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1   HeadSet   2018 May 30, 5:34am  

Priced out by who? Other millennials like the various SV tech workers? Or millenials from China and India?
2   Tenpoundbass   2018 May 30, 7:59am  

They vote for people who want to help communities by making a 1200 sqft house start at a Million dollars, anything under that they consider a failed local economy. While not building one single house for the middle class.
3   MrBark   2018 May 30, 9:17am  

Millennial homeowner here. About half my friends own homes, we saw the opportunity after the crash and worked hard to be come property owners. The other half are lazy fucks with worthless degrees, working fast food jobs, either renting rooms from people or living at home doing zilch to get out of the hole they're in. However I will say that they are very content with their lives while the rest of us break our asses working, so what do I know.
4   JZ   2018 May 30, 9:29am  

Mark, what you are saying is this. For those M
that live with their parents with worthless degrees, they don’t own home so they will be forever under the squeeze of rent seekers or live with their parents. For the other half of M that did capture the “once in a life time opportunity”, they have to work their ass off to pay down debt which makes you doubt about the choice you made to take on that debt.
Then either way, the M gen is NOT happy and relaxed. So who is happy and relaxed?
5   JZ   2018 May 30, 9:32am  

I was reading zero hedge yesterday and there was a 56 year old took on 700K debt to become a taxi driver in NYC. Uber happened and that NYC TAXI license is only 400K now. He had to kill himself. This is a hardworking person working his ass off.
My point is, this is NOT about M being priced out of M take on debt to survive. This is about bankers and their friends fucking up all of the working folks.
6   Shaman   2018 May 30, 9:50am  

Some of the millenials I’ve known did live at home forever until they either saved up a large down payment (by not having to pay rent) or mommy and daddy gave them the large down payment to buy a home.

I didn’t have either option, so I did it the hard way: save up the large down while paying too much rent. The only way that works is by working my ass off and also living like a pauper. Did it. Got the T-shirt. Now I have the dream house and the self respect.
7   MrBark   2018 May 30, 11:00am  

JZ says
Mark, what you are saying is this. For those M
that live with their parents with worthless degrees, they don’t own home so they will be forever under the squeeze of rent seekers or live with their parents. For the other half of M that did capture the “once in a life time opportunity”, they have to work their ass off to pay down debt which makes you doubt about the choice you made to take on that debt.
Then either way, the M gen is NOT happy and relaxed. So who is happy and relaxed?


I believe everything takes work and sacrifice – it's planning now to live comfortably later. I found this board while doing research on housing markets and call me a bit loony, but I still believe in the American dream of home ownership being a key to a bit of freedom down the road. As time goes on, what you thought was a high mortgage payment in your 20's all of a sudden becomes very manageable down the road (regardless of inflation) and the home will be paid off before I hit 60. I'll echo a lot of what I've heard here, not everyone can live in coastal Southern California. Other than family and friends, to me there is one over-arching reason to live here and that is absolutely the weather, full stop 100% why I pay dearly to live here.

However I don't live in a vacuum, so that also makes me look at different people choose to live. I see people who are probably genuinely contempt with their lives and the minimal work effort they put in, they will continue to do menial work well into their 70's and never really achieve anything. My sister lives in Europe, they have holidays what seems like weekly, they have regulations around checking your email after work, the entire month of August is a holiday, you can't get fired. That comes with its own set of issues, like getting sued by your babysitter because you didn't fire her correctly. Here I hire Mexicans to work on my home, pay them cash and they are the happy as clams.

I subscribe to the American work ethic and I'm easily able to achieve wealth that would be unimaginable to the commoners in Europe – but is that really a better life?
8   JZ   2018 May 30, 11:38am  

Mark I agree with your comments/thoughts. Basically there are two ways to play this game. Work your ass off and take on debt, for it time and ASSUME the debt will become easier and easier. Or don’t work and don’t own.
All I am suggesting is that please walk a few steps back and ask yourself why the game is set up like this that neither the playing strategy can convince you of a better life?
Maybe the American dream and work ethic has been exploited by the people who set this game up. Maybe the best playing strategy is NOT working which is punished but to gamble and speculate other people’s money. Human evolve in different environment and the current game everybody is playing is pure corruption and unhappiness for everybody except a few.
9   JZ   2018 May 30, 11:45am  

If you ask Nassim Teleb, he will tell you he follows roman mentality that a person with debt is NOT a free person. So the 30year mortgage makes a person 30 year old slave if you work for the mortgage. If you ASSUME house will ALWAYS inflate and salaries always inflate and give it time, mortgages will be easier and easier, I suggest you study Japan bubble burst in 1990 and good old great depression. Or even the 65 year old TAXY driver in NYC who thinks TAXI license “ALWAYS” go up so that he can borrow to buy the license and work as a taxi driver and 10 year later he can sell the taxi license for a higher price and retire. Then UBER happened and he had to kill himself.
10   JZ   2018 May 30, 11:49am  

If you are looking for answer as to “what is a happy life” and I will tell you mine. “Freedom”. Working your ass off does NOT make you free. Doing nothing does NOT make you free. What’s wrong with the game is simply “freedom is taken away”. The American dream of home of the free and land of the brave has been manipulated into home of he debt and land of the slavery. Let’s all work our asses off.
11   Heraclitusstudent   2018 May 30, 11:54am  

MrBark says
I believe everything takes work and sacrifice

Just getting in at the right time doesn't require work or sacrifice. It's just luck.

