“Record low affordability” is a really weird way of saying price gouging.
Part of the problem is that housing in the US is treated as a commodity and used for investment. Purchasing a house isn’t just so you have someplace to live, but rather it’s treated as an investment that must appreciate in value over its lifetime. This is in stark contrast to every other major living expense. You don’t purchase a car and expect to be able to sell it for more than you paid for it a decade later, but somehow that’s the expectation with housing.
In a traditional market prices would rise and fall to match supply and demand, but because housing is treated as an investment, there’s a strong pressure to never let the prices fall. If someone can’t make a profit selling their house they’ll rent it out instead or even let it sit empty until such a time as they think they can make a profit selling it, which means the only way to reliably bring the prices of housing down in the US is to build new housing, and even then the effects of that are limited and highly localized. Outside of that the only time houses come down is in catastrophic events like the sub-prime mortgage fiasco.
Is just building more houses enough? I live in a brand new house in a brand new neighborhood. I bought right before COVID and since then my house has gone up 60k in value. I’m watching the builder raise their prices for the same floor plan by 60k to match.
I guess if you overbuild then maybe there’s pressure for it to go down? But right now I’m seeing new build prices match inflation of the housing market even though building cost inflation aren’t matching home valuation inflation.
It’s a complicated problem. The builder wants to make as much profit as possible, so they’re going to build what they think they can sell at the current market rate. If high end housing isn’t selling and a bunch of mansions are all for sale with nobody buying they’re not going to build more mansions, instead they’ll shoot for lower cost housing that there’s demand for. However that’s still going to leave a bunch of people unable to afford a house if there are still other people in the market able to afford more expensive houses. This then gets even more complicated by people who don’t actually need a house, but are instead purchasing houses as investments who then end up buying many of those new houses and artificially inflating the demand and therefore the prices.
At some point though, demand will be entirely met, at the high end and builders will be forced to move down market to keep selling property. Municipalities can help address some of this by zoning and requiring a decent mix of low, mid, and high income housing to be built, but once again “investors” and even worse investment companies can screw this up by snapping up the low income housing and converting it into rentals, or simply sitting on it for some period of time.
As with most problems that haven’t been solved yet, there’s no easy solution (because if it was easy to solve, it would be already).
In my market, we currently have an unmet ten-year demand. It’s going to take a long time to even out supply and demand.
Who the fuck thinks it’s sustainable to keep raising the price of housing indefinitely? If people’s salaries aren’t also going up indefinitely, who will be able to afford to buy it?
Shhhh… It’s only price gouging if it’s gas stations during a weather crisis. All other companies doing it during (and after) a pandemic is called capitalism, and it’s unamerican to not like that.
creditnews.com Record-low housing affordability is setting off a vicious cycle | Creditnews 4 - 5 minutes
Housing affordability has reached an all-time low in the U.S., according to data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR).
The NAR’s latest Quarterly Housing Affordability Index shows that affordability plummeted to 92.7 in the second quarter of the year, down from 101.8 in Q1 and 169.9 as recently as 2020.
A score of 100 indicates that a household with the median U.S. income has 100% of the funds necessary to qualify for a mortgage on a median-price house. Anything below that, and most households can’t really afford to buy a home.
The situation is even worse for first-time buyers, with NAR’s index showing that affordability for this group has slumped to 61.4, down from 67.4 in Q1 2023 and from 111.9 in 2020.
In other words, first-time buyers with a median income today have roughly 61% of the income to qualify for a mortgage (assuming a 20% down payment).
High interest rates and stagnant or falling real incomes are the main causes of this drop in affordability. If these indicators worsen, Americans will have a lot more to worry about than mass foreclosures.
Housing is not only the bedrock of the economy; it has knock-on effects that could reach all the way up to the Oval Office. Big cities hit the hardest
The situation may look even grimmer depending on where in America you live, with some metropolitan areas scoring much lower on the affordability index than others.
In the New York-Jersey City-White Plains (NY-NJ) area, for example, affordability has declined from 121.1 in 2019 to 72.4 in 2022, the last available year with complete data.
In Salt Lake City, the same measure plummeted from 134.5 to 82.5 over the same period, while in Boston-Cambridge-Newton it has fallen from 123.9 to 87.6.
These are only a few examples of the unaffordability of homes in populous American urban areas, with every metropolitan area witnessing declines in affordability since 2019.
The cost of mortgages isn’t only a problem for anyone who’s ever dreamed of owning their own slice of America, since it also has serious consequences for the wider U.S. economy.
Living costs, which include mortgages and rents, tend to impact consumer spending, with surveys this year showing that as many as 92% of Americans have cut back on their spending due to rising prices.
That Americans have less money to spend because of housing unaffordability is also indicated by the rising rate of foreclosures, which rose by 7% in August compared to the previous month.
The problem with declining spending is that it has knock-on effects on businesses, which experience lower revenues and profits as a result. In turn, a decline in their revenues and profits may ultimately hurt U.S. stocks, which by extension can hurt investment portfolios and pensions, creating a vicious circle.
Investment strategists are warning of a “meaningful earnings recession” for stocks. According to Morgan Stanley, the earnings of S&P 500 companies are expected to fall 16% this year. Affordability gets political ahead of election year
Frustration in the housing market could make its way to the White House as more disgruntled voters seek solutions to the affordability crisis.
President Joe Biden has launched several attempts at mitigating the current crisis, with his administration introducing a Housing Supply Action Plan in 2022 and also including measures to help households in his latest budget.
Yet the NAR’s data makes it clear that such measures haven’t had much effect. According to CBS, Biden’s approval rating has declined due to a “lack of home affordability,” among other factors related to the economy.
The apparent failure of housing policy means that many Americans will continue to struggle to make ends meet, which in turn could lead to more political disaffection.
And the problem could get worse in the pivotal election year. Home prices—as high as they are—will likely rise in 2024, according to the NAR.
Inflation is a bitch. It used to be a big victory if we walked out of costco with a receipt for under $100, now it’s $200.
Thanks Blackrock and Vanguard.
