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Comment by phpisthebest | Hacker News Reader

few things impact this

1. Force to sell due to medicare or other end of life expenses (you can not have any assets if you need full time nursing care paid for by medicare)

2. the "Reverse mortgage" people fall for.

3. Baby Boomers, a Single Asset split 5-8 ways does not go far

4. the houses owned really were not that good. My Grandparents owned their home, bought it right after WWII, the house was a small 2 bed 1 bath they raised 4 kids in... It is still in the family but it is out-dated by modern standards.

that is 4, I am sure there are others

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>the houses owned really were not that good. My Grandparents owned their home, bought it right after WWII, the house was a small 2 bed 1 bath they raised 4 kids in... It is still in the family but it is out-dated by modern standards.

Young people complain how much more expensive homes are now, and then can't be bothered to accept a starter home..

"I just can't understand why I can't afford this 3,600 sq foot home near downtown Austin at age 25, life is unfair!".

All young people do this? This is incredible uniformity.

> Young people complain how much more expensive homes are now

The rest of your sentence doesn’t change this bit.

My parents moved to a country with zero support network and where they didn't speak the language, all so that they could soon afford to buy a home.

Tons of young people today won't even move to the valley or to another state.

I worked in car sales and basically every dealership mechanic over 28 owns a home. But tech people complain about how they can't buy one somehow.

Almost anyone can afford a home if they're willing to make the necessary life changes (one of which may be getting less home than they want). But those changes may involve moving to another county/state/country at the extremes.

Often it could be "afforded" by the HN-income crowd just by not buying a new car.

>Almost anyone can afford a home if they're willing to make the necessary life changes (one of which may be getting less home than they want).

Similar to years past, except people are less willing to do that now.

Sounds like you might be out of touch, housing has become a lot less affordable in the last decades.

Some of that is local zoning laws that prohibit the kind of small affordable "starter" homes from being built

Things like Minimum Lot size, out right restriction on size of home, and other "building codes" that have nothing to do with the safety or long term viability of a construction project

It is unlikely the development my grandparents home is in would get zoning approval should a developer seek to build a similar neighborhood today. The lots sizes would be too small, the homes would be too small, and various other things would be non-compliant with modern building codes which does not mean it would be unsafe.

How much of a starter home can you really have when the plot of land itself starts at $150k

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