Fellow home owners, are you ready for the housing market to crash?
I know I’m supposed to want it to keep going up as a wealth generator or whatever.
But like… I wouldn’t be able to afford the monthly payments if I bought my house right now and it’s scary. Also none of my friends are buying homes, none of them are even renting full places. Just like renting rooms.
I hate that we lost sight of what wealth really is and replaced it with the idea of profit. I bought my house to provide myself with financial security, not profit.
My monthly “rent” (mortgage payment) is locked in for the next 25 years and will not go up. At the end of those 25 years when I’m ready to retire, I’ll have housing with only taxes and insurance payments. THAT is wealth. THAT is what home ownership is meant to be. If housing prices fall, it won’t change my life a bit.
That’s why I bought a house instead of renting. One day it will be paid off, and from that on, as long as I keep paying the property tax nobody can kick me out. They can cut my water and electrcity, but the house and the plot remains mine.
Additionally, if overall house prices go up that does mean that your house becomes more valuable.
However, it also means all other houses become more expensive.
So in practice, if you want to move in 10-20 years for whatever reason, it essentially means nothing that your house has gone up in value. All that extra money is going to go to another house which has equally gone up in value.
The value of a house going up means you are technically building wealth, but that wealth is entirely tied up in the house itself. Unless you are intending to become homeless it likely will stay tied up in your house forever.
House prices going up is mostly a good thing for investors. Not so much for people who simply want a place to live.
Except that many people live in their homes until they need assisted living. In which case selling the home nets them more money than they put in to pay for those services. Or consider that home prices raise at different rates in different areas so it’s possible to sell in a hot market and retire to a cheaper area when you no longer benefit from things like proximity great schools as your children are grown.
Bought my house in 2019, and it’s apparently worth 30% more than what I paid for it if my rates bill (local property taxes for the US people) is anything to go by.
Problem is, it’s all paper gains. The only way I see any of that money is by selling my house - which I kinda need in order to live in - and buying something else that has also gone up by 30%, so I’m net-even, less increased property taxes which I directly benefit from via improved infrastructure.
Now if I was a blood sucking parasite and bought a second house as a rental property by using my increased capital to muscle out first home buyers with less capital, then the gains might be enough to allow me to sleep at night under the weight of my own crushing dread at the person I had become. Maybe.
I’m really surprised to see all these bitter comments. Downvote me all you want, but I think people hate the housing market because of a lack of knowledge.
I did my homework, worked my ass off and in a few months I will be buying two houses. One to live in and the other as an investment. And the best part is that the first one will be paid off in 5 years (thanks to publicly available banking tools). The investment property will not be paid off until the end of the mortgage. Why? Because it will give me huge tax deductions (again - great banking tools). After a few years I will be able to buy another investment property which will give me even more tax deductions. And so on and so forth.
You are probably in a different tax bracket than us.
The median house hold income is 60kish in the US. Meaning half of all households make less than that.
2k for rent or 3k mortgages just isn’t doable. But that is the only thing availabe for most of us. The math can’t work with taxes, insurance, and utilities. Children right now is a poverty sentence for 50% of Americans.
And “make more money” can’t work for everyone. The median is 60k per household, meaning 10s of millions of people would need to find much higher paying jobs to be able to deal with this. But that’s not possible, there are not 10s of millions of 80k+ jobs just sitting around.
As I said before - lack of knowledge. You are assuming that the monthly repayment will be $3k. There are tools available for everyone to make it way less.
Let’s start with offset account. Having it setup with your mortgage will decrease the interest part of the repayments as long as you will keep adding money to that account. More money, smaller interests.
Second tool - interest only loan. For first few years you will pay only interests. In my case it will cut the monthly repayments almost by half. Combine it with the offset account and each month you save some money on offset account the interests rate will be lower allowing to save more.
And finally - interest in advance (pay the whole year of interests upfront). I don’t know US tax laws but where I live this gives me tax deductions starting from day one. This will work only for investment property.
Also there is a thing called refinancing a loan. When the interest only and in advance things are coming to an end refinance a loan and start over.
On top of that is the mindset. People need to realise that in order to make things better some sacrifices have to be made. So when buying a house get the investment property first and work your ass toff to pay it off as soon as possible. After few years the value of the property will go up and you will be able to get a bigger loan. Buy another investment property in a better neighbourhood to get a bigger return.
To summarize, talk to someone who knows that stuff (not a banker, a real money guy), check bank offers, read articles about investments, learn about taxes. It’s easy to complain and do nothing.
When people can’t even afford 2K rent, there are no games to play. Median house hold income is 60k After taxes that’s closer to 40k. When rent alone is 24K, there are no games to play, no moves to be made. The math doesn’t work. 2K isn’t me over exaggerating, it’s median.
