
U.S. Homes Prices Least Affordable in Almost a Decade - spking
https://www.bloombergquint.com/onweb/2018/06/21/u-s-homes-prices-least-affordable-in-almost-a-decade
======
anoncoward111
Thought experiment:

1) Prices keep rising. Existing home-owners refinance (cash in their pocket).
People who can't afford their mortgage default on their loan. People who can't
receive a mortgage are forced to rent, leave town, or sleep in their cars.

2) Will the housing bubble violently explode? Or just slowly deflate? Teaser
rates and CDO obfuscation were the reason the housing market exploded in 2008.
If we don't have any of that in 2018 (just good ol' fashioned lack of supply
and overly-levered, synthetic housing demand), then a violent bubble explosion
would need to happen for a different reason.

3) People seek semi-legal alternatives. Living in cars. Living in tiny homes
(mostly illegal by zoning in major cities). People leave the USA to work
remotely.

The pressure cooker is boiling and I'm keeping my money on the sidelines. I
would much rather live/work "non-traditionally" than corner myself into a
mortgage I ultimately can't pay.

------
temp-dude-87844
The day before, NPR was reporting on the exact same data in a positive light,
about how the housing crash of 2008 is now 10 years in the past, and prices
have fully recovered, and are as "strong" as they've ever been. Same facts,
two different sides of the coin.

Sales of previously-owned homes have been falling [1], and declined again.
Limited supply causes more and more purchases to resemble an auction, which
pushes closing prices higher.

[1] [https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-existing-home-sales-fell-
in...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-existing-home-sales-fell-in-
april-1527170773)

