Well yeah, they're trying to get blood from a stone as it is, they can hardly increase prices at this point.

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Higher mortgage rates will do that.

Imagine doing the thing that's causing the problem to solve the problem. This seems like a precursor to a panicked sell off.

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So, what I'm hearing is that house prices continue to rise...

As long as Investment groups are allowed to outbid regular people and convert single family homes into multi unit income properties, the prices are only going in one direction.

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I'm glad. This will put crimp on home flippers.

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This is YoY right? Does that mean that the MoM was actually in decline?

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Just a rant but 28 here. Sad that I realistically will never be able to own a home.

i've been saving for a down payment but the more I think about the happier i am paying $600 for my 2 BR apartment..even if im not paying toward anything

Yes. We're now down 2.5% from spring.

How does that make any sense? Turning single family homes into multiple family apartments increases supply, which depresses cost.

At least with real estate/property, a sell off like that can, ideally lead to a lot of people making their dreams happen, and the corpos that bought out land getting fucked.

The supply that's decreasing is homes for sale, not rent. Renting is throwing money away for no gain.

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Increasing supply of anything in demand will drive costs down.

Fingers crossed.

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Don't you get a place to live when you rent?

Who's going to sell off their fixed 2.6% or 3.1% mortgage? Lol

Rent prices have become inflated to the point where it's crippling people's ability to save for a home. In my area, the same shithole 2 bedroom apartment that cost 1200 in 2017 cost 1800 in 2021. I'm sure it's even more now. It's crazy out there.

Have you considered moving to a lower cost of living area where homes are more affordable?

That's true, but I'm asking what he means by saying you're throwing money away for no gain.

I already do, you can look up Marshalltown, IA.

However, the issue with that is the pay is FAR less here. Min wage is still 7.25, and im sitting at 14.50ish which is "good"

And with that, even If I wanted to move, I dont have $3-4k saved up to do so.

Where do you pay $600 for 2br? That sounds impossible anytime in the last 10 years.

Because it's true. After years on the renting treadmill I was lucky enough to be able to stay with family for awhile with my girlfriend to save the money to put down on a home. Every month that we pay our mortgage it's money going into an investment that we can later sell or own outright. You pay an obscene premium to rent and get no such long term security from it. It's money straight down the toilet. It used to be worth it to rent because the price gouging wasn't so bad that you couldn't set aside money while renting to save up for a home. That's no longer the case for most people, unfortunately.

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My friend in Morgantown, WV has a 3 br, 2ba townhouse for $500 per month...But its been that much since he moved in 12 years ago. He refuses to move because he won't find anything that good.

I'm seeing dozens of homes there for under 150k. That's absolutely attainable.

Just because your money isn't going toward equity doesn't mean that it's wasted. You spend money on a good, like shelter, and you get that shelter for x time. Food isn't a waste of money because you're hungry later. Neither is shelter. It's not suddenly a waste just because you can't use the money for shelter and as an investment vehicle.

I make $14.50, full time, take home after taxes and medical is about $1800 per month.

$600 rent, $250 utilities, $150 phone, $500 in other bills per month.

Leaves me with about $300 a month after bills. Some of that goes to drinks, and leisure, so normally about $150 leftover.

I dont see how I could buy a house and live comfortably. Plus with a 590 credit score, no bank is going to want to loan me money for a house.

Having that little money, would take me a decade to save up for a down payment, or one appliance going out to leave me with nothing.

Why would I buy a house just to have $0 and not be able to do a single thing with it.

Buy a house for $200,000 renovate and fix it up make it multiple family building for $150,000 more then then rent out 4 apartments for $1500 each per month.

Frankly lots of companies just buy that house fix it up enough to call it livable and rent it out for $2000 a month.

That means someone works for 3 weeks and hands the wages to the landlord then survives off the scraps.

You've turned 1 home into 4. I don't see the problem with this.

Renting a house is like renting a car except unlike a car the property increases in value constantly and every time it's time to renegotiate your terms the owner wants more money not less.

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Sounds like you’re doing local work and getting paid local rates.

