast have become less and less affordable for the average person, where are people going? How do they get by? So very sad.
We mentioned on here about LA and the antelope valley commute. People work in LA commute 1-2 hrs depending on traffic to work. We talked about the light rail being an option but it takes just as long...
I know people that drove 2+ hrs for work every day for work in that area...
Up in the Napa area they kept building houses on the outskirts and wanted to widen the roads for upcoming developments. The towns fought it and won. They have 2 lane rds that thousands have to commute on and it's nightmare of traffic because the local towns were tired of overdevelopment. This was in 2004. I can only imagine what it's like now.
I still have friend on the S.F. Peninsula, the city, and Napa and Sonoma counties. Going to visit down there is like running the gauntlet.
Insane here in the midwest. We built at $365k in late 17' early 18' for 2800 sq feet. Homes in our neighborhood now with similar sq footage are not just being listed, but being sold for $485k. 1900 sq foot condo going for $365k just 2 miles from our neighborhood. Shit is INSANE.
I sometime half kidding tell my wife, "We should move to the midwest where housing prices are so much lower." Holy mackerel, it ain't no different there!
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
That's the thing Brian... How are so many people affording this shit??? I don't get how these prices are sustainable. I know that foreign ownership and investment through homes is a huge problem where I am and is not even close to adequately controlled, and that is a big part of it, but it can't be all of it... I'm thinking most people must just be drowning in even more debt that I realized (and I already thought it was a lot). I dunno... I don't think this can be sustainable forever.... Maybe the bubble really will burst. God I hope so!!!!
I hope so too but (and I hate sounding negative) my concern is that we are seeing this great divide between have and have nots widening and that for desired areas like Vancouver and the Bay Area, the divide my continue where the very wealthy live and the rest of us are pushed out. Shades of Soylant Green!
That's the thing Brian... How are so many people affording this shit??? I don't get how these prices are sustainable. I know that foreign ownership and investment through homes is a huge problem where I am and is not even close to adequately controlled, and that is a big part of it, but it can't be all of it... I'm thinking most people must just be drowning in even more debt that I realized (and I already thought it was a lot). I dunno... I don't think this can be sustainable forever.... Maybe the bubble really will burst. God I hope so!!!!
I'm always baffled by that...not so much that certain cities are more expensive than others, but the sheer number of people owning 7-figure homes. Our household is upper-middle-class DINK and we could not dream of making a purchase in some of these places. Neither would we if we combined with two other couples in the same place. It's amazing to me that so many million-dollar homes are owned.
My one trip to Vancouver (2016) I was taken aback by all the skyrise condos. I never priced them or anything but I assumed they were expensive. The location was great (as was the city overall).
I wonder how widely this situation fan out from Vancouver? I'm curious because I mentioned the high cost of housing in San Francisco, but it really spreads out quite a bit out from the city there. For example, I grew up in a cracker box suburban tract house in Palo Alto, a stones throw from Mountain View, California. My folks bought that house in 1952 for $12,500. True, that's a lot of years ago and inflation would account for it being so cheap, but the average price of one of those houses on our little dead end street today runs between 3 and 4 million dollars. Using an inflation calculator, if that house had a value today comparable to 1952, the cost of that house would be $135,615, not 3 to 4 million. Craziness!
It's all of metro Vancouver Brian. Even a townhouse waaay out in Langley (say an hour and a half commute in rush hour) are going for $1M+. Actually, the problem is rapidly getting worse throughout the province too. The Island, the Okanagan, even shitholes like Prince George have skyrocketing prices. It's a real emergency honestly. Because at this point, people pushed out of Vancouver proper can't just go out to the burbs and drive in to work. If we're pushed out it more means pushed out of BC! Or at least to some little town in the middle of nowhere, where there are no good jobs for city folk to get. And then you look elsewhere in Canada... whoops, the people actually leaving places like metro Vancouver and metro Toronto are now driving up the prices in all the places we used to think of as cheap enough to move to to escape the housing crisis.... Not anymore! Fuuuuuck.
That's just crazy, Allison, and I totally get the frustration. And what a shame- the greater northwest US and southwest Canada are beautiful places and, like much of the Bay Area, becoming havens for the very wealthy only. .
When I lived on the Olympic Peninsula in the early 90s, almost the whole area (other than Port Townsend) was quite affordable. My brother still lives up there and is a farmer, but were it not for his long-time association with the farm, I suspect it would be difficult to maintain residency there. If C and I hadn't been in our place since 2004, I don't know what we would be doing or where we would be.