Then you’re supposed to put 6% into your 401k, then how ever how much for medical insurance , then cost for car insurance ,gas… where is money for food? Where is the 20% for investing for retirement? The basic of budget is 50,30,20. You’re not supposed to spend more than 50% of your income on “needs”, yet the median rent is more than 50% of the median after tax household income.
All those tricks are just putting the debt ahead into the future. That only works if you think you’ll be making more in the future, but wages have been super stagnant.
You can’t play games when rent requires more than half your income.
I own my home, life is fine, I’m fine. But try to do the math, try to make it work. For 60k gross pay and 24k yearly rent, explain how to make it work, how to save up the 10% down for a house and save for retirement.
I was starting with aroud $45k usd before taxes. I live in Australia, one of the most expensive countries. But instead of complaining and saying that math doesn’t work I made it work. For years I was saving on everything, putting away every penny on managed fund. It didn’t give me huge interest but at least I didn’t lose on inflation. Fast forward 7 years and I’m about to buy two houses.
It’s all about mindset, dedication and knowledge. And no, this isn’t moving debt to the future. It’s working around the debt, it’s making the debt to work for you. Again, talk to a real money guy and he/she will explain you how it works.
It was somewhere around 1500 USD per month. On top of that I had to pay for overpriced health insurance (required by my visa - additional few hundred dollars per month) and I had a huge loan I took to move to Australia (visa costs, moving my stuff across the world, car, etc.). In total I was paying around 2300 USD per month, and I still had to pay for utilities and food.
My mom was complaining about some pyramid scheme get friend fell for and I explained how every business is a pyramid scheme.
You work, you produce way more value than you are paid, that money goes to paying other people and growing the business to make the shareholders rich. You aren’t rewarded for your work, generally. Somehow this is normal. The only difference with a real pyramid scheme is that they generally lie about how much you could succeed.
My wife and I are both lucky and we bought our place mortgage free because we were able to save while paying off our old place.
While making the purchase we specifically talked about how if the market crashes by 50%, we’re still better off. Because most likely every home will be similarly cheaper. And our earning potential would be similar.
The difference is that it’s hard to predict what will happen in an economic contraction like that. There would be a lot of joblessness and a lot of hardship.
I’m hoping we can minimize the joblessness and hardship (which is already happening). People are unionizing, despite the best efforts of the owners of even businesses that had a progressive reputation, and the strikes are getting results! It gives me a lot of hope for fairness without the reset that could lead to mass homelessness and poverty. But having been around the block a few times, I know it will be a close thing.
I bought this year in the US w/ my partner. Thanks to my credit union, got a rate about 1% lower than average at the time. Mortgage payment is significantly less than rent and most importantly: it’s going to be way, way, WAY less than rent in 10-15 years. Sure, we’ll have other associated home ownership costs, etc etc, but it’s worth it to us. Also, honestly, we LOVE this house. Took our time to find the right place and it has paid off, much happier here than any of the places we rented.
I think it’s still gonna be tough. The prices will go down because of the high interest rates, but they’ll stop at the point where people are able to make the payments again. People who buy at that time will pay about the same as they would have, just less on the principal. If the interest rates go down they will do very well after refinancing.
In my area I’ve definitely seen it slowing. When I bought my house a few years ago, right after lockdowns, a place would be on the market for a day or two and they’d have tons of crazy offers. It took a while to find a place because of this. Now two houses on my street have been on the market for over a month.
You are a middleman who provides no value. The difference between the people paying you and yourself is one earns their daily bread while you rest on the work of the past. It is enough that you are getting money, don’t expect us to like you just because you can legally do your “work” slightly worse.
The value I provide is taking over the risks and responsibilities of owning the apartment. Not everybody is willing or able to take out a loan of that size. The tenant maintains their flexibility of moving wherever they want or need to at relatively short notice. If there’s problems with the apartment I must figure it out, not them. It’s not my job by the way. The rent my tenants pay covers the bills I get for owning the apartment. I‘m employed somewhere else. What is your idea of doing it differently? Must housing be just free for everyone? Or everybody must just buy? I’m generally curious!
Why do you think that is? All this raw anger directed at a member of our economic class? Maybe, just possibly it is because everyone has had at least one shit landlord and they know that said landlord got away with it and is still out there ruining another person. Nah crazy talk. It must be totally random.
Wow, neat logic. Hey, now that you mention it, I’ve met a shitty person or two in my day. Guess I should call for the death of all people, hmm?
Wait, this couldn’t possibly be the same exact logic most racists use to justify why they hate X race, could it? Naw, I guess this landlord is just “one of the good ones,” huh?
OR maybe all X aren’t Y just because some X are Y.
As exciting as this sarcasm battle seems, you have made up your mind that all X are in fact Y and nothing I say will be able to change that, so I’m going to have to decline, sorry.
Well, first off your reading comprehension needs work, I’m not the landlord so “0.”
