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Well, sucks to be in the UK I guess. Got any harbors nearby you could throw some tea into? That might help, seems to have worked out well for us. And whatever you do, if they send some guys to confiscate your firearms, DON'T LET THEM! You gotta stand up to those guys or it's all over.

 djones520 wrote:

 Steve steveson wrote:

People used to be able to do a blue collar job, on the factory floor or the like, and take home a wage that would support a family. Entry level is not strictly true, but medium skilled manual jobs with no supervisory responsibilities did pay well enough to live and have a family and a house.

Your average UAW factory worker makes typically $17 an hour starting wages, and the average tops out above $20 an hour. That's for the type of work you're describing, which in America is earning a "livable" wage by a decent margin.

So kicking off at $35,360 and making homes about 10.2x average salary. Still more than double what people buying houses in the 60s were facing. And the average rent for even a one-bed is $1,216 (41% of your $17 an hour worker's monthly income before tax and 47.8% of a service worker's) so best of luck saving that deposit.

Average in UK is £600, so half of a minimum wage, though it's heavily skewed by the cities, especially London, where rents are insanely expensive.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Albino Squirrel wrote:
Well, sucks to be in the UK I guess. Got any harbors nearby you could throw some tea into? That might help, seems to have worked out well for us. And whatever you do, if they send some guys to confiscate your firearms, DON'T LET THEM! You gotta stand up to those guys or it's all over.

Glad I took the time to find the numbers for that nuanced concession.

Why would you expect someone working an entry level job to be able to afford a nearly $400,000 house? That would be a much more expensive house than a $20,000 house in the sixties would have been. Maybe that isn't so obvious with the different currencies and all, so again, sorry if what you're saying makes sense in the UK, but it doesn't in the US. Average price might be driven up by huge increase in a few specific areas or more rich people with giant houses, but nobody needs to spend $380,000 on a house.

 Albino Squirrel wrote:
But you don't seem to actually understand any of the numbers you found. Why would you expect someone working an entry level job to be able to afford a nearly $400,000 house? That would be a much more expensive house than a $20,000 house in the sixties would have been. Maybe that isn't so obvious with the different currencies and all, so again, sorry if what you're saying makes sense in the UK, but it doesn't in the US.

Maybe your location is like that, over here a $20,000 house in the 80’s (let alone 60’s) would be an $700,000 house now.

That’s the point, we look at the houses that our parents bought in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s and paid off in a few years and to buy literally the exact same house now is 20 to 30 years to pay off even if you work your arse off in a middling job, don’t have kids, and live tight.

My friend with a 2 engineer salary and no kids are going to take longer to pay off a 2br house than my dad who had a 1 income household, 4 kids and a 3br house on a bigger block of land.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
That’s the point, we look at the houses that our parents bought in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s and paid off in a few years and to buy literally the exact same house now is 20 to 30 years to pay off even if you work your arse off in a middling job, don’t have kids, and live tight.

I think 'paid off in a few years' was not the general experience. 20 year mortgages were plenty common in the 70's (and rates were really high).

 John Prins wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
That’s the point, we look at the houses that our parents bought in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s and paid off in a few years and to buy literally the exact same house now is 20 to 30 years to pay off even if you work your arse off in a middling job, don’t have kids, and live tight.

I think 'paid off in a few years' was not the general experience. 20 year mortgages were plenty common in the 70's (and rates were really high).

you're right, we need to look at the total cost to buy the house, not just the value of the house bought.

 John Prins wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
That’s the point, we look at the houses that our parents bought in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s and paid off in a few years and to buy literally the exact same house now is 20 to 30 years to pay off even if you work your arse off in a middling job, don’t have kids, and live tight.

I think 'paid off in a few years' was not the general experience. 20 year mortgages were plenty common in the 70's (and rates were really high).

My understanding is back in those days people would take out 20 to 30 year mortgages, but they were a lot easier to pay off quickly if you were willing to live like a pauper for a few years. It was common to see people take out a 30 year loan and pay it off in under 10.