And since so many places on the west coast have become less and less affordable for the average person, where are people going? How do they get by? So very sad.
We mentioned on here about LA and the antelope valley commute. People work in LA commute 1-2 hrs depending on traffic to work. We talked about the light rail being an option but it takes just as long...
I know people that drove 2+ hrs for work every day for work in that area...
Up in the Napa area they kept building houses on the outskirts and wanted to widen the roads for upcoming developments. The towns fought it and won. They have 2 lane rds that thousands have to commute on and it's nightmare of traffic because the local towns were tired of overdevelopment. This was in 2004. I can only imagine what it's like now.
I still have friend on the S.F. Peninsula, the city, and Napa and Sonoma counties. Going to visit down there is like running the gauntlet.
Insane here in the midwest. We built at $365k in late 17' early 18' for 2800 sq feet. Homes in our neighborhood now with similar sq footage are not just being listed, but being sold for $485k. 1900 sq foot condo going for $365k just 2 miles from our neighborhood. Shit is INSANE.
I sometime half kidding tell my wife, "We should move to the midwest where housing prices are so much lower." Holy mackerel, it ain't no different there!
I live in the middle of the middle. A house down the street from us went on the market a few weeks ago at $390K. Sold in less than a week for $440K. Very surprising for our hood.
0
brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,289
That's the thing Brian... How are so many people affording this shit??? I don't get how these prices are sustainable. I know that foreign ownership and investment through homes is a huge problem where I am and is not even close to adequately controlled, and that is a big part of it, but it can't be all of it... I'm thinking most people must just be drowning in even more debt that I realized (and I already thought it was a lot). I dunno... I don't think this can be sustainable forever.... Maybe the bubble really will burst. God I hope so!!!!
I hope so too but (and I hate sounding negative) my concern is that we are seeing this great divide between have and have nots widening and that for desired areas like Vancouver and the Bay Area, the divide my continue where the very wealthy live and the rest of us are pushed out. Shades of Soylant Green!
That's the thing Brian... How are so many people affording this shit??? I don't get how these prices are sustainable. I know that foreign ownership and investment through homes is a huge problem where I am and is not even close to adequately controlled, and that is a big part of it, but it can't be all of it... I'm thinking most people must just be drowning in even more debt that I realized (and I already thought it was a lot). I dunno... I don't think this can be sustainable forever.... Maybe the bubble really will burst. God I hope so!!!!
I'm always baffled by that...not so much that certain cities are more expensive than others, but the sheer number of people owning 7-figure homes. Our household is upper-middle-class DINK and we could not dream of making a purchase in some of these places. Neither would we if we combined with two other couples in the same place. It's amazing to me that so many million-dollar homes are owned.
My one trip to Vancouver (2016) I was taken aback by all the skyrise condos. I never priced them or anything but I assumed they were expensive. The location was great (as was the city overall).
I wonder how widely this situation fan out from Vancouver? I'm curious because I mentioned the high cost of housing in San Francisco, but it really spreads out quite a bit out from the city there. For example, I grew up in a cracker box suburban tract house in Palo Alto, a stones throw from Mountain View, California. My folks bought that house in 1952 for $12,500. True, that's a lot of years ago and inflation would account for it being so cheap, but the average price of one of those houses on our little dead end street today runs between 3 and 4 million dollars. Using an inflation calculator, if that house had a value today comparable to 1952, the cost of that house would be $135,615, not 3 to 4 million. Craziness!
It's all of metro Vancouver Brian. Even a townhouse waaay out in Langley (say an hour and a half commute in rush hour) are going for $1M+. Actually, the problem is rapidly getting worse throughout the province too. The Island, the Okanagan, even shitholes like Prince George have skyrocketing prices. It's a real emergency honestly. Because at this point, people pushed out of Vancouver proper can't just go out to the burbs and drive in to work. If we're pushed out it more means pushed out of BC! Or at least to some little town in the middle of nowhere, where there are no good jobs for city folk to get. And then you look elsewhere in Canada... whoops, the people actually leaving places like metro Vancouver and metro Toronto are now driving up the prices in all the places we used to think of as cheap enough to move to to escape the housing crisis.... Not anymore! Fuuuuuck.
That's just crazy, Allison, and I totally get the frustration. And what a shame- the greater northwest US and southwest Canada are beautiful places and, like much of the Bay Area, becoming havens for the very wealthy only. .
