The average age of homebuyers in the US is now 56
The median age of first-time buyers is 38 (up from 34 last year)
The share of first-time buyers dropped from 32 to 24%
The median home price is now $435,000, which is up THIRTY NINE PERCENT since 2020
This is so astoundingly fucked
@14mission @chartier I don't have the numbers - alas - but I really would like to see a proper analysis on this. Because seeing how many homes are bought by people who already have one (or more) properties, I have a strong feeling that a lot of this price gauge is driven by "investment" buyers, pushing young families out of the market and into rental.
One reason why it makes sense to make buying houses for investment a lot more expensive.
@14mission @bwebster @chartier all hail Mitch McConnell, the saviour of the poor :-) yes obviously, Harris' plan to build more houses is very bad. Trump's plan of removing unspecified regulations way more solid.
I always wondered how obvious grifters got elected, but every day I witness how insanely naive ppl are.
@bwebster @JorisMeys @14mission But if we’re talking sheer number of houses, I keep seeing stats like this—that we have *millions* of empty houses and around 550K homeless.
It sounds like we have enough, but the problem is that most of them are owned by the wrong people. Is that a decent reading of the situation?
@chartier @JorisMeys @14mission Adam Conover has a great podcast episode about this topic if you want to do a deep dive: https://mastodon.social/@adamconover/113160466382837321
The short version is: an empty home is not necessarily a home that could help a homeless person. 1) it may not be where the homeless person is, and moving them there would take them away from a community they need to survive 2) there may not be jobs available for that person where that empty house is 3) (continued)
@chartier @JorisMeys @14mission 3) many empty homes are for sale. You need a small percentage of empty homes to make it possible for people to move without relying on someone dying to free up a home
The government could seize vacation homes and forcibly re-locate homeless people across the country to put them in these homes in areas with no jobs, but there are better ways to solve the housing crisis (like building more housing)
@bwebster @14mission @chartier you mean investment dropped after the housing market crashed. It's indeed a multi faceted story, and you should look at vacancy rates vs houses on the markets as well.
The US could benefit from more affordable housing, but such socialist ideas are frowned upon. Building for the poor is not as profitable as scaring them with Mexicans eating cats.
https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-vacant-homes-are-there-in-the-us/
David Chartier
14mission
Joris Meys
Brandon Webster