These days you calculate the repayments on a 20 to 30 year loan and they genuinely take a decent paying job to manage even within that time, forget about trying to pay them off quicker.

It's just the math of it, someone said it on the previous page, the median house price in many areas is so much higher relative to the median wage, therefore it's harder to pay off.

Just in the last 10 years, a house near me went for $450k and is now $650k. If you rock up as a new home buyer with $100k in the bank (a few years worth of savings on a decent paying job) the difference between a $350k and a $550k loan is huge in terms of how quickly you can pay it off, as the early years a huge amount of the repayments just goes in to paying off the interest.

Obviously this is hugely location specific, but this is the sort of thing people are talking about what they get depressed about realising they can no longer afford to live like their parents once did. Not unless they move out whoop whoops and deal with 2+ hours of commuting each day (which obviously comes with its own costs as well).

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Maybe your location is like that, over here a $20,000 house in the 80’s (let alone 60’s) would be an $700,000 house now.

That’s the point, we look at the houses that our parents bought in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s and paid off in a few years and to buy literally the exact same house now is 20 to 30 years to pay off even if you work your arse off in a middling job, don’t have kids, and live tight.

As a personal example, my grandparents house was a smallish 3 bedroom detached house in a nice quiet road around the Surrey - Greater London area. They bought it for £3000 in I think the late 50s. When they died around 6 years ago, the house was in sore need of modernisation throughout - and still sold easily for £600,000.

 Albino Squirrel wrote:
Why would you expect someone working an entry level job to be able to afford a nearly $400,000 house? That would be a much more expensive house than a $20,000 house in the sixties would have been. Maybe that isn't so obvious with the different currencies and all, so again, sorry if what you're saying makes sense in the UK, but it doesn't in the US. Average price might be driven up by huge increase in a few specific areas or more rich people with giant houses, but nobody needs to spend $380,000 on a house.

I don't expect them to live in a house that price. I'm not going to go and find numbers for the cheapest house in a stack of US towns to contrast with wages in that same town so average are what we've got, however. They work fine as a general indicator of the sharp rise in house prices, anyway. Those LA mansions do skew them, but the people living in them skew earning averages, too.

Yes it would be more expensive. That's exactly the point. The average house today is massively more expensive than the average house two generations ago. What do you think we've been discussing?

It is simply nonsense to claim that the cost of living today is not much, much higher relative than it was two generations ago. The exact same properties are vastly more expensive relative to incomes. If you can go find me some examples of houses in the US that sold for 20k in the sixties that are now valued at about 144k that would be in line with wage growth and I'll accept that housing hasn't increased beyond earnings.

Even if we ignore housing because you have a bee in your bonnet about modern basic conveniences being superior to those of the 50s and consider only groceries and basic subsistence, the US consumer price index today is 155% of what it was just in 1998. Wages over the same period? 145%. In just the last twenty years every day living has gotten 10% more expensive. Cost of living rises have long outstripped wage rises, even ignoring the staggering increase in housing costs.

Those modest homes belonging to my grandparents could have been had for $50K or thereabouts in this decade.

 gorgon wrote:
Those modest homes belonging to my grandparents could have been had for $50K or thereabouts in this decade.

You have sources for then and now prices on a specific area?

nfe wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
Those modest homes belonging to my grandparents could have been had for $50K or thereabouts in this decade.

You have sources for then and now prices on a specific area?

50k? That's bloody cheap, that's closer to the price of a car than a house for where I live. Houses are minimum of 600k for me and those are the really crappy ones. Your assessment does not seem accurate to me.

nfe wrote:

 Albino Squirrel wrote:
Why would you expect someone working an entry level job to be able to afford a nearly $400,000 house? That would be a much more expensive house than a $20,000 house in the sixties would have been. Maybe that isn't so obvious with the different currencies and all, so again, sorry if what you're saying makes sense in the UK, but it doesn't in the US. Average price might be driven up by huge increase in a few specific areas or more rich people with giant houses, but nobody needs to spend $380,000 on a house.

