patrick.net

Newbie123 says

Unless the market comes down by 30%+ I wont buy.

Hate to say it, but that sounds like a recipe for renting forever. You had 30% lower prices a few years back, but instead of buying, you went out and bought Patrick's book and fence sat.

I think Herc is correct. The only reason for housing to continue to rise like it has over the last 20-30 years is supply is not increasing as fast as demand. We can argue the reasons as to why this has been the case, but it undoubtedly is true.

Bellingham Bill says

Housing expenses / all expenditures

Deflation in other segments allows more income thrown into housing.
Plus lower interest rates continue to push price up.
Plus also dis-saving. If home prices go up & up, people's home equity becomes their life savings, augmenting if not taking the place of 401k contributions etc.

All other markets are even more nuts than the USA -- Canada, Australia, England, the Nordic countries, probably even Germany by now.

Japan crashed a long time ago but the home prices in Tokyo are still quite high compared to the US (but 1% interest rates help out there a lot)

First off the US has had house cost inflation from the Subprime/CRA that has gone up. US has had dramatic reduction in manufacturing/R&D and wagers. However public sector wages and retirement have increased significantly compared to private section.

Regulation of all sorts and higher % of tax dollars going to civil servants and the effects have not fully hit yet.

ZIRP was a temporary fix that essentially rewarded bad banks and CRAer/Cwider twice. 1) bail out of banks and buyer who spent excessively with bad credit creation. 2) ZIRP which continues to reward those that created the financial mess.

Where did the $10Trillion bubble money go to then? Its getting tranfered into lower interest rates and higher debt and malivestment. We have job security for public servants and the close associate lawyers and accountants and denizon of social sciences.

Entitlemented says

First off the US has had house cost inflation from the Subprime/CRA that has gone up. US has had dramatic reduction in manufacturing/R&D and wagers. However public sector wages and retirement have increased significantly compared to private section.

Regulation of all sorts and higher % of tax dollars going to civil servants and the effects have not fully hit yet.

ZIRP was a temporary fix that essentially rewarded bad banks and CRAer/Cwider twice. 1) bail out of banks and buyer who spent excessively with bad credit creation. 2) ZIRP which continues to reward those that created the financial mess.

Where did the $10Trillion bubble money go to then? Its getting tranfered into lower interest rates and higher debt and malivestment. We have job security for public servants and the close associate lawyers and accountants and denizon of social sciences.

Agreed ZIRP was a disaster, widening the gap, causing undue inflation in all essential goods/services and rewarding those who caused the crisis. Housing markets in Europe are much saner due to less speculation. Always easier to kick the can down the road than to rip off the band-aid for some true organic healing.