Appleseed said:In reply to Steve_Jones :
And by Boost's rational, every Mexican immigrant family should own at least ten houses, because they are the hardest working MF's I've ever met.
I'm not disagreeing with either of you, but as all things such as this, it isn't as simple as work hard.
Aaand if we let more of them into the country there might not be such of shortage of labor in the construction industry and housing would be more affordable.
Appleseed said:In reply to Steve_Jones :
And by Boost's rational, every Mexican immigrant family should own at least ten houses, because they are the hardest working MF's I've ever met.
I'm not disagreeing with either of you, but as all things such as this, it isn't as simple as work hard.
I agree with you, but it is almost impossible without hard work.
In reply to Purple Frog (Forum Supporter) :
I think there is a difference between 'individual tradesmen' and 'corporate tradesmen', and some difference in profit taking.
An individual may be charging $40-$50 dollars and hour. The 'corporate' company might be charging $125 per hour while paying the worker $30. I see it in car repair, A/C repair, etc. I know there a lot of costs to running a business, and some more if the business gets large, but .... Business owners have the $1M homes, while the workers rent. I'm told its because the business owners are taking all the risk. Maybe so. And maybe that's right.
I'm not smart enough to have an answer.
For the record I would probably be classified as both a tradesman, and an investor. My car hobby has been funded well by past real estate investments. The trade work fulfills me but wouldn't support a family.
I've attended business training classes with numerous small business owners (electrical contractors) put on by one of my vendors. The class was taught by the owner of a very large electrical contractor. They asked the students about their history, and why they went into business for themselves. 90+% mentioned what you said above- they were paid X while their company charged Y, and they thought they could get closer to Y. Most realized that they netted more as the employee than the employer, and they were always busy but couldn't make money. The class had them write down their rates (these were primarily service contractors Vs. construction in these groups) and how they got them- usually by calling a competitor then going a little lower. They then wrote out all of their business expenses, and it quickly became clear why they didn't make any money. I have seen many, many workers turned owner quickly go out of business. I've also seen many larger contractors win projects that put them out of business.
In reply to SV reX :
Oh, so you do understand how it works
Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:Appleseed said:In reply to Steve_Jones :
And by Boost's rational, every Mexican immigrant family should own at least ten houses, because they are the hardest working MF's I've ever met.
I'm not disagreeing with either of you, but as all things such as this, it isn't as simple as work hard.
Aaand if we let more of them into the country there might not be such of shortage of labor in the construction industry and housing would be more affordable.
Orrrrrr if we STOP letting 60Million people cross the borders in the last 10 years we might not have such a large demand on everything, like healthcare, housing etc.
RevRico said:In reply to Appleseed :
No, but people who haven't lived on the bottom for a while, if at all, think they know how to get up from it better than the people living it.
More opportunity than ever to make a buck, but a buck is worth less now than ever before.
I lived on the bottom for a long time which is why I know it can be done. When I was in school, lunch was 85 cents, I went hungry many times because I did not have the 85 cents. I'm not saying it is easy, but I do know if you do nothing but blame others for where you are in life, you will stay where you are.
Steve_Jones said:In reply to bobzilla :
Of course that is not counting the $200k pool/landscaping and the $100K cost to sell it, but that is nit picking. I am just pointing out not all houses, even those in good areas, go up. Most houses are investments, but people acting like they are getting E36 M3 on because they cant buy a house and it's the only reason they are not in a better situation. There are other ways to move up the ladder.
Your own example shows a 26% increase in value in 10 years so I'm not seeing the point you're trying to make. Yes, if you look hard enough and far enough back you will find places that don't increase, but they also don't decrease like monetary assets are either.
As to your other point I agree, complaining that you can't buy a house and it's all someone elses fault is not helpful either.
Steve_Jones said:RevRico said:In reply to Appleseed :
No, but people who haven't lived on the bottom for a while, if at all, think they know how to get up from it better than the people living it.
More opportunity than ever to make a buck, but a buck is worth less now than ever before.
I lived on the bottom for a long time which is why I know it can be done. When I was in school, lunch was 85 cents, I went hungry many times because I did not have the 85 cents. I'm not saying it is easy, but I do know if you do nothing but blame others for where you are in life, you will stay where you are.
