re: Drudge linked, Economist on housing bubble: We never left the bubble, its bubble inception

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Many are still recovering from the last one.

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raises hand. some stuff has recovered fully and then some (a lot of some). Other stuff seems permanently effected if you chart it out from 2005 to present.

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Cities like Dallas probably have no homes under 300K do they?

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No homes in desirable areas.

You can find a bunch south of I-30 but you will have to deal with a little bit of culcha.

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Vancouver is an extreme example of this right now and is absolutely out of control.

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are you spying on me? i was just reading about that.

if they don't get wise quick, they're going to have a major problem. the people who want families have almost all moved out to the burbs like vancouver island because the city has no affordable, convenient daycare/school options and very few units with more than one bedroom. there's only so long that you can run a city with mostly cash poor, unmotivated, loner millennials who spend most of their time complaining about bike lanes.

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People are overvaluing and overpaying for homes. I look at a lot of these prices and wonder how so many can afford such high prices.

In short, they can't. Something has to give.

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Over-valuing? Um... maybe a little. Maybe. People buying more than they should? Maybe that, too.

A good part of the problem is not the home builder. It's the tax assessors raising values of land and homes to get that tax money up, up, up.

He's not wrong though. I lived in the UK at the time. Some places didn't even lose value, just stopped going up at astronomical rates.

And yeah, cheap credit does inflate house prices. But you know what I think inflates them more, and makes cheap credit relevant? Multiple generations of people who just don't give a frick about being in debt because they never do even a basic household budget. So all of a sudden you've got people competing for homes that they don't just live in, but are a status symbol, and then there's the schooling issue on top, not sure how that affects you guys over there in LA but here in Texas it's a fricking nightmare that if they ever solve will stick thousands of young home owners with negative equity overnight. So now we've got legislators a political incentive NOT to give a shite about the fact that schooling quality varies so wildly, which is just going to make the whole problem that much worse as the cycle feeds off itself.

But then Texas is a constant bubble anyway based on what I read in Friday Night Lights.

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The manufactured Modular tiny houses type of home builder companies have affordable homes but not in metro cities. Palm Harbor type homes were big in Fla. for the reason of retirement. Cities like Dallas probably have no homes under 300K do they?

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Dallas does actually. But house prices are directly correlated with greatschools ratings.

It's probably great for couples with no kids and two incomes. I could go live in Bishops Arts District (next area to be gentrified I think) on the salary I made when I worked at Walmart. There's a 3 bed 1.5 bath 1344sq ft place just off Bishops Arts District for 85k! I mean, it's a bit of a shithole, but it's a proper house, has a garden and everything. As long as the foundation and structure is ok you can live there forever.

ETA: I see from your other posts you've got the school rating issue down. Here in TX the state is welching and letting homeowners do the bulk of school funding. It's a disaster.