Home ownership is the West’s biggest economic-policy mistake

[rcjordan]

These 'senior living' co-housing setups aren't ownership.  Tenants pay a (mid-6-digit) entrance fee and then monthly rent and add-on fees for restaurant meals, golf carts, boat slips, etc.  Monthly rents in a high-end one are in the $6k+ range.  They are often affiliated with a nursing home and residents are given preferential admission to the nursing home when they can no longer manage on their own.  Some operations have an intermediate care 'village' where the residents have apartments but there is a nursing station on the hall and caregivers come to the apartment to help with meals, dressing, etc.

https://trinitylanding.net/2018/09/what-is-an-entrance-fee/

[rcjordan]

Americans Binging on Big Houses Locks Millennials Out of Housing Market
https://www.businessinsider.com/millennial-homebuying-larger-floor-area-homes-less-starter-homes-available-2021-7

[ergophobe]

The solution here is to have freely available plans at the building department that are engineered, stamped and approved for smaller homes, so that there's effectively no design cost.

They are trying to couple this with areas where they are creating smaller lots than called for in current zoning to bring down property costs too.

[rcjordan]

>smaller lots

Discussed this with my live-in broker. Not gonna fly where septic tanks are the only sewer option. Because of that, the trend has been for bigger subdivision lots around here --depending on percolation.  Areas just north of me now require 3 acres per lot.

[ergophobe]

I think they're targeting areas that are currently served or a reasonable distance from existing infrastructure. Honestly, if you get a short ways from that, the big obstacle is the cost of the well and septic themselves, not the cost of the land to put them on.

The well can be the killer for someone with limited budget. The land is cheap, but even if you buy on a contingency that the sale only goes through if the well-drilling is successful, that still means that in event of a failure the buyer is out the cost of the well.

[rcjordan]

<sup>>Home ownership is the West's biggest economic-policy mistake

Somebody didn't get the memo.</sup>

Home prices can't go straight up forever. But this probably isn't a bubble - CNN
https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/27/economy/housing-bubble-fears-overblown/index.html

[Travoli]

>Home prices can't go straight up forever.

Austin and Denver markets seem to be stalling or even cooling over the last 2-3 weeks. Homes are sitting on the MLS longer. Price reductions are popping up.

A local builder posted a sign offering closing cost assistance. Last month the builders were auctioning new homes before they broke ground. Same neighborhood.

[rcjordan]

^{Going the wrong way?}

Millennial Mobility Is Fueling America's Housing Gridlock: USC
https://www.businessinsider.com/housing-market-crisis-millennial-mobility-gridlock-affordability-mobility-usc-2021-8

[rcjordan]

^{Still headed the wrong way, EG.}

Pew: More in U.S. now prefer big houses, even if amenities are farther away

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/08/26/more-americans-now-say-they-prefer-a-community-with-big-houses-even-if-local-amenities-are-farther-away/

[ergophobe]

Sigh...  the basic zoning principle of upper middle class and wealthy neighborhoods seems to be: just make sure that the teachers, police, firefighters, waiters, mechanics, nurses, cashiers and carpenters that I depend on for my day to day living can't afford to live here."

My almost all-white elementary school (this was VT in the 1960s after all) had kids from a trailer park of mostly single-wides, a kid whose family literally owned a railroad and everything in between. My sister was lamenting once that her daughters' suburban Boston-area school was all into "diversity" but mostly had kids of white engineers, black doctors, Asian lawyers, Hispanic accountants and so on. While everyone in my family had at least one good friend who lived in a single-wide, she couldn't figure out how her daughters would ever meet, and therefore understand, people who are struggling to get by.

[rcjordan]

Eeep!  I was hoping this was photoshopped.

Residential district in Dubai
https://old.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/qkonex/residential_district_in_dubai/

[ergophobe]

"The future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed." William Gibson

I.e., this looks like some dystopian future, but in fact it's a dystopian present.