Same. It took me meeting a woman who was taught how to properly manage her money and listening to those that had earned money in how to move forward with life. It was hard as berkeley. There was a point in my life that I had $20 left over after each paycheck for food and gas to last me the next two weeks. Luckily gas was well under a dollar a gallon and I only had to go 7 miles each way 6 days a week with a car that could run 400 miles on $20 worth of gas but that meant I didn't eat. I found ways around it. Credit score that was in the high 300's. I love when people try and tell me I don't know what it takes to pull yourself up. Oh really? Please tell me more about my life I don't know.
bobzilla said:Steve_Jones said:In reply to bobzilla :
Of course that is not counting the $200k pool/landscaping and the $100K cost to sell it, but that is nit picking. I am just pointing out not all houses, even those in good areas, go up. Most houses are investments, but people acting like they are getting E36 M3 on because they cant buy a house and it's the only reason they are not in a better situation. There are other ways to move up the ladder.
Your own example shows a 26% increase in value in 10 years so I'm not seeing the point you're trying to make. Yes, if you look hard enough and far enough back you will find places that don't increase, but they also don't decrease like monetary assets are either.
As to your other point I agree, complaining that you can't buy a house and it's all someone elses fault is not helpful either.
Not that it matters, but it shows a 26% IF you don't put the $300K improvement/selling cost in. Take that cost out and it's a much lower return. It's like buying a car for $5k, spending $2k on it, selling it for $7500 and thinking you made $2500....
Seeing as this thread is going on 3 years now, we all know where everyone else stands. If you don't know my position, go back a year, then a year before that, then page 3 or 4. My position, like yours, has not changed.
In reply to Steve_Jones :
Houses cost money. Cars cost money. Investments cost money. But it's still an investment. That house spread over 30 years will be an almost guarantee to be a good investment. It's when you start looking at short term that everything falls apart, much like many investments that are meant to be long term.
EDIT: even taking out the monetary input, the house has stayed ahead of inflation in the last 10 years by about $55k:
There are only so many single family homes. There are only so many single family homes in areas where you can actually find a decent job. The more houses investors buy up with cash and park their money in, the fewer houses there are available for middle class people who need a mortgage to buy. If you are a smart investor you will buy up as many houses as you can afford, and you can't really blame them. Its a good investment. If you are an old fart like me and you bought before prices quadrupled, you would be a fool to sell now and give up your cheap housing, so you don't. If you are younger and don't have a whole lot of money you will end up renting for the rest of your life and possibly be angry about it.
And so it goes...
In reply to GameboyRMH :
Boost_Crazy said:There is no blanket solution for what you want. There is no formula make everyone equally happy. There are plenty to make everyone equally miserable. You are entitled to the pursuit of happiness, but you need to catch it on your own. This is a personal issue. You don't have solutions, you have excuses. There is more opportunity today than any time in history for the individual to get ahead. Lots of jobs to be had, lots of side gigs available to earn extra money. Lots of information available at your fingertips to learn how to manage your money. Any individual that is willing to work hard and make sacrifices can buy a home. It might not be today, but it might be never if they don't get on the right path. It's not a magic formula, it's a well defined path. You can either keep wasting you time looking for shortcuts, or you can just get on the path. Yes, sometimes the path is shorter when home prices are lower, sometimes it's longer. But it's the same path.
We're at a point now where the path may not be traversable by a diligent person within an average lifetime, and a large fraction of the population (and the majority of multiple generations) all has the same supposedly personal problem. To me that sounds like a systemic problem affecting society in general.
Many do have the same problems. They Don't want to work or overvalue their work and expect unreasonable compensation for their contributions. And automation and AI are coming for the jobs that they have priced themselves out of. They can adapt or fail. I see young, fresh faced low expirienced people succeeding every day. They are learning an in demand high paying skill. Many aren't any good at it yet, but they are trying and making sacrifices that others are willing to learn. I also hear about those that aren't willing to take those jobs. They don't want to get up early, aren't willing to travel, or don't want the responsibilities. They would rather stack boxes from 9-5 and bitch about their wages. Yes, lots of people turn down good jobs every day. That's not a systememic problem. It's not even really a problem. Why should it be a problem if people that don't want to make the effort themselves can't afford homes? I don't see that as a problem, everything is just as it is supposed to be. I tell my kids, you get one life. You can spend it waiting around for stuff to happen for you, or you can go make it happen yourself.
Boost_Crazy said:In reply to GameboyRMH :
A house is an investment in the community, not in a pile of wood and drywall. If the community flourishes, the investment grows. If the community falters, the investment loses. That is why houses appreciate more where people want to live.
Then why is there this background level of price increases that affects all communities regardless of how they're doing, and why is it so expensive to live in a place like San Francisco that has little going for it at this point other than high-end jobs at tech companies that pay enough to afford the local real estate? The fact that home prices can be, and in large part have been affected by engineering artificial shortages shows that a house is not just an investment in the community. Furthermore, the reward for making a community flourish would be making it unaffordable, likely pushing the people who made it flourish or at least their children out (See also: the artists SF used to have).
