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Comment by xg15 | Hacker News Reader

> 1 square foot of housing is approximately the same price - adjusted for inflation - as it was in the 1970s, on average.

Average over what, though? I'd assume that 1sq in a dense metropolitan quarter in high demand goes for a lot more than 1sq in a poor neighborhood or in the middle of nowhere.

The global average doesn't really mean anything except "somewhere in the US there is still affordable housing".

Most critics of rising housing prices that I know of aren't arguing that housing is becoming unaffordable everywhere but that it's becoming unaffordable in high-density places where housing would be needed.

You acknowledge this in:

> This pushes the price per square foot inside metros up way above what they would otherwise be.

Also shouldn't actions include at least having a look at building speculation in high-density areas?

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>> the middle of nowhere.

So as a tech worker who's lived in the "middle of nowhere" and worked remotely for 20 years, why the hell is anyone paying a premium to live in San Francisco now?

Different lifestyles and requirements. No everyone is a tech worker who can work remotely.

Maybe covid now changes this now, but the ability to have stores and RL venues without having to drive will stay in demand, I' pretty sure.

Yeah, RL venues and stores will always draw people to the cities. This should be actually a cheap, cool thing for young people like it was in New York or San Francisco in the 60s, or the 80s. It probably will be like that about 20 years from now, when it becomes "cool" to live in a city again. We were so close to an urban renaissance... the period from 2000 until covid was the best time for urban centers and downtowns since the late 19th century, before trolley lines and buses and cars moved everyone out. I thought we were centralizing and going to a walkable, car-less future. Covid did change all that, because without office workers there's no lunch crowd; with no lunch crowd there are no restaurants; with no restaurants there are no hipsters wanting to live downtown (they alone can't sustain the restaurants). Then you have the riots and the meth population and everything boarded up. We're in for 20 years before downtowns recover as a "hip" zone.

The thing is, RL venues are important, but they do exist outside of San Francisco. Increasingly, very little exists in the urban cores, and yet the prices for rent are still insane.

If you spend $100/month on a thing and I, in a city, spend $500/month on the same thing it could still make strictly logical financial sense to live in the city.

Suppose you and I both save 30% of out net income. If I'm making far more in a city then my 30% savings will go very far in a not city location.

We can also assume if you spend 100/month on rent and I spend 500/month on rent it's the same "percentage" of the pay we make.

Yeah, I was looking for a job pre-COVID, and REALLY wanted something remote since I hate living in a big city.

No matter how hard I looked or negotiated, I couldn’t manage to get any remote offers or jobs in small towns in the USA that’d pay over about $140k. Meanwhile, with my experience it was EASY to get an offer for $300k in the Bay Area.

That means that even paying $3300/month to rent a run-down shithole and $6 per gallon for milk, I’m saving $120k a year vs the $40k I’d save in a small town.

The numbers get even more insane if you buy property in one of these hideously overpriced Bay Area cities. I haven’t done it yet, since a downturn could leave me holding the bag and trapped in this nightmarish place for 5 years, but the financial incentives are incredible

> That means that even paying $3300/month to rent a run-down shithole and $6 per gallon for milk, I’m saving $120k a year vs the $40k I’d save in a small town.

Exactly this. I hate the highly populated areas of the world but I'm working in one with hopes that I can buy a house with high speed internet within driving distance of a medium sized family-oriented town with a shopping + restaurant district. If cost of living is 1/3rd then your 120k savings just got you a whole bunch of slack.

Me too. My numbers are higher, and I’m probably older, but as retirement looms on the horizon, the goal is simply to make hay while the sun shines.

The exit strategy is to sell the ridiculously overpriced house, fully paid off, which has doubled in price in the last 8 years, and sod off to a lower COL area. Since I’m a Brit, a small castle with grounds in Scotland ought to be on the cards, for less than my 1500 sq ft ranch-style house here.

One piece of advice, the sun can shine a lot long than you think it would.

> The global average doesn't really mean anything except "somewhere in the US there is still affordable housing".

Friend, that's not what average means.

It means that more than half all houses cost less than X (because average => median). Not "somewhere in the there exists something less than X".

> "high-density places where housing would be needed."

Well you got half the country (actually much more - closer to 2/3, given that average >> median in housing).

This has been brought to you by your local RUMIA (Responsible Use of Math In Arguments) league.

Stay frosty out there, people.

Good point. Still doesn't say where that half is - probably not in high-density urban areas.

But it doesn't even have to mean that. It could also mean that certain undesirable neighborhoods cost far below the median, pulling the average down.

Well, we assume the bottom half of housing, or say, the bottom 60% of housing, would be in the bottom 60% of the nation in terms of desirability. But that doesn't mean it's undesirable or bad housing -- certainly it's not viewed as bad by all those people living there -- that's like 170 million people.

Average doesn't necessarily mean that, often the mean is used and often that's not equal to the median. If housing prices are left skewed then the median is going to be greater than the average so more than 50% of people would be paying more than the mean.

I think the point was that it is true specifically when it comes to housing (also income and wealth for that matter)

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