I don't expect them to live in a house that price. I'm not going to go and find numbers for the cheapest house in a stack of US towns to contrast with wages in that same town so average are what we've got, however. They work fine as a general indicator of the sharp rise in house prices, anyway. Those LA mansions do skew them, but the people living in them skew earning averages, too.

Yes it would be more expensive. That's exactly the point. The average house today is massively more expensive than the average house two generations ago. What do you think we've been discussing?

It is simply nonsense to claim that the cost of living today is not much, much higher relative than it was two generations ago. The exact same properties are vastly more expensive relative to incomes. If you can go find me some examples of houses in the US that sold for 20k in the sixties that are now valued at about 144k that would be in line with wage growth and I'll accept that housing hasn't increased beyond earnings.

Even if we ignore housing because you have a bee in your bonnet about modern basic conveniences being superior to those of the 50s and consider only groceries and basic subsistence, the US consumer price index today is 155% of what it was just in 1998. Wages over the same period? 145%. In just the last twenty years every day living has gotten 10% more expensive. Cost of living rises have long outstripped wage rises, even ignoring the staggering increase in housing costs.

But cost of living hasn't greatly outstripped wage growth, in fact it's been pretty even over that period. You're either just making things up, or maybe it's different in the UK. But just because it's true there doesn't mean it's true here. If you're claiming that's true in the US, you're wrong about all of it.

The average house today is more expensive because the average house today is twice as big and much nicer. So why would that be a bad thing? The average house is more expensive largely because people today have MORE than their grandparents, not less. Though home prices have also been inflated by somewhat artificially lower interest rates now that make them easier to buy, and of course property in areas that have had large population increases has gone up since it is higher in demand now. If you bought a house in the middle of nowhere 50 years ago and now it is a huge population center, just the land it's on will be worth a lot more.

Again, I've got to assume that all this is different in the UK or I don't get how you wouldn't be able to understand this.





Automatically Appended Next Post:
And to complain that you can't buy the exact same house as your grandparents for the same price is pretty ridiculous if the bought in a place that has seen the values skyrocket. You also can't buy Disney stock for the same price your grandparents could have bought it for.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
My understanding is back in those days people would take out 20 to 30 year mortgages, but they were a lot easier to pay off quickly if you were willing to live like a pauper for a few years. It was common to see people take out a 30 year loan and pay it off in under 10.

There are other, unconsidered factors, however. Life was very different in many ways.

For example, your grandparents probably were active in the work force for 3-7 years before they even thought about buying a house, saving all the while. And they didn't consider buying one until they got married - and marriages generally meant lots of gifts (often of cash) from family and friends (and quite often church community) for the sole purpose of buying and furnishing a home. In other words, they didn't do it on solely their own steam, but with a lot of community support and planning. These days people don't have those support networks to get their lives started. Consider how many single people actually bought homes back then - it was probably far less than these days, simply because without that support it was very difficult.

Then there's the fact that even the labor market was structured around the single provider model - meaning that when you got married and had children, raises were basically expected and received. IOW pay rate was somewhat determined by your needs rather than just your seniority or experience/talents. That's gone away and these days asking your boss for a raise just because you got married or had a child is ludicrous (and in many places it's structured solely on seniority/position). I'm not sure if those factors are ever calculated into the 'average salary' of the 50s-70s, and I think the numbers were actually a lot fuzzier than the stats might indicate.

I'm sure there are other factors as well, and never forget there were PLENTY of working poor who could not afford homes, renting and living paycheck to paycheck. It's not an experience unique to today. Anyone who has a 'successful grandparent' story should remember that their homeowner success probably had more to do with their grandparents particular circumstances than the overall social and economic factors.

Right. I suppose all this looking at averages kinda ignores the reality that how successful people are depends more on their own actions and particular circumstances than overall national or global average circumstances.

Still, people bemoaning that they can't live like their grandparents did I think wouldn't actually want to live like their grandparents did at all. Because they are actually living much better in a lot of ways. And if you wanted to live like that, with a little effort you probably could. Buy some land somewhere with a low cost of living, buy some building materials and build yourself a house. I guess it might be little more expensive getting all the permits and inspections you'd need, but I'd bet you could afford it on a blue collar salary. And in 50 years if the population there expands a lot your house is going to be worth way more than you paid for it. Then you grandkids can complain about how unfair their life is because they can't afford with their entry level jobs what you spend your life building.

