patrick.net

1970 was a census year.

The median house price in 1970 was $23,000
Source: https://www.huduser.gov/periodicals/ushmc/winter2001/histdat08.htm

The median income: $9,840 (I also saw $8,900 but also that the Census jerked around their metrics several times)
https://web.stanford.edu/class/polisci120a/immigration/Median%20Household%20Income.pdf

So a house was about 2.5x-3x the median income in 1970.

Did those median incomes in 1970 include a workforce that had college degrees (and attendant debt) to the extent the modern one does? .

What was the college tuition like at a State School in 1970 vs. 2020? Trade Schools? Weren't Public Schools providing Trade Education to HS Students for free in the 60s and 70s vs. today?

Most importantly, what was the demographic skew of the population in 1970 vs. 2020?

AmericanKulak says

Yep, from 300% of income to ~500+% of income.

If the ratio is 3 or less, then there is incentive to save a lot of money and make at least a 50% downpayment.

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AD says

If the ratio is 3 or less, then there is incentive to save a lot of money and make at least a 50% downpayment.

Agreed.

Here's one question: What was the average age of a purchased house 30-40 years ago versus today. There are claims we didn't build enough, and claims we did. My hot take - not married to it - is that we built fine, but built the wrong kind. Wokies wanting multifamily 15 minute city shit and the Obamunist plan to move Sec 8 multfamily buildings smack dab into nice suburban neighborhoods, and Developers still thinking June and Ward Cleaver but on zero lots. When we needed modest 2-3 bed, 1.5-2 baths as the household size is smaller today with more single income households.

My area isn't a good metric because of Space Program. There's a shit ton of hasty 60s cinderblocks for Apollo and the USAF Missile Range, very little in the 70s, then a boatload of Yuppie Palaces in the 80s (Shuttle) including the Geometric Domed Moldy Monsters, then very little in the late 90s - 2010s as the Shuttle got clawed back then cancelled. Starting in the mid 2010s they built again, and MOAR started as COVID got going, but now those Condo and Zero Lot developers are going bananas trying to move them fast.

AmericanKulak says

What was the average age of a purchased house 30-40 years ago versus today. T

So much difference then and now as far as economy and demographics. Women are more employed now, for example.

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AD says

So much difference then and now as far as economy and demographics. Women are more employed now, for example.

The life insurance purchasing is almost as low, regardless of income or dependent status, interestingly...

AmericanKulak says

$450k for a 1800 sq ft ticky tack shack

Bargain! BUY!

FortwayeAsFuckJoeBiden says

in idaho out here, a lot of people moved in which spiked sales a lot. it keeps going. however interesting enough flippers see losses. 4 different guys who came here tried flipping, 3 lost money and one made very little. no one buys flips here, mainly new construction.

This looks crazy!

HeadSet says

Around here, there is a shortage of home listed because people do not want to sell their homes. One major reason is this example:

Current home, $1,000,000 mortgage at 2% has a monthly payment of $3,696.
Downsize home, $750,000 mortgage at 7% has a monthly payment of $4,990.

Moving to a smaller home at today's interest rates actually can increase the monthly nut and that is after costs like realtor commission and loan origination fees.

One possible exception to the above is if you have lots of equity in the home. If you had a $2MM home with a $1MM mortgage, you could take $0.9MM profits (after taxes) and buy the lower-cost home outright.

That said... yeah, the current surge in interest rates has put a big halt to many buyers.

AmericanKulak says

Did those median incomes in 1970 include a workforce that had college degrees (and attendant debt) to the extent the modern one does? .

I'm reasonably sure that college debt is a relatively new phenomenon.

Debt can and does kill societies.

GNL says

Debt can and does kill societies.

Personal debt is anti-American.

gabbar says

Personal debt is anti-American.

Oh, personal debt is an American tradition. Irresponsible, yes, but quite the practice in the US.

HeadSet says

gabbar says

Personal debt is anti-American.

Oh, personal debt is an American tradition. Irresponsible, yes, but quite the practice in the US.

Yet to meet a millionaire that didn't use debt to make their wealth. You don't use your own money if you want to be wealthy. And then YOU become the bank and make more. Rarely are W-2'ers millionaires. Their check goes to putting food on the table and their house. They're broke or on food stamps even if they pull in $100k.

WookieMan says

Yet to meet a millionaire that didn't use debt to make their wealth.

Personal debt and investment debt are two different things. Borrowing to buy rental property or company equipment is not the same as borrowing to buy that 'vette.

WookieMan says

HeadSet says

gabbar says

Personal debt is anti-American.

Oh, personal debt is an American tradition. Irresponsible, yes, but quite the practice in the US.

Yet to meet a millionaire that didn't use debt to make their wealth. You don't use your own money if you want to be wealthy. And then YOU become the bank and make more. Rarely are W-2'ers millionaires. Their check goes to putting food on the table and their house. They're broke or on food stamps even if they pull in $100k.

It still can and will end up crushing a society over time.