The background level is simply inflation. Above that is representative of the community, both desirability and opportunity. San Francisco used to be a beautiful place to live. It has some of the best weather on the planet. High paying companies have highly paid employees. High paid employees usually prefer to live in nice places. Some companies build their offices in those places. San Francisco is small- 7 miles across, surrounded by water on 3 sides. Very limited supply to meet the demand. Yet, SF is failing. They have managed to ruin one of the nicest places in the county. Businesses and residents are leaving, property values will drop as a result. So now is your chance, just be sure to budget for frequent car window replacement.
In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :
"If you are younger and don't have a whole lot of money you will end up renting for the rest of your life and possibly be angry about it."
I'm curious how you know this is the only possible option.
bobzilla said:Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:Appleseed said:In reply to Steve_Jones :
And by Boost's rational, every Mexican immigrant family should own at least ten houses, because they are the hardest working MF's I've ever met.
I'm not disagreeing with either of you, but as all things such as this, it isn't as simple as work hard.
Aaand if we let more of them into the country there might not be such of shortage of labor in the construction industry and housing would be more affordable.
Orrrrrr if we STOP letting 60Million people cross the borders in the last 10 years we might not have such a large demand on everything, like healthcare, housing etc.
Just figure out how to get all the kids who grew up here to take those jobs picking fruit and vegetables and building houses so all those people crossing the border wouldn't bother because there are no jobs for them.
bobzilla said:In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :
"If you are younger and don't have a whole lot of money you will end up renting for the rest of your life and possibly be angry about it."
I'm curious how you know this is the only possible option.
I didn't say it was. There is a town in Italy with a bunch of empty houses begging for people to move in, or they could join a monastery. There are plenty of options.
Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:If you are younger and don't have a whole lot of money you will end up renting for the rest of your life and possibly be angry about it.
Everyone was younger with no money at some point, but they figured it out. I'd guess 99% of current homeowners started out as renters.
SV reX said:I spent 10 years as a full time volunteer for Habitat for Humanity building hundreds of houses for low income homeowners. Though our mission was to "eliminate poverty housing worldwide", we also had to recognize we were a HOME OWNERSHIP program, and some people are simply not ready to be home owners.
Decent housing may be considered at times a human right. Home ownership is not.
I just don't get this.
I don't think everyone should be a homeowner. I just think housing should be affordable relative to local employment market. I think people should be able to do more than just simple pay for rent, transportation, and food, and never have any ability to save, even if they were scrounging. There will always be working poor. There will always be a lot of folks at the bottom of the business, some folks in the middle, and a few at the top.
If you support the idea of housing as a valuable part of civilized society, then why do we force the cost of housing the working poor onto the populace as a whole? Especially while those investors are trying their best to avoid paying taxes that will house the people they've made homeless by reducing wages and increasing rents?
I propose a system that removes the profiteering land holding and speculation, as well as vacancy as means of speculation. You can still make money owning rentals. You can still make money building houses. I'm not anti-landlord or anti-developer. Why? because those folks create housing, which we need more of. But we need enough of it that there is competition, and letting stuff sit vacant because you can ride land appreciation doesn't help.
You can't create more land, so there will always be a profit motive to buying land where it's needed most, holding it, and reselling it with the hopes of making a profit. But that doesn't jive with an anti-tax political climate, the distaste of voting population to compete against government as a landholder, historical problems with "projects" and providing income to the least of us.
Also ironic is that Habitat for Humanity often fights against higher property taxes because its new builds get taxed higher than their surrounding properties. They advocate for homestead exemptions - ie, not paying taxes on the owner-occupied primary residence (which I support), as well tax exempt status to the organization itself to hold land without getting taxed for it (which I dont).
So instead of having a system that removse speculative investment from real estate, we're just banking on charities getting tax exempt status.
What does that do for the millions who rent?
Steve_Jones said:Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:If you are younger and don't have a whole lot of money you will end up renting for the rest of your life and possibly be angry about it.
Everyone was younger with no money at some point, but they figured it out. I'd guess 99% of current homeowners started out as renters.
And 100% of us started out as babies. What does that mean?
Maybe a good question to ask, that I've never looked into thoroughly - is how large of a percentage was housing cost during the times in America's history when our economy was strongest? When the average worker had the largest buying power? Would that be CPI?
I'm sure we've covered this already in 87 pages.