If you’re able to learn a skill that would be considered a typical office type of job, you could look for remote companies who pay higher rates than those in your area.

Does any office job interest you?

Why do people rent cars?

And you are also at the mercy of the landlord. We are finding rent prices continuing in increasing exponentially while wages are not keeping up. So not only are people unable to buy a home to live/use as a financial asset (which is important for long term security), they they are also struggling to even make rent payments. Sure people can rent for life and have other assets, but it’s not likely to be viable for much longer if we don’t set boundaries on rent costs. You also have to potentially deal with slum lords. Don’t even get me started on those.

It's a waste because that rental will always be at a premium over an equivalent mortgage. The mortgage payment I'm making today -- which is considerably less than that shithole apartment I was referring to -- will be the same mortgage payment in the year 2045, by which point I presume that same apartment will cost multiple times what it costs today. I've spent a considerable amount of time looking at both apartments and homes in a 40 mile radius from where I am. There are no apartments that are charging a "fair" price for what is being offered. The money is being vacuumed up by greedy corporate fucks intent on breaking the back of the working class to keep them in perpetual servitude. The funds spent on that rental premium is cash you can't divert to your own financial independence and security. Make no mistake, the money is a waste. It's a necessary waste for the millions who have no other option, but every second you're not calling it what it is provides unnecessary cover for the super rich to continue applying their boot heel to your neck.

I do work an office job at the moment, and work from home.

I suppose I could branch out to see if places are hiring in other states, and hiring remotely, but most of the time they prorate the pay to the COL of the area you live in, IIRC.

I do want to learn something new and get into the tech field, but sadly, that costs money and a good chunk of time.

I am also afraid of change.

Edit: Also people dont downvote him, this was a good convo

Real estate investors. Yeah the whole market is being held up by shitty people and companies refusing to let go of their 17k -> 300k flips. They are leveraged against those prices. This has little or nothing to do with individuals selling homes.

I've seen it happen somewhat in my area.

My Zillow search got a few new popups in December and some were houses that were higher just weeks ago.

Still too much but at this rate I can maybe get a house end of 2023

Agreed. We need more quadplexes, duplexes, and so on. They don’t all have to be rental units either.

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This is only profitable because we have a severe shortage of housing, also multi family housing is illegal in much of the US, thus, whole neighborhoods zoned single family…

You can but maybe not where you currently live.

No, what you are hearing is that YoY numbers remain high because of past growth. Home prices have been declining since June.

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Ah, so housing is getting more affordable, then! That's good to hear...

I couldn't agree more.

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Still getting more expensive. „Lower price increase …“

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That’s also known as a lease, which is incredibly common.

This had to leave our mid sized city and go to outskirts of the smaller city outside of that one. But I mean really mortgage for a 3bd house was = to a 1bd condo rent and now 6 years later so many people pushed out that the small city has exploded and we were able to get same paying jobs here instead of commuting a 100 miles a day was a rough couple of years though was going crazy by the end commuting turning 8 hour days into 11ish with drive.

Alright just going to be straight with you I am 31 and have never had medical since I fell off my parents, super risky and every year I revist the risk during open enrollments. But I have worked for a hospital before I have seen what people can do on the back end of bills with no insurance and honestly hospitals are so willing to work and cut breaks since their actual costs are not what they price since they have to play insurances game, seen people shave 30-40% off their bills granted if your original bill was 60k for lets say minor emergency surgery (basically nothing that requires specialist, say deep debris removal) you talk them down to 42k after all the usual tricks (asking for itemization, pushing back where you can, stating in writing you dont have insurance and are unable to pay, etc) and then we compare that to presumed premiums which for me usually quoted somewhere between 350-400 for a shitty hmo with out of pocket of 10k. So 350 a month means 10 years break even every year after that I have actually saved money, also if we are using that 350 a month for investments and say doing 6% avg your break even is even lower. Granted it sucks that this is where we are in the world where you have to choose arguing with insurance or begging the hospitals and anyone with chronic conditions obviously gets double fucked. But this is just the way I was able to afford a house in my 20s.

