patrick.net

Troy says

Just bandaids on a broken system. We’re spending $30B in section 8, $80B on food stamps, $120B per year on the MID (which reminds me, we should really kill that for non owner-occupied) etc etc.

Why not kill the MID period?

klarek says

Why not kill the MID period?

It should be phased out over 10 years, yes.

It was when housing boosters objected that this would give an asymmetric/unfair advantage to investors that it occurred to that we should just kill it for non-owner occupied SFH/condo too.

problem solved, as it were.

"Why not kill the MID period?"

Why should we get rid of it when corporations are getting massive subsidies? Does that sound fair?

HousingWatcher says

“Why not kill the MID period?”
Why should we get rid of it when corporations are getting massive subsidies? Does that sound fair?

Only if you believe one evil justifies another. Maybe you should look into where the hundreds of billions in MID are going. It's disproportionally helping the wealthy people which statists like you want to draw-and-quarter.

klarek says

It’s disproportionally helping the wealthy people

actually, it's not even doing that. Giving a subsidy to absolutely everyone for a good with inelastic supply just shifts the cost of that good over by the subsidy.

Government could offer everyone $1/gallon vouchers, and we'd soon seen $5 gas here.

which statists like you want to draw-and-quarter.

Actually, it was Georgism that made me understand the difference between the good wealthy people and the wealthy people that are ungood.

It all comes down to what wealth *creation* they themselves contribute to society -- "wealth creation" here being the provision of new goods and services into the economy.

The Nordic countries, and mixed economies in general, do not punish entrepreneurial effort, though if they listened to me they'd tax wage income less and actual rentier income more.

Troy says

actually, it’s not even doing that. Giving a subsidy to absolutely everyone for a good with inelastic supply just shifts the cost of that good over by the subsidy.

Agreed, they're largely paying for it in the bloated price they're bidding up on their purchase. But the MID is giving more breaks to the wealthy, dollar-wise.

Troy says

The system is corrupted to the core, because the land economy is the base of all human activity.

I agree. The system is designed to use the government to redistribute wealth -- UPWARD. Wealth gets redistributed from the middle class and the poor to the rich by force of law. It's socialism, but because it's socialism for the rich, it is somehow "good", so there are no complaints from the Fox News crowd.

Question: What's the difference between the people who do no useful work but get welfare checks and the people who do no useful work but get to use the police to collect rents and interest?

Answer: A few trillion dollars.

Forgive me for not reading all of your posts, but I read as many as was comfortable. Everyone is talking about the housing bust as if it were over, and all the damage has been done. We're only in the third inning of this ball game. Thank you patrick for warning me in time, we were going to buy in Florida at the top of the market, and as fate would happen we didn't and ended up inherriting 100% free small house in Pgh pa, where there was no bubble. Now the houses we looked at are exactly 1/2 of the price we were going to pay. Every house in the plan is underwater by 1/2 a million dollars, and the developer has gone bankrupt. The systematic corruption of all of the entities will haunt us for decades. The banks have written down only some of the losses, and the fed is allowing them to lie to us and their stockholders. We have at most 8-12 years before the national debt is so large we will have to default. We are living with no credit cards, own our house, own a 10 year old car, shop with coupons, stockpiled and have weatherized our house. You can't change people, and yelling at them does no good, you can only save yourself and possibly your family, if they haven't taken out 70k in student loans. Cradle to Grave politics have given us cradle to grave debt. Glad I didn't have kids I feel sorry for the 20 somethings. Oh, and you don't really think cash and gold are going to save you do you? Futures of gold have been sold to 100x or more of the quantity of gold in the world, and well you know what is going to happen to the dollar. So go in and kiss your spouce and or kids, and appreciate the sunrise/sunset, and other free things. The gig is up.

With all this pent up demand, there has never been a better time to buy!

Most of the shrinking inventory is being sold over listing price with multiple offers

APOCALYPSEFUCK isFrank Sinatra says

When will Patrick.Net advocate 50% downpayments? Anything less is just asking for speculators to fuck up the market.

Hey,what happened to your cash only slogan?

What if the house doesn't have tillable land or a water supply?

APOCALYPSEFUCK isFrank Sinatra says

I can be flexible. As long as the housing is priced rationally - like a fair valuation from 1973, maybe all the way out to 1974.

First time I have seen your milder side. Hehe.

It's just better to ask Congress to stop the housing sector subsidies. We are running this nation bankrupt trying to subsidize every single bank and wall street gambling casino out there.

Tell your Realtard buddy that In-N-Out Burger is always hiring if this RE thing doesn't work out.

OK how about 25% downpayments then...

This, and a lot of other legislation, could be read, "We do not believe in free markets. Please pass, or don't pass, a law to sway things back to favoring the people with most of the money."

Ruki says

TODAYS RIDICULOUSLY DEBT-FUELED HOUSING PRICE VALUATIONS

Exactly! And I'd add 'TODAY'S RIDICULOUSLY, FRAUDULENTLY, PEOPLE BEING GAMED BY WITHOLDING INFORMATION FOR PROFIT BY THOSE IN POWER, DEBT UNDER FALSE PRETENSES -FUELED HOUSING PRICE VALUATIONS..."

Anyone who needs 70 years to pay off a house should not be buying that house

jvolstad says

Tell your Realtard buddy that In-N-Out Burger is always hiring if this RE thing doesn't work out.

Yeah, but why would they want to work much harder for less pay?

APOCALYPSEFUCK is Shostakovich says

When will Patrick.Net advocate 50% downpayments? Anything less is just asking for speculators to fuck up the market.

Why settle for only 50% down payments when you can advocate cash only?

What bothers me more than the speculation and perceived "right-to-own-a-home" is that once the project goes south the taxpayers are on the hook for bailouts. If they never had provided a single penny of bailout the problem would have been solved long ago, a lot more people would be renting vs owning and proces would have cratered to their fair values.

mell says

If they never had provided a single penny of bailout the problem would have been solved long ago, a lot more people would be renting vs owning and proces would have cratered to their fair values.

We can't have THAT. This is America. Too many bankers would lose money.

PersainCAT says

as an ad don to klarek as well it might look fair from a lenders perstive charge more for a higher risk, but the SAME fee is charged if u put down 19% or 0% until your principle is at 80% of the purchase.

I was getting quotes fairly recently, and I don't believe this is true (at least not in all cases). The fee was structured in at least 3 steps IIRC. 5%/10%/15% down.

The 5% fee doesn't morph into the 10% fee once you reach 90% LTV, though. It's there in full force until you get to 80% (or 78% or whatever)

Â¥ says

Government could offer everyone $1/gallon vouchers, and we'd soon seen $5 gas here.

Eh?

Wouldn't we have to consume enough additional fuel to get to get to that price on the supply curve? I don't anticipate that $1/gallon voucher would change my consumption habits by much, if at all.

"it would take 14 years for a typical person to save up a 20% down payment to buy a median-priced home."

That's just stupid math.

While you are saving up your 20% down payment, you are paying for rent. Imagine a situation where monthly rent is 50% more than the monthly payment on a comparable house (Roberto says this is the case in Phoenix, no?)....

After 17 years, you save up 20% down. Now you buy a house...if you continue to save the same amount, and put the same amount as before towards housing, you will pay it off much sooner than if you had kept saving until you had 100% of the purchase price.

In the situation where rent is more than buying, you might in fact be better off buying with 3.5% down, or whatever the minimum is.

swebb says

That's just stupid math.

I took what was written to be more reflective of actual behavior rather than one of mathematical exercise. I agree with you, but that kind of understanding of the total costs of housing relative income is rare.