What about people coming 3, 5,10yrs behind you? Just because prices are higher now so they can't afford to buy means they aren't working hard? They don't deserve to be owners just because they didn't get in at that right time?

There is an obvious fact here: something very basic is wrong with a housing market going permanently up faster than inflation or wages.
Talking of "hard work" doesn't change that and it's not a solution.
12   MrBark   2018 May 30, 12:12pm  

Heraclitusstudent says
MrBark says
I believe everything takes work and sacrifice

Just getting in at the right time doesn't require work or sacrifice. It's just luck.

What about people coming 3, 5,10yrs behind you?


I totally get that. Same could be said for the Gen Xer's that I work with, a lot of them were able to buy their $1.5-2m homes for $500-600k in 2011, some of them even had a short sale from another underwater property. For me, even getting in at the right time took a ton of work and sacrifice – without that hard work, I wouldn't have been able to afford it even in that depressed market. In my case, I earn $120k a year, my mortgage payment is reasonable and similar to rent costs. My engineer friend who pulls in $170k a year is looking at buying similar homes to mine, would be paying around $1500 more per month in the current market than renting a similar place.
13   Heraclitusstudent   2018 May 30, 12:16pm  

Good for you, but you can't say people who didn't get in are just lazy.
This is not a question of working hard enough. It's an abnormal environment.
14   MrBark   2018 May 30, 12:28pm  

Heraclitusstudent says
Good for you, but you can't say people who didn't get in are just lazy.
This is not a question of working hard enough. It's an abnormal environment.


Guess what I mean is, even with the hard work and minimal sacrifice, it's still way too easy to succeed here. I didn't even graduate high school, I don't even have a GED. Regardless of homeownership, if you can't earn a decent living and even man up to rent an apartment, then you're just fucking lazy. I have specific friends in mind when I make that comment, the ones who still live at home or rent a room from someone for $600/mo. They work a part-time job of the past 12 years making smoothies and they're all of a sudden 35 with no romantic prospects, they just play video games or zonk out on TV instead of doing something productive to improve their situation. Not everyone needs to own a home, hell most of these guys situations would vastly improve if they got a $1600/month apartment.
15   Ceffer   2018 May 30, 12:39pm  

Clear out the useless Boomfucks like overgrown weeds, and the MillXYs can INHERIT AND OCCUPY with the prop 13 advantage! Sweet days are ahead, let the purge begin!

KILL THE BOOMFUCKS! KILL THEM ALL!
16   Heraclitusstudent   2018 May 30, 12:48pm  

MrBark says
They work a part-time job of the past 12 years making smoothies and they're all of a sudden 35 with no romantic prospects, they just play video games or zonk out on TV instead of doing something productive to improve their situation.


A majority of the population is below average in smarts or determination or ambition. This was always the case. Yet 40 yrs ago, the same kind people could afford a small basic house, or maybe a small apartment. Today there simply isn't enough units for all in places with good jobs. Meaning the people at the bottom have to double up. So yes, if one person works hard enough to get ahead of others, they can make it. But even if all people worked super hard, the less successful would still have to share units. So clearly working hard enough cannot be the prescribed solution.
17   HeadSet   2018 May 30, 1:02pm  

A majority of the population is below average in smarts

Please explain how, in normal cases, a "majority" can be below average.
18   Heraclitusstudent   2018 May 30, 1:08pm  

HeadSet says
Please explain how, in normal cases, a "majority" can be below average.

I think you are thinking 'median' but I wrote 'average'. Yes, a majority can be below average.
19   MrBark   2018 May 30, 1:10pm  

I have a different perspective, owning a home was never a certain thing for myself or my friends. I was priced out already back in high school from ever being able to own a home here. This was mid-2000's. I had already come to terms with the only way I was going to have a home was if I inherited it. When the crash happened, I was gainfully employed throughout the recovery and saved my pennies, waiting for the moment to buy.

Now as far as lack of ambition or determination, that's no excuse. There are plenty of jobs. I took trade tech classes in high school and got Cisco Certification after a year with a starting salary of $80k in 2003 for a network engineer. They offer Electrical, Plumbing, Architecture, CAD, Contracting and Construction – all pay well and are very much in demand. Very soon, the new blue collar job will be developers as companies need to fill those positions. Hell, there's even no-cost boot camps setup by tech companies to teach you.
20   HeadSet   2018 May 30, 2:09pm  

Heraclitusstudent says
HeadSet says
Please explain how, in normal cases, a "majority" can be below average.

I think you are thinking 'median' but I wrote 'average'. Yes, a majority can be below average.


I knew you would come back with that "median" quip.