When I lived on the Olympic Peninsula in the early 90s, almost the whole area (other than Port Townsend) was quite affordable. My brother still lives up there and is a farmer, but were it not for his long-time association with the farm, I suspect it would be difficult to maintain residency there. If C and I hadn't been in our place since 2004, I don't know what we would be doing or where we would be.
And since so many places on the west coast have become less and less affordable for the average person, where are people going? How do they get by? So very sad.
We mentioned on here about LA and the antelope valley commute. People work in LA commute 1-2 hrs depending on traffic to work. We talked about the light rail being an option but it takes just as long...
I know people that drove 2+ hrs for work every day for work in that area...
Up in the Napa area they kept building houses on the outskirts and wanted to widen the roads for upcoming developments. The towns fought it and won. They have 2 lane rds that thousands have to commute on and it's nightmare of traffic because the local towns were tired of overdevelopment. This was in 2004. I can only imagine what it's like now.
I still have friend on the S.F. Peninsula, the city, and Napa and Sonoma counties. Going to visit down there is like running the gauntlet.
Insane here in the midwest. We built at $365k in late 17' early 18' for 2800 sq feet. Homes in our neighborhood now with similar sq footage are not just being listed, but being sold for $485k. 1900 sq foot condo going for $365k just 2 miles from our neighborhood. Shit is INSANE.
I sometime half kidding tell my wife, "We should move to the midwest where housing prices are so much lower." Holy mackerel, it ain't no different there!
I live in the middle of the middle. A house down the street from us went on the market a few weeks ago at $390K. Sold in less than a week for $440K. Very surprising for our hood.
That's just crazy.
A big part of the problem, of course, is corporations buying up properties and renting them out at high prices. That leaves fewer house for the average person to buy, which in turn drives prices up. And that leaves a lot of first time would-be buyers with the choice of paying overly inflated rent, stretching themselves thin to buy the cheapest house they can find, or being stuck with apartment living. Not that apartments are bad- I've rented in quite a few apartments- but often as a single person or married with no kid- I didn't have a family. Meanwhile, the rich get richer. This whole thing sucks big-time.
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
Mayor Eric Adamsand Comptroller Brad Lander have promised that New York City will block Wells Fargo from any new contracts for banking services. The move follows revelations that last year Wells Fargo denied 52.6 percent of refinancing applications from Black residents in the city with conventional primary mortgages for single-family homes.
The bank’s 2020 denial rate was reportedly more than double its counterparts in New York City, and nearly double that for white applicants to Wells Fargo.
This doesn’t mean anything without knowing the qualifications behind the denied applicants. I didn’t see that mentioned, if it was then I missed it. Color shouldn’t matter if there is documentation to back up the denials. You’re not doing anyone any favors approving a loan they can’t afford. All I saw in this article was comparing blacks to whites, while not commenting on the actual criteria. Unfortunately, black communities have a higher rate of poverty and credit issues, so it isn’t Wells Fargo’s fault if that is the reason they were denied. Kind of reminds me of the school district’s policy on discipline. The low-income minority schools can’t have a higher discipline ratio than the upper-middle class white schools on the other side of town. So they just let the kids skip class, leave campus and get into fights every day so that the rate of disciplinary action is the same across the schools. Don’t see how is helping them though.
Mayor Eric Adamsand Comptroller Brad Lander have promised that New York City will block Wells Fargo from any new contracts for banking services. The move follows revelations that last year Wells Fargo denied 52.6 percent of refinancing applications from Black residents in the city with conventional primary mortgages for single-family homes.
The bank’s 2020 denial rate was reportedly more than double its counterparts in New York City, and nearly double that for white applicants to Wells Fargo.
This doesn’t mean anything without knowing the qualifications behind the denied applicants. I didn’t see that mentioned, if it was then I missed it. Color shouldn’t matter if there is documentation to back up the denials. You’re not doing anyone any favors approving a loan they can’t afford. All I saw in this article was comparing blacks to whites, while not commenting on the actual criteria. Unfortunately, black communities have a higher rate of poverty and credit issues, so it isn’t Wells Fargo’s fault if that is the reason they were denied. Kind of reminds me of the school district’s policy on discipline. The low-income minority schools can’t have a higher discipline ratio than the upper-middle class white schools on the other side of town. So they just let the kids skip class, leave campus and get into fights every day so that the rate of disciplinary action is the same across the schools. Don’t see how is helping them though.
Yup. Guess I should’ve posted it in the white privilege thread.
Bolded and italicized another important aspect. These were re-fis. I guess these poor Black folks can’t afford to pay less for their mortgages…?