Secondly, with him only owning two apartments and people typically signing a year lease, theres about a 2/365 chance on any given day, and that’s assuming 100% “keep” rate of security deposits, no renewals, etc.
Or did you think “two apartments” and “two apartment buildings” is the same thing?
Not a fellow home owner, in my early 20s and debt free. I feel soo bad for people who sign the dotted line on 400k mortgage and agree to decades of slavery to the economy just to have a poorly made suburbanite 2 story 3 bedroom. My parents tell me its not worth it, and I believe them. The only option for my generation that doesn’t involve half a lifetime of mortgage slavery is to either buy land somewhere extremely rural and build atop or get used to the idea vanlife/nomadic living. I refuse to get into debt, period. Would rather live out of my van and pay myself rent while working and save up the money for a little plot of land in the mountains. My sympathies to anyone who goes the ‘normal’ path and eats 500k in debt in this day and age.
I don’t get it either. Got into a thing with someone I know recently. What exactly is the worse case scenario if I rent for the rest of my life? And all they could come up with is I might not making as much money. Ok, so that is it. I won’t be as wealthy as I could potentially have been.
So yeah a slightly shittier nursing home, big freaken deal. It’s not like my entire life is going to be ruined it means that I could have had slightly more money when I am too old to do shit with it. Potentially. It isn’t even a certain thing the housing market can do whatever it wants.
You people are freaken nuts. Half million dollar bet on a wood house that a single flood or fire could destroy you. You have zero control over your taxes or if some zoning department person wants to just ruin your life. And the entire awful system only exists because the government is going to bail you out. Well guess what, the government will be broke one day.
You people are freaken nuts. Half million dollar bet on a wood house that a single flood or fire could destroy you. You have zero control over your taxes or if some zoning department person wants to just ruin your life.
In fairness, my mortgage is never going to go up aside from property tax which is pretty reasonable here, whereas our rent was going up every year. Also every mortgage payment is at least in part a bank deposit towards when we sell at some point.
I don’t know why you say that. Your taxes can easily go up, your insurance can go up, and your bank can do all kinds of games. Which doesn’t even deal with if your neighborhood changes and your house is underwater.
I bought a reasonably affordable small home in 2019 when I was 21-22. I got it on a 15 year mortgage. That means by my mid 30’s I’ll own my home outright and will be able to put my entire mortgage payment (minus property taxes) into my bank account every month, opening up tons of possibilities for the rest of the best years of my life. If I was renting that would never be a possibility, and I’d have to pay ever increasing rent until I die.
If I hadn’t bought my house at what turned out to be a steal at 240k with low interest 4 years ago I would be looking at like 50k middle of nowhere properties. If it has even a broken down house there with plumbing/electricity then it would mean that a trailer would hook up nice.
I hope you are able to save up for a nice tiny home away from cost of living nonsense with good internet!
Thank you! I am actually completely content living in a 4 season canvas tent + propane heat and would rather build my own little cabin on-site than pay 60k for a ‘tiny home’ (glorified shed IMO lol) I also download most of my entertainment to hard drive and have lots of offline games and ebooks (and other hobbies that don’t involve the internet) so as long as I can go to the library every month or two and stock up on entertainment with their wifi ill be happy as peaches! Not everyone is willing to give up modern convinence like I am, very grateful to be able to live cheap and minimal.
I was looking at that and it’s so annoying how many cities ban living on property you own like that.
Cause honestly everyone living in trailers on bits of property until land lords get foreclosed on feel like our best bet. But so many places are like nooo you gotta live in a 500k house. We would rather the lot be empty than you have a little camper trailer you live in on it.
Oh yeah absolutely was just told a story about a family who built a little tiny house for elderly parent instead of nursing home. They drew up design blueprint, got the specs, had it all professionally drafted and built to code, and then they are told to tear it all down because it was 200sqft less than minimum requirements. Like 1. why didn’t they tell them that before it was approved by city and 2. come on show a little humanity even if its not exact code any reasonable person would look at that and go whatever good enough. When you can’t do what you want with your property without jumping through a dozen buracratic hoops, it isn’t really your property in anything but name IMO.
Also IDK where you live but over here where I am theres abandoned shopping malls EVERYWHERE left to rot. I say we should spend some tax dollars to renovate them and their big ass lots and turn them into homeless shelters/ extremely low cost living areas. No they would rather them just rot if they aren’t making any money.
If more people lived with that sort of style, they wouldn’t even have to give up modern conveniences. If there was higher demand, there could be development to increase internet accessibility in residences like that, better equipment for cooking and plumbing, insulation, etc. There could be modular small dwellings easy to build, like the way people used to get Sears home plans and lumber delivered and build their own house.