And I'd guess land is always going to increase in price/value. I mean, a couple hundred years ago they were literally giving it away, but I wouldn't b envious of how people lived back then because they spent so much less on their homes.

 Albino Squirrel wrote:
Right. I suppose all this looking at averages kinda ignores the reality that how successful people are depends more on their own actions and particular circumstances than overall national or global average circumstances.

Still, people bemoaning that they can't live like their grandparents did I think wouldn't actually want to live like their grandparents did at all. Because they are actually living much better in a lot of ways. And if you wanted to live like that, with a little effort you probably could. Buy some land somewhere with a low cost of living, buy some building materials and build yourself a house. I guess it might be little more expensive getting all the permits and inspections you'd need, but I'd bet you could afford it on a blue collar salary. And in 50 years if the population there expands a lot your house is going to be worth way more than you paid for it. Then you grandkids can complain about how unfair their life is because they can't afford with their entry level jobs what you spend your life building.

And I'd guess land is always going to increase in price/value. I mean, a couple hundred years ago they were literally giving it away, but I wouldn't b envious of how people lived back then because they spent so much less on their homes.

As someone who works in the new homes industry, you absolutely cannot afford to buy land and build your own house on a blue collar salary.

Where I live you couldn't afford to do either of those on a blue collar salary.

In Lake County Illinois, hardly the middle of nowhere, I can find plots of land for $10,000 - $20,000. I can buy construction materials for a nice home for $50k-$60k. After paying for utility hookups, you can still come in under $100k. I know plenty of blue collar workers who paid more than that for their houses, so that's certainly attainable.

In any case, owning a home were so much harder and more expensive now, you might expect homeownership rates to be much lower than in the 60s. But they are a little higher, even though the houses on average are so much more expensive. There was a huge increase in ownership rates in the early 2000s, which was then entirely reversed by the housing bubble/great recession.

I did discover something interesting. Home ownership among married couples has been on the rise, at least as far back as I can find data on that. And home ownership rates among unmarried people has also been on the rise. So then why isn't the overall rate higher? Well, the rate has risen for both groups, but is much lower for unmarried people, and that group has gotten much bigger. More people are marrying later and more people are getting divorced, and those groups are much less likely to own a home than married people are.

 John Prins wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
My understanding is back in those days people would take out 20 to 30 year mortgages, but they were a lot easier to pay off quickly if you were willing to live like a pauper for a few years. It was common to see people take out a 30 year loan and pay it off in under 10.

There are other, unconsidered factors, however. Life was very different in many ways.

For example, your grandparents probably were active in the work force for 3-7 years before they even thought about buying a house, saving all the while. And they didn't consider buying one until they got married - and marriages generally meant lots of gifts (often of cash) from family and friends (and quite often church community) for the sole purpose of buying and furnishing a home. In other words, they didn't do it on solely their own steam, but with a lot of community support and planning. These days people don't have those support networks to get their lives started. Consider how many single people actually bought homes back then - it was probably far less than these days, simply because without that support it was very difficult.

I'm not really thinking of grandparents so much as parents, but I don't think things have changed all that much. People used to get married younger, half the whinging you hear from boomers these days is how kids don't move out of home until their late 20's... but it's because they can't afford to... and folk still get help from their parents and grandparents for buying houses.

Furnishing wise, it's actually pretty cheap to fill a house full of crappy IKEA furniture these days, completely insignificant compared to the price of the house itself.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I'm not really thinking of grandparents so much as parents, but I don't think things have changed all that much. People used to get married younger, half the whinging you hear from boomers these days is how kids don't move out of home until their late 20's... but it's because they can't afford to... and folk still get help from their parents and grandparents for buying houses.

