So I was listening yesterday and the reported says something like… Young people have a hard time getting a mortgage because the older generation has low mortgage rates…blah blah…but now they’re all loosing jobs, getting sick etc so “that will unlock housing or mortgages” something annoying like that.
Well yeah. It happens every generation. Until I suppose nobody can make enough money to rent either much less have a mortgage. I much rather hear about mortgage rates coming down after another happy CEO event. Yeah fucking unlock that shit please!
Yes, each generation dies off and passes its wealth to the next. But the boomers are an unusual case because they hold a lot more wealth relative to their size. Boomers and millennials each account for about 20% of the US population. But boomers hold 50% of the wealth in America, while millennials only hold 8%. The wealth transfer as the boomer generation dies off is going to be massive. And most of that Boomer wealth is tied up in real estate, which will have a big impact on the housing market when it becomes available.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/296974/us-population-share-by-generation/
(Gen X is somewhere in the middle and I’m skipping over them, as is tradition. They wouldn’t want it any other way.)
Edit: meant Gen X, not Gen Z.
The wealth transfer isn’t going to happen. Its being eaten by elder care and medical industries, and any other predatory businesses that want a slice of the pie.
Yeah I was going to say, our country is setup to drain any savings you have before you die via medical debt. Isn’t transferred to the next generation it’s intercepted by parasites.
Don’t forget reverse mortgages for the real estate slice of the pie.
In reality nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives
Oooh, too late; medicaid took the house already.
Medicare Advantage took the house. Medicaid is the government run healthcare for poor people, and normal Medicare is the government run healthcare for old people. Medicare Advantage is the private plan for old people being paid for with a reverse mortgage. After they die the health insurance and the bank get to fight over the house.
And not even mentioning Gen X. Yep, whatever.
The wealth transfer as the boomer generation dies off is going to be massive.
The problem is two fold. The boomer generation is spending more of their money and leaving less for inheretence.
There was a great article I saw the other day but I can’t find it now.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/08/31/gen-z-boomers-inheritance/74908414007/
I’m pretty sure this is what you were listening to, and yeah it’s a pretty bleak situation:
2024 saw one of the slowest housing markets in 30 years. What will 2025 bring? https://www.npr.org/2024/12/29/nx-s1-5240991/2024-saw-one-of-the-slowest-housing-markets-in-30-years-what-will-2025-bring
The only glimmer of hope seems to be in cities that have put effort into building more homes. Capitalism isn’t going to solve this, because it only gets “luxury” housing built for the Haves.
One thing that is helping in California is the Builder’s Remedy Law projects, where, in cities that haven’t come up with a legit plan to create more affordable housing by the deadline, (usually because they don’t want Poors living there) developers can create huge new projects that don’t have to conform with the existing (overly restrictive and often based on redlining) zoning laws as long as they include 10% low-income units.
Even the builder’s remedy isn’t going to solve homelessness or bring prices down much though. They still need to sell those properties, which means they need to have a price point that makes it profitable to build. So the law of supply and demand actually prevents them from building enough housing because if the price starts to go down they just stop building.
Oh I agree. It really requires -supported affordable housing. Although the best results come from integrating low-income units into mid-price housing so people can be near jobs and have decent groceries etc. Also mixing mid-price housing into high-end neighborhoods so the people who provide services can also live near where they work.
The real problem is landlords who’d rather sit on empty homes than lower the rent. And collude to keep rents inflated.
I’m fine with either approach. As far as I’m concerned if services and groceries are an issue then the government just builds more.
That’s why it helps to make it significantly cheaper to build housing.
It helps, I’m not denying that. But it can only ever slow down housing inflation and it can’t solve a housing shortage. As supply gets closer to demand their profits will start to drop. The only answer to that equation is the government paying them to keep building.
Mortgage rates coming down is not the answer. It’ll only drive up demand while supply stays the same. There is a major need for more supply. People will reply with the number of vacant units, but vacancy is a broad measure that ignores things like a house currently being sold and going through the closing process.
The country, as a whole, needs something like 6.5 million more housing units to meet demand at which point prices would come down.
It’s unfortunately not going to happen without government (local or federal) intervention.
This Freakonomics episode focuses more on rentals but the basic concepts are the same:
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-rent-control-doesnt-work/
As long as corporate landlords are allowed to set their own prices then the prices will never come down.
I’ve been saying it for years. We need to give HUD 500 million dollars (to start) and immunity from all but federal environmental laws. They drop apartment buildings in the highest cost markets with prices set to repay HUD over 50 years, cover maintenance, and two remodels in that time period. And the rent is of course nearly stabilized because it’s not seeking a profit. Then use the near guaranteed asset income to finance the next wave of buildings.
Just start dropping fucking anchors into the market.
They need to do the same thing for groceries too. Starting in food deserts, then monopoly areas, then high cost of living areas. Americans think they would hate it but in reality there would be literal fights to get those apartments.
AOC backed an idea to build homes and the ln hand over ownership to tenant cooperatives or non-profit orgs. Seemed like a decent idea on the surface.
https://gothamist.com/news/rep-aoc-unveils-new-housing-plan-to-spur-more-than-1m-affordable-homes
Yeah there’s a few ways to do it. I won’t complain about how it happens.
news today had a piece about real estate going even higher. Even higher? Are typical family homes going to be so expensive that only the 5 richest kings of Europe will own them.
I wouldn’t call NPR a reliable source
Why?
They make more money the harder and longer you are engaged. Better to do your own research.
NPR is a public non-profit.
I was going to downvote you for not really backing up what you said. But maybe you could explain yourself? You could also provide a link to any sources of your data.
You should do your own research. NPR is like many other news outlets in the sense that they prioritize the clickbait style stuff. I don’t like how these media outlets are constantly acting like the world is ending. To be fair the industry has pushed them in that direction but that doesn’t make it right.