Phone bills high would look into mintmobile $15 a month or $30 for unlimited data.

Actually it could be even worse than the headline implies. It could be that people can't afford what used to be the average home size. For example perhaps home size dropped 30%, but home price rose 5%. It's possible it could have worked in the buyer's favor of course, but my Spidey sense tells me it did not.

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I live about 50 miles south of Indianapolis. It’s considered income based housing but they based it off what I made when I moved in which was like 25k a year and now I make almost double and they still base my rent off that initial income. It’s a really nice 100 year old school conversion. I really don’t wanna move i just feel like a chump having paid rent at diff spots for 10+ years

But yeah, aside from me just having really good luck with housing situations, it is near impossible. This would cost me 1200 easy in Bloomington which is where I work and just a little north.

I’ve got family in Williamstown so I def can picture that and feel the same way.

Only if you are sitting on a large pile of cash.

It really and truly depends where you live. In the city of Munich for example the cost of home ownership is so high the break even point is like 50 years out. Rental yields here are the lowest in Europe.

"always" - not always. It depends on the ratio of the rental market to the cost of purchasing.

> I am also afraid of change.

Me too. Me too. It’s wild how powerful that fear can be.

The good news is that the tech field is full of free and low cost learning opportunities. You can dip your toe into a topic by just watching a few YouTube videos about it.

If you find it interesting, a full in-depth course can be found on sites like udemy for like $20. I’ve taken several of those course and they were well worth the money.

Good luck on your journey!

Wake me when they drop.

Exactly. And with the equity you build you could cash out and have a nice down payment back in the city where you originally lived

That's not supported by the data

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PHXRNSA

Yeah, but where I lived, there were two Casinos nearby, and Houses that could not be converted to multi family, tended to be snapped up by people that turned them into Hot Bunk houses. Also illegal but never enforced.

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Well if your city had their shit together they would upzone neighborhoods so that multi family housing was legal. Single family only neighborhoods restrict housing availiblity, so of course landlords take advantage of it! It’s like if there were a food shortage, of course prices will go up and yes people will start selling expired food in back-allies. Your area probably has more jobs then housing, the only way to fix that is more housing, or you know less jobs.

The heirs of people who die. People who get divorced. Retirees that want to downsize. People moving from a HCOL area to a LCOL area because they now work remotely. People who have to move back home to take care of a sick parent. People that are laid off and can’t find comparable pay in the same metro area. Investors who were in it for speculation and realize that the music has stopped. Investors who bought the home as a short term rental and realize that it isn’t cash flowing. Investors who bought the home as a long term rental and realize it isn’t cash flowing. Investors who bought the home as a long term rental only to realize that a lot of tenants are shitty and don’t want to deal with the hassle. iBuyers (opendoor, etc.) deciding to get out of a metro area completely. Flippers who bought before mortgage rates went up.

Should I go on?

Few of those are the people participating in a "panicked sell off". And with rents rising across the country, I'm sure short-and long-term investors are doing just fine.

>Few of those are the people participating in a "panicked sell off".

Eh, if they were on the fence about selling already, declining prices might cause them to pull the trigger before prices decline further. That goes for just about every type of seller I listed. Not exactly panicked, but definitely influenced by price reductions.

>And with rents rising across the country,

That trend reversed in October: https://thehill.com/policy/finance/3779075-rent-prices-see-biggest-one-month-drop-in-at-least-7-years-zillow/amp/

>I'm sure short-and long-term investors are doing just fine.

I’m sure the vast majority are perfectly fine. In such a gridlocked real estate market, it doesn’t take many new/unexpected sellers to influence price discovery though.

Sure you can. Just commit a crime large enough that the rewards will pay off the fine plus a house. That's the only way I see to get ahead in this world.

What idiot editor decided that "home price increases weakened sharply" was the best way to say "home prices leveled off?"

2.75 percenter here. I'm going to have to move for work in the next year and I'm making plans to rent my home instead of sell it because the interest rate is just too damn good to let it go.