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Goldman is back with a 16-years-later look at the housing market crash of 2008—and finds affordability is even worse right now (fortune.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 87 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Of course it is. Everyone in the US who's watched TV in the last few years has seen companies and privileged individuals buying any privately owned property available for any reasonable price.

Are they reselling them? No. Are they renting or leasing the worthwhile properties for outrageous rates? Yes. Are they bulldozing lodgings and putting up apartments at every other opportunity? Yes.

Are they aiding the housing crisis by building new single family dwellings? No.

Are they forcing as many people as they can into rental lodging with decreasing prospects of those families and individuals ever owning their own house? Absolutely.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Honest question:

If they're bulldozing lodgings and putting up apartments instead of building new single family dwellings, isn't that helping the housing crisis by supplying higher density housing? Like you can house more people with less land?

[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

They're ignoring supply and demand by keeping rents up in dense areas. That allows them to withstand empty units. Moreover, there are tools created to help them determine the right ratio of empty units to keep in order to maximize profit through reduction in management as well as maintaining an occupancy balance.

It's downright insipid.

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/new-lawsuit-alleges-price-fixing-at-seattle-area-apartment-buildings/

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

If it is more "effective" to keep hi rents and hi vacancy, then it is a strong indicator that the market is fixed

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is any large market not fixed in this hellhole of a country?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I can only imagine what the person said. I don't know why average people run to the defense of corporations.

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/new-lawsuit-alleges-price-fixing-at-seattle-area-apartment-buildings/

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Capitalism will do that

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes in the sense that they are housing but it's not affordable housing and I wouldn't call the massive expanse that these apartment complexes take up "high density." One of the complexes next to me has FOUR connected complexes that take up several entire city blocks. The buildings are two stories tall and most of them are one bedroom so these things are concrete hellscapes and they don't hold the same number of people as European style planned cities, not even close. Plus, these aren't apartment buildings in walkable and accessible areas, they are sprawling complexes built smack dab in the middle of the suburbs with NO amenities or public transport within walking distance. They are just tiny shitty fenced in neighborhoods with nothing going for them other than shelter. I'm sure they are much nicer than a lot of places but as someone that's lived in one for 10 years now, they are soul sucking wastes of space. Some of these apartments on the bottom floors could have been corner stores, boutiques, salons, restaurants, or shops. They could have gotten rid of one or two of the parking lots for a park since it's convenient to walk and you don't need a car. Instead we just get packed in here and hope we can keep up with the rent.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

they are sprawling complexes built smack dab in the middle of the suburbs with NO amenities or public transport within walking distance.

One of these behemoths went up near me, after a nightmarish yuppie shopping center had already been established. (It's "walkable" but also "drivable" and doing either makes you feel like you're going to get aquatinted with the other against the will of all involved. But yay amenities?) The only way in or out is via one moderately trafficked road and one extremely congested highway. But hark! A train station! Within walking distance! Except the train station was built decades ago and only designed to be accessed from the other side of the tracks. It's all fenced off. The only way to get to the train station is by driving a quarter mile through the shopping center to the highway, getting on the highway for a quarter mile, going into the shopping center next door, and driving another quarter mile through that shopping center. Then you can park and wave at your neighbors. Theoretically you could walk or ride a bike... but there's no pedestrian lanes on or along that highway.

It's stunningly awful.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

You know it was frustrating but not that bad until you got to the bit about the fence. FUCK that's just such poor planning.

[–] [email protected] 55 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You mean my not owning a home is not just because I'm a bad person and had too much avocado toast?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

Hey now! If you don't eat Steak and Eggs for breakfast, like the previous generation, how can you afford a home?

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Rent till we die! Yayyyyyy

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Honestly, the only reason I want to own is because I have gotten too old, out of shape, and fat to move most of my furniture myself, and I am not sure I can afford a mover, so I want the security that I am on a straight and narrow that doesn't have the constant looming threat of the owner going "yeah... I'm just not gonna renew the lease" even though I am still somehow keeping up with the payments.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Well if the studies are correct that will happen sooner than if you own.

Always a silver lining /s

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Been 16 years already?

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yup.

About how old my grandpa was when he bought a plot of land, a shit ton of wood, and a shit ton of concrete and built the house that was sold to pay off his medical debt when he died...

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

...fuck...that's dark. Sorry things swung that way for your family.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

I lean on the word "about".

He actually illegally enlisted in the Navy during WWII when he was 16, so it was more like 20/21 when he bought the plot and materials.

Ya, still dark AF. And I also don't think its a rare family story.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Jesus fuck. I am a winner in all of this, having bought my house just a few years back at 3.625%, for 2/3 its current value. But fuck me, this is depressing.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I bought in April of last year. 4.99%, right at the inflection point when interest was rising and prices went flat before falling the bit they did. Puts me technically underwater cause I probably can’t sell for more than what I owe, but the buyer would prob spend more than I did.

It’s gonna take a minute before I have equity lol 😭

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yup, at 2.65% myself. Can't imagine ever moving at this rate.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Are they telling their clients to get out of the housing market? That's when things change.

Somebody has to pay for falling housing prices. Should that be negotiated or should it be a game of hot potato?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

This is Goldman Sachs, they didn't tell their customers to dump the worthless shit bonds they sold them, they actively shorted them!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Demand is sky high and supply is so low that i don’t think anyone will get out of residential real estate. Owning a home and rental properties has been and always will be a primary instrument for socioeconomic stratification. The haves will get richer, the have nots, poorer.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Just use inflation to hide the losses from the working class.