Young adults still not buying houses

Because they have more citizens choosing it? Obviously.

While the US lags behind the civilised world in regards to health care, they make up for it with a low cost of living. Incredibly cheap real estate, inexpensive utilities, cheap fuel, cheap food, etc etc. It evens out. Where I live, average income is not much more than in the US, yet our property prices are 5 - 10 x higher, our electricity is roughly twice the price it is in the US, our groceries are very expensive, and our fuel is ridiculously expensive. We are technically poorer, given that, despite our excellent public health. We should have more homeless people .. yet we don't. We simply have less citizens choosing deep poverty/homelessness.

 

Living in a hole in the ground is relatively inexpensive.

 

Caves are better.

 

More diversity, traditionally higher rates of immigration (although that is changing now)

 

Immigration isn't the problem. We (here in Not America) are also a multicultural society, but our immigrants are mostly from cultures which have a high regard for industriousness.

 

Rapidly expanding population relative to the available older housing stock presents a problem and will drive prices up.
The problem is compounded by limited availability of building space in the higher population areas where more job opportunities are.
Especially since immigration often tends to be more concentrated in higher population areas where cultures can more easily stay in contact with others of their same culture, and because the higher costs of housing creates a vacuum of lower paying jobs opportunities to which immigrants can fill.

Young adults, having the lowest incomes and just getting started in their careers, are the ones most easily displaced from the housing market.

 

Right, but all population growth has the same effect. It's not specifically related to immigration. As long as citizens are industrious and hard working, and willing to do what it takes to stay afloat, it doesn't matter whether they're from the next suburb, or from Botswana.

 

That's true, but I just cited three reasons why immigration has a particular effect different from just ordinary population growth.

 

I've given the example of a large country town (really a small city) in which I own investment property. There is almost no migrant population .. or at least, just the usual sprinkling of Indian doctors and Asian restaurant owners. Yet property prices have increased by 50% in the last 5 years. Last year alone, there was almost 20% capital growth. Rents have also doubled in the past 5 years. This traditionally very poor (due to its very cheap real estate) town is no longer affordable for those on the lowest rung, as they cannot meet rents on welfare. And the new blood and new money coming into the town is from white, native citizens. It's basically a result of the younger middle class hipster types being pushed out of the large capital city a couple of hours away. They can't afford a $2mil small house in the Big City suburbs, but they most certainly can afford a quite grand Victorian house for $500k, and still have money to restore, landscape, and generally gentrify.

This is just the evolution of cities, it really has nothing to do with migrants.

 

Do you think it's possible it could be because people are being displaced out of other areas?

Just because all those people moving there are from your own country doesn't mean it's not being caused by immigration.

 

It's caused by population increase (as in, people actually residing in inner cities) in the large cities, which flows downstream to the smaller cities.

The biggest impetus has been GENTRIFICATION itself, not the nature of those gentrifying. Most inner cities (in the western world) were at one time the home of the poor. This has been gradually changing in the past 50+ years, primarily in response to the development of high rise apartments, and other 'quality' housing in inner cities. When large numbers of architect designed large apartments, with incredible views and great locations, became available, some of the rich moved into town, leaving their outer suburban half acre lots and McMansions. Some simply moved 'up' within the city, adding further pricing pressure.

Poor folk, hipsters, and students, who in the 20thC inhabited those run down, cramped old inner buildings, are having to move out. Their buildings are being demolished, or knocked into the building next door to create large family homes for rich folk. Such people are increasingly unable to hold on to that lifestyle, because a) there are fewer and fewer old, run down housing options in our cities, and b) even when found, the rents reflect the surrounding gentrification.

 

You seem to be ignoring middle class flight and urban decay that occurred in many major American cities in the late 70s and 80s.

Now, however, over the last 10 years, many of these same American cities are regentrifying.
And it's not a matter of wealth, it's a matter of movement of people.

Now we can ask ourselves what factors made living in cities undesirable for people with more money, and what factors are now making living in cities more desirable?

