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Surur t1_j5y3ova wrote

Reply to comment by blatchcorn in homeownership rate will be over 80% in the future because everyone will be able to own at least a small condo in low cost of living places due to remote work and indoor living. by Pitiful-Internal-196

> housing isn't limited by technology - it is limited by politics and finance.

This is not 100% true. First streetcars, then commuter trains and then cars allowed people to live further and further from work and access cheaper housing. So that is directly technology related.

As OP notes. remote work is now allowing people to return to small towns, which is a real thing.

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blatchcorn t1_j5y4vmg wrote

It's fair to say technology has some impact on housing. Technology impacts everything to a degree. But it's not the main input of housing availability.

To go back to my '80% of who' point. Somalia hasn't got remote workers living in condos. The technology all exists for Somalia to have condos, trains, and cars but they don't. That's because the main constraint is money and politics, not technology.

If we focus on the USA, consumer technology improved massively from the 60s and that coincided with the rise of suburbs with affordable housing. But that doesn't mean technology delivered affordable housing. Correlation doesn't guarantee causation right. Instead the housing was briefly affordable while the economy was booming and demographic trends didn't put strain on housing.

Even if you do believe that consumer technology did make housing accessible, you need to acknowledge that somehow that it didn't stay accessible for long. Despite all of those technologies you listed, housing became inaccessible again. It seems naive to think that technology will lead to a permanent change in housing because of this. Again it just keeps boiling down to the fact the main limiter of housing is not technology

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Surur t1_j5y692z wrote

Sure, which is why I said it's not 100% politics and finance. Like everything it's multi-factorial. But technology is a massive enabler.

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strvgglecity t1_j5ytrzm wrote

Until jobs start disappearing by the millions. That's what's predicted for the next 10 years in technology.

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Surur t1_j5yucij wrote

The same technology which replaces jobs will bring down the cost of living and enable us to live in places which are not viable now. Precision fermentation may even make huge tracks of farm land available for habitation.

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strvgglecity t1_j5yvf9m wrote

Disagree! Prices for everything are likely to rise precipitously as climate change and global consolidation of resource ownership continues unabated. We have done nothing to slow or stem any of our biggest problems. Home ownership is dropping in my country. I simply don't believe technology will make wood cheaper to build with or eliminate the greed that stop our homebuilders from making smaller homes in America.

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Surur t1_j5yx40a wrote

> Home ownership is dropping in my country.

Really?

> Typically, there is incremental movement for homeownership statistics over time. However, homeownership rates are subject to volatility around larger economic events. For example, after peaking at 69% in 2004, 2008’s Great Recession led to homeownership rates declining, falling to just 63.4% by 2016. As homeownership began to slowly recover, the rate peaked again at 67.9% in the second quarter of 2020 before falling to 65.5% at the end of 2021, most likely due to the pandemic. Homeownership rates may be subject to more volatility in the near future.

Q1 2020 65.3%

Q4 2021 65.5%

Q 3 2022 66%

Do the numbers being different from your perception change your mind at all? Or are your views not fact-based?

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strvgglecity t1_j609gz9 wrote

Annual rates are irrelevant. Long term trends are more important. A smaller percentage of my fellow citizens own homes than they did 25 years ago, or 15 years ago. Home ownership here has morphed into a corporate business opportunity, a commodity that's repackaged and resold over and over to raise prices. I also don't think the 66% figure means much here, be a use homes are so expensive that virtually all of those "owned homes" are actually under mortgages and only technically belong to the resident - the actual owner is the bank, until the mortgage is paid off. Any recession that impacts mortgage payments for a few months, and the home is no longer owned by a resident (that happens here with great regularity every 10-15 years).

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