The housing market is in the absolute dumps

[newdeal2]

Here’s an issue that we need to make front and center:

The housing market is in the absolute dumps

Even as the stock market approaches an all-time high, there is a big dark cloud hovering over the economy: the housing market.

Why it matters: Home sales are hovering at historic lows, as economic uncertainty and high mortgage rates hold back buying.

Trump’s economy, the tariffs, and ICE raids are all making it harder for people to afford a house. It’s a complete mess and renting is also becoming unaffordable as a result.

[BoRaGard]

1. grocery prices are way up thanks to GOP taxes*

* what gop propagandists rebrand as tariffs

[no_hypocrisy]

2. And saddling would-be sellers with homes that they can no longer afford.

[BoRaGard]

3. Krasnov (R-felon/rapist) did this with his flippy floppery

"It's less about mortgage rates, and more about economic uncertainty," says Eric Finnigan, vice president of demographics research at John Burns, the real estate consulting firm.

[Brainfodder]

4. Housing has been out of wack for more than a bit!

The non-rich people have no shot except during bad times or inheritance?

[EdmondDantes_]

5. Another big part is interest rates

But rent prices went up before Trump. It's our housing stock not increasing as much as our population. It's not something you can simply blame on Trump.

Here in very blue Massachusetts we have cities resisting the MBTA Communities Act requiring at least one zoning district where multi-family housing is freely allowed close to public transit.

[newdeal2]

8. I'm going to blame Trump

If he can blame us for the price of eggs and win, then we need to do the same. Keep it simple.

And yes he is making the problem a lot worse. His economic policies are creating business uncertainty which is preventing the Fed from lowering rates. He is making things more expensive with tariffs and targeting immigrants.

[RandomNumbers]

9. Housing stock increasing - We're running out of places to build

Well, for people who care about and understand natural ecosystems at all, we ran out a long time ago.

What humanity needs is politicians and economists who can navigate downsizing population and reversing habitat destruction.

Yeah, I'll get on with the day and stop fantasizing now ...

[Sympthsical]

11. So much NIMBY as well

In the Bay Area it is an absolute battle to get more housing built. I live in a suburban enclave that has plenty of room for construction, but every time approval comes up, my neighbors flood the city council and any public official who will listen to prevent it.

And there has been some wild shit. They wanted to build two apartment buildings on an empty lot. There's a school nearby. Suddenly, Nextdoor was full of the crazies. "But what if someone wants to shoot at the children from the balconies?!!!!"

Whut. (And they're now building the apartments anyway, thankfully).

I'm all for building more housing. People need somewhere to live. The affordability crisis is completely out of pocket. Wall Street needs to be unlatched from housing as investment vehicle. It's allowing the rich to create a class of perpetual renters with no hope of owning their own home.

I'm just so tired of my virtue signalling neighbors.

"Oh, California needs housing. The poor and working classes need somewhere to live. We care. Deeply."
"What if we built housing in your neighborhood?"
"I told you at the last meeting you can die in a fire! Stop bringing it up!"

Every single time. Like clockwork.

I live in Solano County and am currently watching that Forever California project shitshow. That is at least crazy enough to be amusing.

[OrlandoDem2]

6. Democrats need an enemy. How about Blackstone which owns too many houses?

Turn them into a scapegoat (because buying up so many homes doesn’t help). They are a housing monopoly!

[everyonematters]

7. I think the biggest problem is income inequality.

People don't have any disposable income to buy anything. That stunts the whole economy. Trump's tariffs and deportations are making it worse. There are too many homeless, too many people struggling. The fight against income inequality needs to be global with the powers at be, in effect, pitting one nation against another. Another thing that will make it worse, is the crypto scam. One thing that can be done, is a nationwide mandatory minimum wage. An economic agenda without that, is a tiger with no teeth. It's useless. I listened to Slotkin's speech, and she never even mentioned it.

[mwmisses4289]

10. Beginning in the middle 1980's,

housing prices began skyrocketing. Living in Seattle at the time, I watched as homes in good neighborhoods went from around $80,000 to almost double that in less than two years. It was so bad that when a home under a 100,000 hit the market, it would be sold before the ad had been up for an hour. Some were selling without ever coming on the market at all.
The real basic reason for this? Greed. Plain and simple greed. Housing in america is not seen as the basic right it is, but as a privilege. Seen as a privilege, coupled with the twisted prosperity gospel nonsense that many so called evangelical christian churches preach and greed, it is no longer an affordable option to buy for many.