Notice I said "in normal cases," not something you can conjure up that is skewed to the high end. In the example size you gave (US population), the average will not be below the mean.
21   Heraclitusstudent   2018 May 30, 3:25pm  

I don't know what you mean by "normal case" is. If you want to talk of a normal distribution, this is often not how things turn out in life. For wealth, housing sales prices, and many other signals, the average is above the median meaning a majority of cases are below average.
22   socal2   2018 May 30, 3:42pm  

Heraclitusstudent says
Just getting in at the right time doesn't require work or sacrifice. It's just luck.


It's not all luck.

I waited an extra 5 years renting a tiny shit-box during the bubble years while all my friends were crowing about all the equity they "earned" in their houses with their shitty loans.

Patrick's website and Dr. Housing Bubble's site kept me sober and educated on the housing market so I was able to get a screaming deal on a forever home in 2011. I drove my realtor nuts viewing nearly 100 homes. I never settled.

Granted, if I didn't buy in 2011-12, I would have been priced out of the market for the neighborhoods I wanted to live in.

I sure as shit wouldn't buy anything right now.
23   mell   2018 May 30, 3:46pm  

It's not that hard to let normal price discovery take place.

1) Remove/relax zoning laws (most are just crony nimby crap) and building-permit extravaganza so developers can actually build

2) Remove all affordable/section 8 housing government programs (if you must care then hand out cash vouchers instead)

3) Remove all government - aka taxpayer - backed mortgage programs, interest deduction and any other backdoors that reduce the skin in the game, no QE buying of MBS etc.

4) No QE/bailouts on cyclic downturns like 2008

5) Restrict and penalize (extra tax) foreign buyers (use the money for the cash vouchers for the poor above)

Instantly everybody can become a home-owner as prices will drop by 25%-50% easily if not more. I guarantee you'll like the way you home-own.
24   everything   2018 Jun 3, 10:56am  

The whole Yahoo video is a crock of propaganda bull crap. The younger folks who are moving into my condoplex, all of them!, parents are totally present, either fixing it up, or buying it and renting it to their kids. A friend I work with bought two homes during the crisis, and renting them out to her kids for the price of the payment and taxes, how else you going to get them out of your home.

We could sum things up by just flat out saying, life in America is to expensive for those trying to come up and live a life in America.

The rich and the investors are increasingly the buyers and owners, they have the financial leverage/financial trickery to make it happen.

This might be why we don't see much stock for sale anymore. It's elitist control to some extent, propagandized away by the media moguls, so now they say renting is the way to go, and tell them to put the money in the stock market instead of buying a home. And, so they just build more and more rentals, and convert homes into rentals.
25   FortWayne   2018 Jun 3, 12:03pm  

Because they stupidly vote for Democrats every time, just to get more fucked.
26   MisterLefty   2018 Jun 4, 10:26am  

Quigley says
I didn’t have either option, so I did it the hard way
I'm with you Quigs. Lived as cheaply as possible in rentals while I saved money for my first house, invested, and increased my experience and earnings. No assistance from parents or relatives. I have owned three homes total, and made a nice return on the second in the Seattle area.

Over a recent dinner with a group of 30 something grad students, I recounted how I moved cross-country after college with no job, no car, little money, student loan debt, and not knowing anyone in my new home state. Their reaction - "You were lucky, things are so different now that that would be impossible." I kind of think it is more an issue of entitlement, and aversion to risk-taking and charting your own way. But sheeple gonna sheep.
27   Strategist   2018 Jun 4, 10:46am  

APOCALYPSEFUCKisShostikovitch says
FUCK! THEM! if they forgot to buy a house in 1974!


The millennials forgot to be born in 1974.
28   Heraclitusstudent   2018 Jun 4, 10:47am  

Strategist says
APOCALYPSEFUCKisShostikovitch says
FUCK! THEM! if they forgot to buy a house in 1974!


The millennials forgot to be born in 1974.

Too lazy to be born!
29   _   2018 Jun 4, 5:53pm  

Young Americans are buying homes at an accelerating clip. First-time buyers accounted for 46% of new Freddie Mac mortgages in the first quarter, the biggest share for a quarter since 2012.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-04/first-time-u-s-homebuyers-account-for-almost-half-of-mortgages


Which I explained on Bloomberg recently as well

https://loganmohtashami.com/2018/05/24/bloomberg-interview-the-state-of-the-u-s-housing-market/
30   rootvg   2018 Jun 4, 9:35pm  

MisterLefty says
Quigley says
I didn’t have either option, so I did it the hard way
I'm with you Quigs. Lived as cheaply as possible in rentals while I saved money for my first house, invested, and increased my experience and earnings. No assistance from parents or relatives. I have owned three homes total, and made a nice return on the second in the Seattle area.

Over a recent dinner with a group of 30 something grad students, I recounted how I moved cross-country after college with no job, no car, little money, student loan debt, and not knowing anyone in my new home state. Their reaction - "You were lucky, things are so different now that that would be impossible." I kind of think it is more an issue of entitlement, and aversion to risk-taking and charting your own way. But sheeple gonna sheep.

We did the same thing in 1995 but difference is we had jobs waiting for us and someone gave us five grand to move.
You want to watch out for the next recession which will be short but merciless. The lesser of the Millenials won't see it coming and will likely never recover from it.

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