The housing market isn’t going to crash. We’re at the highest mortgage rates in 23 years and it’s STILL a sellers’ market. The fact is, inventory being incredibly low + home buying being desirable for many == no reason for a crash. Even the Great Recession only resulted in a temporary price dip.
I know a lot of millennials and zoomers would LIKE for there to be a crash because they think it would let them afford a home. This is a false belief, though: if there were a major crash, it would likely be accompanied by a recession in the labor market too, so there goes your ability to pay for the house.
Also, it’s not black and white. If house prices and interest rates cooled off, it would let me (a homeowner) refinance my mortgage.
Morever, there are benefits to home ownership outside of equity / profiting off a sale:
Tax benefits (I can deduct my mortgage interest and property taxes; can’t do that with a rental)
Do what I want with my house – customize, upgrade, etc.
No landlord to tell me what I can or can’t do, or kick me out
For complicated reasons, there aren’t many detached house rentals in my area, so owning a house means no loud, obnoxious apartment living – this is the BIG one for me
Look at Europe. For many the closest you get to buying a house is a 99 year lease, and for the majority renting is normal. The main difference is that renters have many more rights so there’s less reason to want to own for yourself.
I’m just trying to build wealth and just entered the market, so I’m not too excited for me, but it needs to happen. It’s a basic necessity that the majority of people can’t afford, how is that okay? I will lose a bunch if the market crashes and probably never be able to achieve my goals, but its not very feasible right now anyway. I wanted a hobby farm, thats never going to happen regardless. Something has to change.
(German)Homeowner and (small time) landlord here: Yes. And I look forward to it. We bought an old house (think 1940ies) a while back and did renovate it. While it was expensive the absurd thing wasn’t actually the price but the price for craftsman and material. The former already crashed heavily here (sadly not for the ones I need).
I rent out three apartments in the same house I live in. We have an average rent index here and I stick to it (even though I could easily get more as we don’t include extras in our calculations that we normally could add to get more rent - and with that market we easily could get more.
The way we financed the house is based on the premise that the market will crash - it is not a regular investment in the sense that we will come out with a net positive. It is a way to make sure that we don’t need to rent anymore (which is hell at times) and that we do have a place where we must not worry about rent when we are old. If the kids do inherit something,nice,but not a must.
We initially didn’t even want something to rent out, but the perfect house was one with more than one apartment. So we said why not.
So why do I want the market to crash? Renting is absurd these days. Craftsman prices are insane. Both of these problems can only be solved once the market has crashed - which means either we have much less people (likely to happen,but late) or first pick up building subsidized apartments on a much larger scale (which makes the later problem much bigger). But if we don’t do something soon it will make basic services (nursing is a good example) even unobtainable as people in these jobs won’t be able to afford their rent in the more expensive regions. This will affect everyone.
I am gainfully employed but keep an eye on what’s available in the US just to see what opportunities are out there. I started seeing some insane salaries and so checked the offers out. Five minutes of research shows that even with the highest salary , there is literally no place to live. Neither rent nor purchase. Because it’s a service like Indeed, I don’t see a way to contact the job poster directly and see if they are even aware this is an issue. Many of the postings are around one month old.
You mentioned nursing, here in the US, hospitals have been pared back to mostly large urban areas. This caused my brain to hurt.
Cheers and luck, I hope y’all don’t end up renting in old age!
Funnily enough with nursing we are currently seeing the reverse effect now. Nursing generally isn’t well paid here and due to public insurance/collective agreements we don’t see that much variance in nursing wages - while rent does vary considerably between various locations.
This led to hospitals in the big cities (Munich and Hamburg especially) being disadvantaged in the current nursing crisis and patient sometimes have to be transported to smaller hospitals far away from their home. We saw cases last fall where critically ill children have been transported to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Ingolstadt, Nürnberg or even Austria from Munich due to the lack of PICU nurses there. The opposite was the case for the last decades.
For me personally, my wife and I are probably going to stay in this house until it’s time for the old folks home so it’s just numbers that’ll never actually mean anything. If it crashes by half or more I’ll actually get a reduction to my property tax.
Let it crash, this is unsustainable. Having a secure, long-term roof over your head shouldn’t be so fucking hard.
Because when an entire generation cannot afford housing, and an older generation starts dying, the houses have nowhere to go. Right now, houses are just changing hands and climbing a wealth generation ladder, but the last buyer at the high prices holds the bag when it all falls apart.
This is exactly the reason why corporations are the fasted growing group buying residential property. Once a Ponzi scheme exhausts a buyer base it needs to find a new one to keep going.
Big housing prices only benefit the people owning multiple homes.
Because it doesn’t matter what the housing cost is if you sell your only home, because you will need to buy a new home at the same cost anyway. Since everyone need a house to live.
Not only that, if you have a small starter house you still benefit from a crash. That 400k house will become 250-300k, while your 180k house will just drop to 130-150k.
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