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Comment by J253 | Hacker News Reader

I know that CA (LA, SF, SD) housing has always been expensive but it seems like in the past 20 years or so it’s become cumbersomely so. Unless you rode up on the wave of raising house prices through those years (presumably, mostly boomers, or you’re already ultra-wealthy) buying a decent single family home is out of the question.

But with the boomer generation approaching EOL (sorry, a bit macabre) does anyone think prices will have to cool a bit as supply slowly starts to trickle up a bit? Or will that just attract other wealthy people from elsewhere into the market? The current price trend can’t possibly keep up at its current pace or no one will be able to buy…

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That should help slow the rise, but since populations rise, I wouldn’t expect a big change. Only if nimbys were to kick off en masse and prop 13 were reformed.

populations don't always rise, and the boomers have implemented policy and stuck around long enough to kneecap the next generations and prevent younger people from starting families. america has dropped below replacement birth rate in the past few years, despite younger parents actually wanting to have more children

As long as living standards are lower elsewhere, you can just get replacements from other countries. You spend less this way as well and don't have to raise and educate people. You can also call people racists if they don't like it.

i support open immigration but current policy just gives us the worst of both worlds. having children is financially impossible, moving here is legally impossible, so of course the only demographics doing it are either extremely rich or (mostly) extremely desperate. there's just a lot of suffering involved, which doesn't encourage positive outcomes in either set of folks. great world we've made

The birth rate is dropping the world over. As overpopulation with its resultant trauma and poverty decreases we will no longer have the immigrate-at-all-costs demographic to prop up the system.

Most human poverty does not result from overpopulation.

Parents with low prop 13 taxes will be giving those housing to their kids when they die as they can pass on the tax rate as well.

Only if the kid lives in that house, so not exactly true.

There will always be demand for CA real estate. Wealthy people from all over the world will happily pay top dollar for the homes of EOL’d boomers. Don’t expect prices to drop any time soon, at least in the desirable ares.

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