Things have changed even from your parent's generation. Most western societies have a declining birth rate and that constricts the kind of social support you can draw on. People don't belong to worship communities nearly as much, so they only have their close friends and small family to rely upon. Not just for 'hard times' or 'leg up/wedding' support, but also social networks (finding jobs) - social media/networks are a poor substitute for a large family + church community + all the people the previous two know. It was a VERY successful social model that's not nearly as common today as it was even 30 years ago.

But at the very least, you can see why, at least for some very practical reasons, that people belonged to church communities even if they weren't the most devout. Certainly modern society has provided many of the support mechanisms via taxation, but home buying support isn't there yet, and I doubt it ever will be.

 Albino Squirrel wrote:

nfe wrote:

 Albino Squirrel wrote:
Why would you expect someone working an entry level job to be able to afford a nearly $400,000 house? That would be a much more expensive house than a $20,000 house in the sixties would have been. Maybe that isn't so obvious with the different currencies and all, so again, sorry if what you're saying makes sense in the UK, but it doesn't in the US. Average price might be driven up by huge increase in a few specific areas or more rich people with giant houses, but nobody needs to spend $380,000 on a house.

I don't expect them to live in a house that price. I'm not going to go and find numbers for the cheapest house in a stack of US towns to contrast with wages in that same town so average are what we've got, however. They work fine as a general indicator of the sharp rise in house prices, anyway. Those LA mansions do skew them, but the people living in them skew earning averages, too.

Yes it would be more expensive. That's exactly the point. The average house today is massively more expensive than the average house two generations ago. What do you think we've been discussing?

It is simply nonsense to claim that the cost of living today is not much, much higher relative than it was two generations ago. The exact same properties are vastly more expensive relative to incomes. If you can go find me some examples of houses in the US that sold for 20k in the sixties that are now valued at about 144k that would be in line with wage growth and I'll accept that housing hasn't increased beyond earnings.

Even if we ignore housing because you have a bee in your bonnet about modern basic conveniences being superior to those of the 50s and consider only groceries and basic subsistence, the US consumer price index today is 155% of what it was just in 1998. Wages over the same period? 145%. In just the last twenty years every day living has gotten 10% more expensive. Cost of living rises have long outstripped wage rises, even ignoring the staggering increase in housing costs.

But cost of living hasn't greatly outstripped wage growth, in fact it's been pretty even over that period. You're either just making things up, or maybe it's different in the UK. But just because it's true there doesn't mean it's true here. If you're claiming that's true in the US, you're wrong about all of it.

I'm literally giving you US gov data.

 Albino Squirrel wrote:

And to complain that you can't buy the exact same house as your grandparents for the same price is pretty ridiculous if the bought in a place that has seen the values skyrocket. You also can't buy Disney stock for the same price your grandparents could have bought it for.

I haven't claimed that. I've asked you to demonstrate that you can buy the same properties at prices on line with inflation. In any area you like. Where are all these $20k 60s home that now cost $144k?

They don't exist. Because houses everywhere have rocketed in value meaning they're much more difficult to purchase for people today - that's the exact point that's been made repeatedly that you've denied.

You've a bit of a cheek acting so incredulous when you're at the point of flagging the issues that you've been arguing don't exist

 Albino Squirrel wrote:

Still, people bemoaning that they can't live like their grandparents did I think wouldn't actually want to live like their grandparents did at all. Because they are actually living much better in a lot of ways.

No one has made that argument. I'm stated explicit that our standard or life is much higher. All people have said is that cost of living is higher. No one has even argued that it isn't worth it, only that it is harder to meet.

And I'd guess land is always going to increase in price/value.

This is exactly the point you've been rejecting. Land, and the property on it, does (almost) continually rise. Much faster than wages do.

I mean, a couple hundred years ago they were literally giving it away, but I wouldn't b envious of how people lived back then because they spent so much less on their homes.

Again. No one is envious of 'how people lived'. I assure you I don't wish that me, my girlfriend, and our mixed race baby lived in the 60s. I am envious of how much cheaper it was to own and maintain a home. That's all.