Mayor Eric Adamsand Comptroller Brad Lander have promised that New York City will block Wells Fargo from any new contracts for banking services. The move follows revelations that last year Wells Fargo denied 52.6 percent of refinancing applications from Black residents in the city with conventional primary mortgages for single-family homes.
The bank’s 2020 denial rate was reportedly more than double its counterparts in New York City, and nearly double that for white applicants to Wells Fargo.
This doesn’t mean anything without knowing the qualifications behind the denied applicants. I didn’t see that mentioned, if it was then I missed it. Color shouldn’t matter if there is documentation to back up the denials. You’re not doing anyone any favors approving a loan they can’t afford. All I saw in this article was comparing blacks to whites, while not commenting on the actual criteria. Unfortunately, black communities have a higher rate of poverty and credit issues, so it isn’t Wells Fargo’s fault if that is the reason they were denied. Kind of reminds me of the school district’s policy on discipline. The low-income minority schools can’t have a higher discipline ratio than the upper-middle class white schools on the other side of town. So they just let the kids skip class, leave campus and get into fights every day so that the rate of disciplinary action is the same across the schools. Don’t see how is helping them though.
Yup. Guess I should’ve posted it in the white privilege thread.
Bolded and italicized another important aspect. These were re-fis. I guess these poor Black folks can’t afford to pay less for their mortgages…?
You still need qualifications to refi (minimum salary, pay stubs, credit/debit ratio, other loans, etc) even if it lowers your payment. That’s just how it works. So an article that implies they were denied because of their color without discussing whether or not they were qualified seems like a moot point to me. If you don’t meet the criteria you won’t get approved. Doesn’t matter what your color is. Now I have no idea of that is the case because I didn’t see anywhere in the article where it takes about if they were qualified or not, so the article is pointless to me. Because if that is the case, and I didn’t see anything to suggest otherwise, how is that WF’s fault and why should they be the subject of a boycott?
For the applicant pool at Wells Fargo to be that drastically different than at the other banks so as to account for the rejection rate being more than double is basically a statistical impossibility. The only way to statistically account for it is on the side of the lender.
Comments
They screwed up by not having a light rail too.
The amount of houses that they built there and the closer to the city the more they became.
Investors bought a record share of homes in 2021. See where.
An analysis of 40 major metro areas revealed unequal levels of investor activity, with southern cities and Black neighborhoods disproportionately affected
Last year, investors bought nearly one in seven homes sold in America’s top metropolitan areas, the most in at least two decades, according to the realty company Redfin.
Those purchases come at a time when would-be buyers across the country are seeing wildly escalating prices, raising the question of what impact investors are having on prices for everyone else. Investors were even more aggressive in the final three months of the year, buying 15 percent of all homes that sold in the 40 markets.
Real estate investors can be large corporations, local companies or wealthy individuals, and they generally don’t live in the properties they are buying. Some look to flip homes to new buyers, while others rent them out.
Neighborhoods where a majority of residents are Black have been heavily targeted, according to a Washington Post analysis of Redfin data. Last year, 30 percent of home sales in majority Black neighborhoods were to investors, compared with 12 percent in other Zip codes, The Post’s analysis shows.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2022/housing-market-investors/?itid=hp-top-table-main
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
Mayor Eric Adams and Comptroller Brad Lander have promised that New York City will block Wells Fargo from any new contracts for banking services. The move follows revelations that last year Wells Fargo denied 52.6 percent of refinancing applications from Black residents in the city with conventional primary mortgages for single-family homes.
The bank’s 2020 denial rate was reportedly more than double its counterparts in New York City, and nearly double that for white applicants to Wells Fargo.
difference is tech money.....
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
My one trip to Vancouver (2016) I was taken aback by all the skyrise condos. I never priced them or anything but I assumed they were expensive. The location was great (as was the city overall).
2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
I wonder how widely this situation fan out from Vancouver? I'm curious because I mentioned the high cost of housing in San Francisco, but it really spreads out quite a bit out from the city there. For example, I grew up in a cracker box suburban tract house in Palo Alto, a stones throw from Mountain View, California. My folks bought that house in 1952 for $12,500. True, that's a lot of years ago and inflation would account for it being so cheap, but the average price of one of those houses on our little dead end street today runs between 3 and 4 million dollars. Using an inflation calculator, if that house had a value today comparable to 1952, the cost of that house would be $135,615, not 3 to 4 million. Craziness!
