Quote:
Originally Posted by blankall
Pretty simple. We had the capacity to house our population at one point. As that population grew, we ran out of space until eventually there was a shortage. It's not just immigration. We have the millennials, who are the biggest co-hort ever entering the market, and the babyboomers don't want to downsize.
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I wanted to touch on this a bit. Its not even that the Babyboomers 'Dont Want' to downsize. I think this issue is more complex than that.
I think it boils down to, as you alluded to, supply is short and ergo price is increasing. Furthermore a significant chunk of babyboomers essentially have their retirement plans and funding baked into the value of their homes.
But the price of those homes, due to shortages and other market factors, are unattainable for the people that we're targeting right now.
You've got these people who have been living in their homes for 20-30 years and now these things are being valued outrageously high and the people coming into the market now, as you mentioned, are that mid-30s group.
Well these people cant afford $750K -$1.25M homes.
And these are just single-family homes in 'older' neighbourhoods.
And whats more, is that those same babyboomers cant take a haircut on the value of their homes because they're banking on that for their retirement.
I do agree with you on a number of points, but primarily, at the moment we as a society are going to seriously suffer with a housing crisis.
One poster mentioned 'communism' in terms of diverting students to specific career paths in reference to targeted economic planning, and they're not wrong, I dont think we really want to see that.
But one thing the communists may have gotten right was State-Provided, Dense, inexpensive housing.
But its not even just the Soviet-style communal housing, you see it in China and you see it in the old British Housing Estates.
Our Government, at some point, may have to move into the Housing industry.