 John Prins wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I'm not really thinking of grandparents so much as parents, but I don't think things have changed all that much. People used to get married younger, half the whinging you hear from boomers these days is how kids don't move out of home until their late 20's... but it's because they can't afford to... and folk still get help from their parents and grandparents for buying houses.

Things have changed even from your parent's generation. Most western societies have a declining birth rate and that constricts the kind of social support you can draw on. People don't belong to worship communities nearly as much, so they only have their close friends and small family to rely upon. Not just for 'hard times' or 'leg up/wedding' support, but also social networks (finding jobs) - social media/networks are a poor substitute for a large family + church community + all the people the previous two know. It was a VERY successful social model that's not nearly as common today as it was even 30 years ago.

But at the very least, you can see why, at least for some very practical reasons, that people belonged to church communities even if they weren't the most devout. Certainly modern society has provided many of the support mechanisms via taxation, but home buying support isn't there yet, and I doubt it ever will be.

I'm not convinced the decline in church culture has contributed to much of anything. Did church communities commonly fund actual house purchases back in the day? Because as I said previously, these days it really doesn't cost much to fill a house with furniture, and extend that to crockery, cutlery, and so on. As long as you don't want the highest quality, a few grand goes a very long way to kitting out a house these days. The problem is the house itself.

Having social networks to find jobs, yeah, might be helpful, but then we didn't used to have the internet to make searching jobs so easy as well. I can do some googling and find jobs all across the world, it wasn't that long ago that finding work even a few towns away would have been more of a challenge.

 Albino Squirrel wrote:
In Lake County Illinois, hardly the middle of nowhere, I can find plots of land for $10,000 - $20,000. I can buy construction materials for a nice home for $50k-$60k. After paying for utility hookups, you can still come in under $100k. I know plenty of blue collar workers who paid more than that for their houses, so that's certainly attainable.

In any case, owning a home were so much harder and more expensive now, you might expect homeownership rates to be much lower than in the 60s. But they are a little higher, even though the houses on average are so much more expensive. There was a huge increase in ownership rates in the early 2000s, which was then entirely reversed by the housing bubble/great recession.

I did discover something interesting. Home ownership among married couples has been on the rise, at least as far back as I can find data on that. And home ownership rates among unmarried people has also been on the rise. So then why isn't the overall rate higher? Well, the rate has risen for both groups, but is much lower for unmarried people, and that group has gotten much bigger. More people are marrying later and more people are getting divorced, and those groups are much less likely to own a home than married people are.

Lol, at the 10k $ for land.
That would net you about 10m^2 here. If you are lucky. Or have peasant family ties with someone that still owns land.

And even then you'd got a deal that is insanse here.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

I'm not convinced the decline in church culture has contributed to much of anything. Did church communities commonly fund actual house purchases back in the day? Because as I said previously, these days it really doesn't cost much to fill a house with furniture, and extend that to crockery, cutlery, and so on. As long as you don't want the highest quality, a few grand goes a very long way to kitting out a house these days. The problem is the house itself.

Having social networks to find jobs, yeah, might be helpful, but then we didn't used to have the internet to make searching jobs so easy as well. I can do some googling and find jobs all across the world, it wasn't that long ago that finding work even a few towns away would have been more of a challenge.

Communal ownership is actually quite heavy in switzerland, as in groups invest into houseing, guaranteeing somewhat cheap rent for members. These groups can range from your local Schützenverein, to the churches (catholic OR protestant, to some extent the jews aswell but they are such a small fringe group that they do it otherwise) Consumergroups, hobby groups, etc.

Well, switzerland is not very big. It looks like it's population density is about 2.5 times that of the state of Illinois So It makes sense that land would be more in demand. I don't see that every changing, though. We keep making more people, but we can't really make more land.

 Albino Squirrel wrote:
Well, switzerland is not very big. It looks like it's population density is about 2.5 times that of the state of Illinois So It makes sense that land would be more in demand. I don't see that every changing, though. We keep making more people, but we can't really make more land.

Asteroids and the solar system, i tell you.


case is though, switzerland never was big on home ownership. It was allways after the early industrialisation of the nation a nation of renters.
And even before that.