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
Either people insist on living near the birthplace of the dead, or it’s a very desirable place for internet capitalists to shack up?
NY we have the city which is the center then it does get more affordable the further away you are but the commute and quality of life just isn't worth it...
It's all of metro Vancouver Brian. Even a townhouse waaay out in Langley (say an hour and a half commute in rush hour) are going for $1M+. Actually, the problem is rapidly getting worse throughout the province too. The Island, the Okanagan, even shitholes like Prince George have skyrocketing prices. It's a real emergency honestly. Because at this point, people pushed out of Vancouver proper can't just go out to the burbs and drive in to work. If we're pushed out it more means pushed out of BC! Or at least to some little town in the middle of nowhere, where there are no good jobs for city folk to get. And then you look elsewhere in Canada... whoops, the people actually leaving places like metro Vancouver and metro Toronto are now driving up the prices in all the places we used to think of as cheap enough to move to to escape the housing crisis.... Not anymore! Fuuuuuck.
They need more tax breaks.
Amazon’s $2B housing push is mostly leaving out D.C. area’s poorest
Of more than 4,100 units funded by the company so far, about 6 percent are for renters considered ‘very low-income’
Amazon sought to tamp down fears about displacing residents around its new Northern Virginia headquarters with a pledge last year to create and preserve thousands of affordable housing units in the D.C. area’s notoriously tight market.
But more than 14 months and $750 million into that effort, the help is overwhelmingly flowing to renters with incomes on the high end of a range the company targeted, according to a Washington Post analysis of company data.
Amazon’s Housing Equity Fund is a voluntary endeavor, and many local officials have praised the tech giant for committing so much money to address a long-standing shortage of affordable housing. Others argue that Amazon can and should do more, in part because the company — which earned about $33.4 billion last year — stands to profit from interest on the loans it is volunteering. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Post.)
For now, though, Amazon’s efforts will likely do little to move the needle for the region’s lowest-income residents, many of whom are already stretching their paychecks to make rent every month. Just 6 percent of the units secured so far under Amazon’s fund have been set aside for the poorest renters — hardly enough to address fears that they will have to move out as the company’s new office buildings go up.
“These are the people who we don’t think about until we want the handles clean or the floors swept,” said J. Walter Tejada (D), a former Arlington County Board member. “We have to consider the consequences: Do we push low-income residents and blue-collar workers further out so they can clog our streets on the way back to job centers?”
Catherine Buell, the director of Amazon’s Housing Equity Fund, said the company’s $2 billion effort is designed to address a specific “market need”: increasing the housing supply for low-to-moderate-income workers, who make between 30 and 80 percent of the area median income — too much to qualify for most public benefits but not enough to afford skyrocketing housing prices.
Amazon’s Housing Equity Fund is creating few units for very low-income families - The Washington Post
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
There are no kings inside the gates of eden
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
I know people that drove 2+ hrs for work every day for work in that area...
Up in the Napa area they kept building houses on the outskirts and wanted to widen the roads for upcoming developments. The towns fought it and won. They have 2 lane rds that thousands have to commute on and it's nightmare of traffic because the local towns were tired of overdevelopment. This was in 2004. I can only imagine what it's like now.
I sometime half kidding tell my wife, "We should move to the midwest where housing prices are so much lower." Holy mackerel, it ain't no different there!
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
A house down the street from us went on the market a few weeks ago at $390K. Sold in less than a week for $440K.
Very surprising for our hood.
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
All I saw in this article was comparing blacks to whites, while not commenting on the actual criteria. Unfortunately, black communities have a higher rate of poverty and credit issues, so it isn’t Wells Fargo’s fault if that is the reason they were denied.
Kind of reminds me of the school district’s policy on discipline. The low-income minority schools can’t have a higher discipline ratio than the upper-middle class white schools on the other side of town. So they just let the kids skip class, leave campus and get into fights every day so that the rate of disciplinary action is the same across the schools. Don’t see how is helping them though.
Bolded and italicized another important aspect. These were re-fis. I guess these poor Black folks can’t afford to pay less for their mortgages…?
So an article that implies they were denied because of their color without discussing whether or not they were qualified seems like a moot point to me. If you don’t meet the criteria you won’t get approved. Doesn’t matter what your color is. Now I have no idea of that is the case because I didn’t see anywhere in the article where it takes about if they were qualified or not, so the article is pointless to me.
Because if that is the case, and I didn’t see anything to suggest otherwise, how is that WF’s fault and why should they be the subject of a boycott?