re: The math for buying a home no longer works, per WSJ

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poor with few career opportunities

average household income is significantly less than the US average

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A lot of big companies with a presence there. And lots of people work remotely.

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TOP EMPLOYERS
Top Private, Non-Chain, Employers in Sheboygan County

Kohler Co., enameled iron and metal sanitary ware manufacturing, 5000+

Bemis Mfg. Co., plastics product manufacturing, 1000+

Aurora Medical Group Inc., physician offices, 1000+

Nemak, aluminum die-casting foundries, 1000+

Sargento Foods Inc., cheese manufacturing, 1000+

ACUITY. direct property and casualty insurers, 1000+

Johnsonville Sausage, meat processing, 500-999

Rockline Industries Inc., converted paper product manufacturing, 500-999

Fresh Brands Distributing Inc. (Piggly Wiggly - Midwest), managing offices, 500-999

HSHS St. Nicholas Hospital, general medical and surgical hospital, 500-999

Masters Gallery Foods Inc., dairy-product merchant wholesalers, 500-999

MilliporeSigma (Merck KGaA), chemical manufacturing, 500-999

The Vollrath Co., kitchen utensil, pot and pan manufacturing, 500-999

American Orthodontics Corp., dental equipment and supplies manufacturing, 500-999

Carl Buddig & Co. (Old Wisconsin Sausage), meat markets, 250-499

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Not to mention, the argument was, simply, "there are not enough affordable homes"...I just showed there are a lot of them in really nice, safe cities. So you're kind of making the point that others have made, which is that there's not enough affordable homes in the popular cities/places where a ton of people want to live. That's not surprising, but then maybe those who cannot afford it should not live there or live in an area of that community with lower demand and lower prices.

Like I said, works for a few.

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Life is what you make of it. If you want to be boring, you can be boring. If you want to enjoy yourself...you will.

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"Move to Haiti. You can be happy there if you try hard enough!" Obviously an extreme example, but it's just a ridiculous concept.

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I imagine having zero discretionary income after dumping everything into an house you can't afford is also isolating.

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I'm not advocating to be house poor if you can find a better option. I don't know what the solution is. We lucked out with our current 2 bed 1 bath situation, but we as a society can also acknowledge that homeownership is no longer something that many Americans can reasonably afford.

But even then I'd still rather be house poor in a good neighborhood and be able to enjoy our close friends, parks, organizations, celebrations, infrastructure, nearby grocery stores, etc. that the city offers, all-the-while knowing that my property is only going to increase in value and career opportunities to increase pay are immediately nearby.

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I don't know what the solution is.

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Wait for the market to work?

The rate hikes will start to have an effect, home prices are starting to come down, eventually interest rates will also come down, and new inventory will continue to come online in these new places where so many people want to be.

The simple fact is that the market has shown itself to be way more efficient and way less costly than government when it comes to "fixing" things. And by the time the government does anything the problem has already largely corrected itself.

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The rate hikes will start to have an effect, home prices are starting to come down,

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Why would home prices come down?

Home prices only come down with unemployment.

Job insecurity and lack of income (i.e. one working spouse) are the only proven factors to reliably affect the housing market in a significant downward trend.

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Why would home prices come down?

Home prices only come down with unemployment.

Job insecurity and lack of income (i.e. one working spouse) are the only proven factors to reliably affect the housing market in a significant downward trend

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Given that we're in an election year it's going to be interesting to see how things go with this administration. I agree that they're going to have to choose to fix inflation, which will require unemployment to rise, or try putting off a recession, which will fuel inflation.

17% of my take home goes toward my house
7% goes toward my deer camp/lease

coonass math there. priorities.

It's a choice. If young people value owning a home and having a family, there's plenty of places to do that. If they value living in a popular area and renting a shitty apartment until they're 30, they can do that. I was actually one of the latter, lived very frugally for a long time, and was able to eventually buy a nice condo.

Back to renting now in my new city, waiting on those prices to drop

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Back to renting now in my new city, waiting on those prices to drop

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Good luck.

You might be waiting for a long time. And when prices do drop, they very well may be (significantly) higher than they are today.


People talk about Austin housing dropping 20% in the last year. You might say “Great! This is the price drop I’ve been waiting for!”

Meanwhile prices are still 40% (!!!) higher than they were a few years ago and rates are triple what they were.

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There are great townhomes in Sandy Springs and Marietta for $175k to $240k.

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the first thing that pops up on zillow for sandy springs was 1 bed room apartment for $250k
LINK