Point is though, comunal owned buildings isn't as rare as many people think.

I think one key is for many older americans they have been in the same house they did buy 50 years ago, so it is paid off. If you keep trading up (like most Americans do) you end up buying a new house when you are in your 40-50s and yes, you will have to work until you die because that 30 year mortgage will last into your 70-80s.

I guess the real trick is to get into the house you will stay in for the rest of your life when you are no older than your 30's. Stay put, get it paid off and also set aside at least 10% your entire working life. You will be able to retire; however, do most Americans do this? obviously, no.

Also, on the older subject about cars, I totally agree with the comment about cars are BETTER than they were years ago. Sure, they were simpler to fix, less complicated parts and all (I replaced EVERYTHING in my first few cars), but, I also remember that if you car got over 100k - it was a miracle. And, by the standards of the day you did not live 50 miles from where you worked just to afford the housing, you lived just a few miles away so that car was not trash in 4 years.

The influx of foreign cars in the 70's totally changed American engineering to compete with them, as they would keep going for 200k. Nowadays a car getting into 200k+ is fairly common. Yes, it does cost a lot more comparably than it did 40-50 years ago, but the concept still stands.

Purchasing-power-wise, the wages in the US have been stagnant since the 70s. It doesn't matter that, for example, a car is more efficient over time than previously in history if you can't afford the initial investment. Same with houses.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Albino Squirrel wrote:
Well, switzerland is not very big. It looks like it's population density is about 2.5 times that of the state of Illinois So It makes sense that land would be more in demand. I don't see that every changing, though. We keep making more people, but we can't really make more land.

Asteroids and the solar system, i tell you.


case is though, switzerland never was big on home ownership. It was allways after the early industrialisation of the nation a nation of renters.
And even before that.


Point is though, comunal owned buildings isn't as rare as many people think.

Yes, the US is very different in that respect. Here, owning your own home is generally considered something everyone should want to do. Honestly, many people would probably be better off renting, but there is a push for people to own a home, and the government tries to keep interest rates low and encourage lending to home buyers in order to facilitate this, which in some ways probably ends up artificially inflating prices by increasing demand. Though obviously in cities where the population density is high, most people rent an apartment.

But yes, hopefully we can terraform the moon, or something. Or at least terraform Antarctica maybe.

 Albino Squirrel wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Albino Squirrel wrote:
Well, switzerland is not very big. It looks like it's population density is about 2.5 times that of the state of Illinois So It makes sense that land would be more in demand. I don't see that every changing, though. We keep making more people, but we can't really make more land.

Asteroids and the solar system, i tell you.


case is though, switzerland never was big on home ownership. It was allways after the early industrialisation of the nation a nation of renters.
And even before that.


Point is though, comunal owned buildings isn't as rare as many people think.

Yes, the US is very different in that respect. Here, owning your own home is generally considered something everyone should want to do. Honestly, many people would probably be better off renting, but there is a push for people to own a home, and the government tries to keep interest rates low and encourage lending to home buyers in order to facilitate this, which in some ways probably ends up artificially inflating prices by increasing demand. Though obviously in cities where the population density is high, most people rent an apartment.

But yes, hopefully we can terraform the moon, or something. Or at least terraform Antarctica maybe.

While circumstances may force me to shortly, my stance on renting is feth that noise. In my adult life, I had the opportunity to rent once, and we got so screwed over it was beyond dumb. Were the military not forcing me to move to a shithole location for the final two years of my career, I'd never rent again, but as I have no plans at all of remaining at that place, I won't be buying there.

Renting gets a bad rap, but there are plenty of people who want or need to rent. It's not the devil its made out to be. In the 6 years I've been a landlord, my property has been unoccupied for a combined total of 3 months.

Without reverting to politics too much, I read labour's land for the many manifesto, and it promised to really crack down on landlords. They got thoroughly told in this past election, and I truly believe that people not being interested in that policy had a lot to do with it.

I know plenty of people who plan to rent for the rest of their lives, or at least the foreseeable future, and put their savings into stocks and shares, or pensions etc, rather than trying to save for a house.