In reply to pheller :
just don't get this.
I don't think everyone should be a homeowner. I just think housing should be affordable relative to local employment market. I think people should be able to do more than just simple pay for rent, transportation, and food, and never have any ability to save, even if they were scrounging. There will always be working poor. There will always be a lot of folks at the bottom of the business, some folks in the middle, and a few at the top.
If you support the idea of housing as a valuable part of civilized society, then why do we force the cost of housing the working poor onto the populace as a whole? Especially while those investors are trying their best to avoid paying taxes that will house the people they've made homeless by reducing wages and increasing rents?
I propose a system that removes the profiteering land holding and speculation, as well as vacancy as means of speculation. You can still make money owning rentals. You can still make money building houses. I'm not anti-landlord or anti-developer. Why? because those folks create housing, which we need more of. But we need enough of it that there is competition, and letting stuff sit vacant because you can ride land appreciation doesn't help.
You can't create more land, so there will always be a profit motive to buying land where it's needed most, holding it, and reselling it with the hopes of making a profit. But that doesn't jive with an anti-tax political climate, the distaste of voting population to compete against government as a landholder, historical problems with "projects" and providing income to the least of us.
Also ironic is that Habitat for Humanity often fights against higher property taxes because its new builds get taxed higher than their surrounding properties. They advocate for homestead exemptions - ie, not paying taxes on the owner-occupied primary residence (which I support), as well tax exempt status to the organization itself to hold land without getting taxed for it (which I dont).
So instead of having a system that removse speculative investment from real estate, we're just banking on charities getting tax exempt status.
What does that do for the millions who rent?
What you aren't getting is that the poor, middle class, and wealthy are largely the same people at different parts of their life, and that is normal and actually makes sense when you think about it. Most people are poor when they are young. They have not had time to develop skills or build wealth. It would not make sense to structure society in a way where we build homes (using other's labor and resources) for people who have not earned them through their contributions to society. With hard work and good choices, the poor move to middle class, and get on the road to home ownership. With more hard work and good choices, they become homeowners. More hard work and good choices, they start to build wealth and become wealthy. People do this every day, and it's more common than not.
As for the bootstraps naysayers, give me another option. I gave you a solution that works for the vast majority of those that try it, and you just want to give excuses with no solutions. I challenge you to give me a better solution. Many have tried, today and throughout history. All failures. Show me one example with a better success rate. Make good choices. Work hard. It's that easy. Yes, immigrants with everything against them have found lots of success within our system. I know a lot of successful people who came with nothing, no education, not even knowing the language. If you think I'm harsh, you should hear what they think about natural born citizens squandering their opportunities.
In reply to Steve_Jones :
Houses are investments. Investments sometimes lose money.
I don't think we should give houses to high-school graduates who haven't worked a day in their life.
But I definitely think we should provide housing to retirees who unfortunately have worked their entire life with not much to show for it. Or people who have mental health issues they need to deal with. Or people who have lost their jobs and haven't found ones that pay enough to make ends meet.
Notice I saying "housing". Not houses. Not even ownership. Just a place to live.
The trouble is, the American economy is quickly approaching a point where all the jobs are concentrated around the areas with the highest housing costs, rent included. Live out in the middle of a flyover state and you have no jobs, and require government assistance there too.
"California Forever" and a few others are trying an interesting idea - create new cities where there are none now, allowing a tech companies to attract workers with high wages and cheap housing...of course, we all know the catch involved with company towns.
I will just leave this right here.
https://www.financialsamurai.com/chances-becoming-millionaire-by-race-age-education/
In reply to pheller :
You have never once shown "profiteering land holding speculation" to be a reality. You are offering your opinion, and I don't think that problem exists in a scale that has any impact. I think it is a fabricated problem.
But if it exists in your community, I suggest you take real life action and get involved.
In reply to Appleseed
And by Boost's rational, every Mexican immigrant family should own at least ten houses, because they are the hardest working MF's I've ever met.
I'm not disagreeing with either of you, but as all things such as this, it isn't as simple as work hard.
This is funny, because your response is much closer to reality than you think.
Not quite 10 houses, but their home ownership rate is much higher than ours. 80% in Mexico. Guess where much of that money comes from, and who owns those homes? Many own homes in the US too, but many of them use our system to work hard, make good choices, and bring the money back to Mexico. So yes, many of our immigrant workers are homeowners.
Don't forget the good choices part. It's hard work and good choices. If you don't graduate HS, have a kid out of wedlock, and run up a bunch of debt, it's going to take you an extra helping of hard work to get right.
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