'Murica! (256 Viewers)

Fab Fragment

Senior Member
Dec 22, 2018
4,072
2.45, gat dayum :lion:. I should've bought something back then, literally anything at all just to have it knowing what I do now. Unfortunately it looks like you're going to wait a while to lower that 3.99

If anything I'd go more north, I miss snow.

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My neighborhood alone has like a third of the entire population of Fargo, North Dakota :lol:
Are you in North Dakota?
 

Buy on AliExpress.com

Post Ironic

Senior Member
Feb 9, 2013
42,253
All the beyotching that California's housing costs are too expensive, etc... but if you're buying it as an investment, how isn't that desirable?

Taxes aside, I never understood that logic. At some level, you effectively want to buy in a place that becomes harder to afford.

Because you're either going to be an owner wanting the value to go up or a renter beyotching about it.

And yet home prices going up is repeatedly framed in the news as a bad thing.
As a society you want housing prices to rise in line with wages/disposable income, or at least to stay moderately close.

As a real estate investor/developer, obviously, endlessly skyrocketing real estate prices like here in Canada are desirable for personal profit.

However, pricing a large part of the “middle class” out of home ownership is problematic given that in the US and Canada at the very least, home ownership is borderline essential to most people’s retirement plans.
 

swag

L'autista
Administrator
Sep 23, 2003
84,750
Maybe in the future, the modern modular houses (like the ones Elon Musk is promoting) might be something to consider.
That would be great if the value of a home was actually the home. I remember owning a standalone home in San Francisco a decade ago: the value of our home was mostly in the land and not the actual house. Which is better when you're buying home insurance, because replacement costs are only for the fraction that's the built environment. But when the land itself becomes worth more, the value of prefab houses makes little difference for the convenience tradeoffs.

As a society you want housing prices to rise in line with wages/disposable income, or at least to stay moderately close.

As a real estate investor/developer, obviously, endlessly skyrocketing real estate prices like here in Canada are desirable for personal profit.

However, pricing a large part of the “middle class” out of home ownership is problematic given that in the US and Canada at the very least, home ownership is borderline essential to most people’s retirement plans.
It's problematic, but it's also somewhat more generational than it is about class, IMO. Because people in the middle class a couple generations back could afford things not even well-paid young people can afford today. This is due to time of settlement development + population growth.

This makes property more like fine art or fine wine or NFTs: the scarcity is the competitive point. Because the fact is not everybody can live in a secluded house on a cliff with a view of the ocean in Malibu. And generations before those today parceled that all out before you were even a genetic consideration.
 

Post Ironic

Senior Member
Feb 9, 2013
42,253
That would be great if the value of a home was actually the home. I remember owning a standalone home in San Francisco a decade ago: the value of our home was mostly in the land and not the actual house. Which is better when you're buying home insurance, because replacement costs are only for the fraction that's the built environment. But when the land itself becomes worth more, the value of prefab houses makes little difference for the convenience tradeoffs.



It's problematic, but it's also somewhat more generational than it is about class, IMO. Because people in the middle class a couple generations back could afford things not even well-paid young people can afford today. This is due to time of settlement development + population growth.

This makes property more like fine art or fine wine or NFTs: the scarcity is the competitive point. Because the fact is not everybody can live in a secluded house on a cliff with a view of the ocean in Malibu. And generations before those today parceled that all out before you were even a genetic consideration.
Oh for sure, and in a densely populated nation that is bound to happen… although hopefully in densely populated first world nations, population growth is stagnated enough to not make this a big problem..

…but in North America where there is still an enormous amount of government owned, non-park land, it’s to some degree about government keeping land scarce and unavailable. Doubly so in Canada. I think it’s BLM (bureau of land management) in the US, and here in Canada, it’s crown land. The government has to do a balancing act there in not crashing the real estate market with an over saturation of cheap land for development, while making enough available to keep home ownership a reasonable aspiration for the middle class.

There are other things at play, of course. Corporations and investors owning a steadily growing percentage of single family residential homes is a problem too, given that they are using them as investment vehicles for rental income on both small and large scale.
 
Jun 16, 2020
12,435
As a society you want housing prices to rise in line with wages/disposable income, or at least to stay moderately close.

As a real estate investor/developer, obviously, endlessly skyrocketing real estate prices like here in Canada are desirable for personal profit.

However, pricing a large part of the “middle class” out of home ownership is problematic given that in the US and Canada at the very least, home ownership is borderline essential to most people’s retirement plans.
This really seems to be a Western trend, all very recognisable.
 

AFL_ITALIA

MAGISTERIAL
Jun 17, 2011
31,784
Things I've been "enlightened" about regarding the bridge collapse so far:
- it was a controlled demolition
- it was a distraction from Diddy
- it was "soft disclosed" by some movie named "Leave the World Behind"
- was done by "the elites" in order to bankrupt Americans (I guess they stopped liking making money from Americans buying goods and services)

- RACISM
- DEI cabal
- the Chinese
- the Jews
 
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Hust

Senior Member
Hustini
May 29, 2005
93,703
Things I've been "enlightened" about regarding the bridge collapse so far:
- it was a controlled demolition
- it was a distraction from Diddy
- it was "soft disclosed" by some movie named "Leave the World Behind"
- was done by "the elites" in order to bankrupt Americans (I guess they stopped liking making money from Americans buying goods and services)
Bridge was racist
 

X Æ A-12

Senior Member
Contributor
Sep 4, 2006
87,934
Things I've been "enlightened" about regarding the bridge collapse so far:
- it was a controlled demolition
- it was a distraction from Diddy
- it was "soft disclosed" by some movie named "Leave the World Behind"
- was done by "the elites" in order to bankrupt Americans (I guess they stopped liking making money from Americans buying goods and services)
- DEI Engineers
-Chinese Cyberattack
- Mossad
 

Hust

Senior Member
Hustini
May 29, 2005
93,703
All the beyotching that California's housing costs are too expensive, etc... but if you're buying it as an investment, how isn't that desirable?

Taxes aside, I never understood that logic. At some level, you effectively want to buy in a place that becomes harder to afford.

Because you're either going to be an owner wanting the value to go up or a renter beyotching about it.

And yet home prices going up is repeatedly framed in the news as a bad thing.
never understood the logic about getting out of blue states? If you wanna buy something and rent it, sure suckers in blue states will pay more for rent cuz it’s near to a Starbucks or Trader Joes. I’m saying get out of blue states because they suck
 

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