I'm a guy who didn't use debt to achieve wealth.
I'm a weirdo to my friends however.

HeadSet says

WookieMan says

Yet to meet a millionaire that didn't use debt to make their wealth.

Personal debt and investment debt are two different things. Borrowing to buy rental property or company equipment is not the same as borrowing to buy that 'vette.

Personal debt is what is used to build wealth at the beginning if you have no family money. Putting a skid steer on your credit card to start a construction company is personal debt. There are stories everywhere of people using personal CC's to put a down payment on rental properties. You need OPM or personal credit to make the big money.

clambo says

I'm a guy who didn't use debt to achieve wealth.
I'm a weirdo to my friends however.

Like I said, there are people that can do it. My wife and I could retire tomorrow if we wanted at 41 and live to 95. If you save and live frugally when you're young it's pretty easy. I don't want the hassle of big wealth, but could easily get into 9 figures pretty quickly. I don't like dealing with people. Whether he's P Diddy or P Diddler now, his song was right. Mo money mo problems.

We'll build the house, go on 3-4 trips a year or buy a vacation property in the Caribbean and call it a day. My mom and MIL will take care of any finances for the grandkids as there's about $2M for my two sons. MIL has another $1.5(ish).

I like my financial independence. I don't need more money or care to work for more money. Life is short. I don't want to spend all my time adding digits to a banks account working like a dog.

I started my company with zero debt.

Year of supply now in Naples, FL at current sales volume.

Rent Prices Are Dropping Across Florida’s Most Populous Metros

Asking rents fell a record 12% year over year in Jacksonville last month, and also declined in Tampa, Orlando and Miami. Austin, TX posted a record drop, too.

Florida and Texas built a lot of apartments to meet surging demand during the pandemic, and now property owners are lowering prices as they compete for tenants.

Nationwide, the median asking rent rose roughly 1% in June to the highest level since 2022.

https://www.redfin.com/news/rents-fall-in-florida-austin-june-2024/

This is true. Orlando built an absolute shitload of apartment complexes in the past 3 years.

Today: "If you want a house as ritzy as that, you need to buck up and pick yourself up by the bootstraps bucko, and finish the MBA degree and really hustle with 200 resumes!""

"Wooooow, Demographics is like... a bummer, mannn"

We all need to get off this bad trip, man. New labor force entry is now 1-1.5M/year. Before 2008 it was 2-2.5M. That is WITH wild mass migration.

But none of this will effect home prices, it's gonna be a groovie movie until the end of time.

Assuming 30% gross wages attributable to shelter costs, only 26% of the population qualifies to buy a median home.
(The "Every household is $100k+ these days unless you are a total bum" mega-myth)

Problem is 3/4 of those 26% already own a home.

So a median home seller is trying to find the 5-6% of people with the income to afford the house who don't already own. Why would somebody with a 3.5% mortgage want to get screwed buying the same sort of house at a higher price, double the rate, and worse tax assessment and insurance environment?

With the typical homeloan over 7% and an almost unanimous consensus that housing market will turn sharply to favoring buyers. Many more believe the Fed will cut rates sometime in the next few quarters, so why buy now?

DemocratsAreTotallyFucked says

Banks won't do it the same way if it gets bad. So I'd say delinquency is a bad metric. Length of loan is the biggie. How many years have they paid the up front amortized interest. Most are 5+ years deep. Foreclosing just drags down their other loans. Forbearance and other means of keeping the owner in the home make more sense.

Reality is the banks made their money already on any home sold in the last 10 years. Take a month or two off and tack it on the end. REO's are a bitch for the servicer. You're looking at $20k even for a shitty house. Better off eating that for 3-4 months. Wouldn't help with inflation is the only thing. But who knows what the fuck is going on anymore. This is going to be a fucked up fall.

Under Basil 3, banks can't hold as many mortgage assets on their books like last time. Non-bank lenders took over the majority of mortgage financing. The banks originated then off load to MBS tranches or directly.

Also, people can't afford to make payments because of structural increases in their home costs, they won't be able to in the future as well, barring some large increase in their income.

WookieMan says

I like my financial independence. I don't need more money or care to work for more money. Life is short. I don't want to spend all my time adding digits to a banks account working like a dog.

What do you do to stay productive and live a fulfilling life?

We are going to see Realtors and Banks grovelling before the Fed very soon.

AmericanKulak says

We are going to see Realtors and Banks grovelling before the Fed very soon.

This may help to bring down home prices. New home sizes are shrinking: https://www.wjhg.com/2024/07/23/reports-show-new-homes-are-shrinking-size/

I'm seeing in townhome communities in Panama City Beach that nothing is really selling with peak prices set in early 2022 with a 3% mortgage rate, and now its at 7%.

Some investor from lower Alabama bought a townhome about 5 months ago for $230,000 and still has it on the market now at $255,000.

Same townhome likely would sell around $305,000 in early 2022, and it sold for around $250,000 back in 2006 at the last housing bubble.