Part of it could be that crime rates have gone down.

Blacks were replaced by hispanics in many of these cities by the late 90s, and overall race relations had improved.

Then there is the fact that many of the people with money these days moving to cities are younger workers in the tech industry who haven't started families yet, so wouldn't be so concerned about having lots of space or what the schools are like.

Anyway, if you want to discuss this further you should take the discussion to this thread:
The rise of the professional class in big cities - and others getting pushed out

 

kazenatsu, I prefer reading to listening. I'm able to re-read and reconsider. Even if I'm able to play back what I heard, I'm still generally unable to understand what the words were; my hearing's poor and I had some difficulty hearing the video link you provided.

What I heard didn't match your posted words; I didn't hear housing prices were unaffordable because the government held interest rates too low for too long. The linked video's speakers themselves didn't seem to have any opinions as to how or why Federal Reserve's decisions to keep interest rates at historic lows, have been detrimental to our economy; but I'm didn't hear anyone contending low-interest rates caused higher housing prices. I always understood lower interest to be beneficial to housing markets. They did in the video state low-interest rates created a boom for construction of high-priced rental housing that few young buyers could afford.

I suppose it was less of a boom for construction of single-family housing because due to the time's poor performing economy, there were fewer buyers in a financial position to avail themselves of the low-interest mortgages; the fewer owners of middle-priced homes who might afford to move up, had to first find buyers for their current residences; the fewer owners of low priced homes who might afford to move up, had to first find buyers for their current residences; there were fewer young people that could afford to purchase a lower priced home rather than rent, and many people couldn't afford to rent. While the economy was doing poorly, student loan debt was an additional factor that previously was not a housing market problem.

Housing sales, even more than automobile sales, are very much dependent upon sales of used products, to make room for new product sales. There are a lot more multi-car families rather than multi-home families.

Respectfully, Supposn
4

 

Americans voluntarily choose to be poor and exhibit less social mobility? That's a mightily strange argument. Fancy providing some economic backbone to this weirdness?

 

And here I am, no student debt. No BS, just associates. Over a decade in the military straight out of high school, on my second home of 3400 sq ft on half an acre in the south. Also, I am still in my 30s. Its about your own choices in life, and when you are forced to pay for things you don't want or need like health insurance, that leaves less money for things like homes. But honestly, most of the millennials probably want a home like their parents had, and wont settle for smaller cottages in the sketchy part of town where they can actually afford to live. Mortgages typically are cheaper per month than renting. Millennials has the instant gratification problem, they don't want to start from the bottom and work their way up.

 

That was one of the major points brought up in the interview in the video.
Try jumping to the 2:55 point in the video.

I'm so sorry you have difficulty listening to videos.
Normally the problem is the other way around; people don't have the attention span to read through a long-worded post, so instead I post a video, hoping it will be a little more exciting for them and grab their attention.

Also, you may try hitting the cc button at the bottom of the video screen to see subtitles.

 

Well I don't know what country "Not America" is, but I bet it's an Anglosphere country that has a merit based immigration system. The US has almost the opposite of that.

 

Britain hasn't had a merit based immigration system, but still finds average education levels are higher from immigrants in comparison to native born. Perhaps your understanding is wonky?

 

I didn't say Britain. Where did you get that idea?

 

You referring to Anglosphere just ached reference to Mother England's reality! You might want to know more and use right wing kack less. Just saying.

 

There are several, to many Anglosphere nations, depending on how tight or loose you define them. But again, why did you think I said Britain when I clearly didn't?

 

Why refer to it? Because of the pertinence of Mother England and its inconsistency with your argument. Bit obvious really.

 

I see you have decided to not make any sense.

 

Given my comment is bleedin obvious, you might want to have a rethink. Referring to the Anglophere, when Mother England itself is inconsistent with the prattle provided wasn't high in the cunning stakes!

 

Let me know when you want to go back and restate your remarks into something intelligible.