Housing Prices, Housing problems

brianlux

tempo_n_groove said:

brianlux said:

PJ_Soul said:

brianlux said:

PJ_Soul said:

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!

OnWis97 said:

PJ_Soul said:

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.

2-feign-reluctance said:

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! 

Bentleyspop

brianlux said:

tempo_n_groove said:

brianlux said:

PJ_Soul said:

brianlux said:

PJ_Soul said:

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!

OnWis97 said:

PJ_Soul said:

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.

2-feign-reluctance said:

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. 

brianlux

Bentleyspop said:

brianlux said:

tempo_n_groove said:

brianlux said:

PJ_Soul said:

brianlux said:

PJ_Soul said:

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!

OnWis97 said:

PJ_Soul said:

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.

2-feign-reluctance said:

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.  

mace1229

dankind said:

Disgusting. Could also go in the white privilege thread, I suppose. 

https://www.thecity.nyc/2022/4/8/23016957/nyc-wells-fargo-ban-adams-lander

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.

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.

dankind

mace1229 said:

dankind said:

Disgusting. Could also go in the white privilege thread, I suppose. 

https://www.thecity.nyc/2022/4/8/23016957/nyc-wells-fargo-ban-adams-lander

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.

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…?

mace1229

dankind said:

mace1229 said:

dankind said:

Disgusting. Could also go in the white privilege thread, I suppose. 

https://www.thecity.nyc/2022/4/8/23016957/nyc-wells-fargo-ban-adams-lander

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.

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?

Poncier

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.