What gets me is you have townhomes built 2004 to 2007 who now have market values at the same price when they were first put on the market at least 20 years ago :-(

But ultimately it comes down to mortgage lending standards (i.e.,total housing cost {mortgage+property tax+property insurance+HOA fee} is not more than ~37% of household income) and for every 1% increase in the 30 year mortgage rate, there should be a 10% drop in price.

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porkchopXpress says

What do you do to stay productive and live a fulfilling life?

Where to start. First is to support the wife. That's probably my biggest accomplishment of my life. That's really my biggest job currently. Then the kids. Just had golf last night with my oldest. Got pizza after. I get to shoot the shit with my kids at this age. I know it's going to end soon so it's fun.

Then you got travel. We'll be up in Wisconsin this weekend at a friends cabin. Maybe Michigan in August. Atlanta area in September. Costa Rica for spring break. Likely a trip or two solo out to Montana to visit my buddies. My kids have been to most of the lower 48 in 13 years. Brings me joy looking at all the places they've been.

Then we have a house build weeks from breaking ground. Tons of work there. Stressful, but will be fun once we start seeing the framing going up.

I don't know, I live like a college kid that doesn't get in trouble. I really can't, but I have fun. Hang with buddies on a weekly basis. Have neighborhood friends we hang out with weekly. On a town board as an elected official. Work 4-8 hours a week helping a local farmer/hoarder sell all this cool old shit on eBay.

With my free time I look at cooking and aviation videos. I don't watch tv besides the occasional political clip online. I fall asleep to congressional hearings. I golf, pong, yard games with friends. And I obviously dick around here on patnet a lot. I like writing. You judgement if it's good or bad. Therapy so to speak.

What was not fulfilling in my life was working 60 hours plus per week in real estate for a dumb fuck owner for 15 years. Never met anyone that could spend money faster than they earned it. Don't think I could work a "job" again. I make money still. But I sit in a barn with a 60 year old musician hoarder and just shoot the shit while listing his semi-organized stuff on eBay.

Basically I'm productive. My kids have a father that is there pretty much every hour. Trust me, I see my kids friends, I'm doing an A+ job in that realm. I don't think dual income families are good for kids if working 40 hours per week. Wife fortunately makes a fuck ton of money. I could write 200 pages on my life and that would maybe be 10-20% of it.

Writing a book will probably be my next goal. You gotta do stuff with idle time. There's plenty to do.

Just wait until you see how the government calculates "Owner Equivalent Rent" for CPI purposes.

Despite the tons of real time actual data available.

They call 1000 random homeowners and ask them how much they would charge to live in their house.

They don't look at rent.com, apartments.com, don't ask renters how much their lease is for. They call up people, many of whom haven't been in the market for two decades, and ask them what they'd charge.

"Well, let's see, Marvin and I last rented in 2009 and we were paying $1100/month for a 2 bed, so I guess our 3/2.5 house rents for maybe, $1300 in 2024?"

"Thanks ma'am, our economics-degree bearing asses are lying our ass off for the government, so instead of finding what's on zillow, we thank you for your out of touch number, knowing you probably aren't involved in real estate leasing and are out of touch"

Which explains this insane discrepancy:

"My favorite Central Banker was Paul Volcker. He was not worried about nailing the soft landing. He put us into a terrible recession and we got 20 years of prosperity because of the pain we took for 18 months. And I’d like to remind those who think this has been in their political interests, Reagan won 49 states in 1984 after the economy was absolutely in the tank in 1982 because he did the right thing."

porkchopXpress says

What do you do to stay productive and live a fulfilling life?

Hey @porkchopXpress I was watching my usual Sunday night, "Viva and Barnes", and I saw a guy named porkchopexpre55 post a question in the super chat. Was that you?!

AmericanKulak says

"My favorite Central Banker was Paul Volcker. He was not worried about nailing the soft landing. He put us into a terrible recession and we got 20 years of prosperity because of the pain we took for 18 months. And I’d like to remind those who think this has been in their political interests, Reagan won 49 states in 1984 after the economy was absolutely in the tank in 1982 because he did the right thing."

To get to the "right spot" , do housing prices have to drop at least 20% from their peak values set in early 2022 ?

I'm seeing 3 bedroom townhomes in east Panama City Beach priced around $295,000 that were selling for $235,000 in February 2020 and peaked around $330,000 in February 2022.

I would expect they could sell for (1.04^4.5) x $235,000, or 1.193 x $235,000 based on 4% annual appreciation over last 4.5 years (February 2020 to July 2024). This is $280.361, but this would only be a drop of around 15% from peak.

However, household wages and/or income for the demographic that would buy this townhome has gone up about 25% since February 2020.

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AD says

However, household wages and/or income for the demographic that would buy this townhome has gone up about 25% since February 2020.

With a 30% rise in the cost of groceries, insurance, etc. So that wage increase was more than soaked up by other things, most of them "iron costs" or essentials, not just jetskis and vacation jaunts.