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Comment by atourgates | Hacker News Reader

They're not wrong.

Check out the graphs on this page: https://www.longtermtrends.net/home-price-median-annual-inco...

The Home Price to Median Household Income Ratio is higher than it's been in 70 years.

Between 1965 and the year 2000, it fluctuated between 3.5 and 4.5. At the top of the housing bubble in 2008, it hit 6.8. Right now it's at 7.6. And I don't believe the housing price data this index uses (from S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index) considers the cost mortgage interest rates, so the actual cost of ownership is even higher (relative to a low interest rate environment) than this data shows.

The Home Price to Personal Average Income Ratio is a bit different, but tells the same broad picture.

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You don't have to ask realtors whether houses cost too much. The U. Michigan survey of consumers shows that "price reasons for buying conditions for houses" i.e. whether the mortgage is too damned high stands at historically bad levels. Sentiment was never this bad, at any time between WW2 and 2020.

https://data.sca.isr.umich.edu/fetchdoc.php?docid=74465#page...

Aren't rates in the US lower now than they were at the top of the 2008 bubble? Certainly are in the UK

> Aren't rates in the US lower now than they were at the top of the 2008 bubble?

No. Fed is currently at 8.5%. Highest bubble rate was 8.25% in Q4 2007. In 2008 rates started at 7.76% and ended at 5%.

ref: https://www.ferc.gov/interest-calculation-rates-and-methodol...

Also look at these graphs

https://www.statista.com/statistics/529371/floor-area-size-n...

The average new construction house size changes from 1500 square feet in 1975 to 2500 square feet in 2022.

So yes, some of the higher cost of housing is simply that buyers want more house. I know my personal house is nearly double the size of house I grew up with, despite only having 3 kids vs my parents 2.

This doesn’t necessarily follow - it may be that the average potential buyer wants the same amount of house as before, but due to supply issues the lower end of potential buyers can’t afford to buy anything at all. And size doesn’t scale linearly with price - it’s usually sublinear. So it could be that the only homes that get built/sold are larger because nobody is building homes for middle-lower income price ranges.

I can't find it at the moment, but in the last year or so there was a really informative "why aren't developers building more affordable housing" article on (I believe) NPR.

There were lots of factors, but basically it comes down to the fact that it's significantly more profitable for builders to build bigger, more expensive houses than smaller, more affordable houses.

AKA, a builder will make much more profit on a single $750K house, than building 3x $250k houses.

So I'm sure the reason houses are getting bigger is some combination of consumers wanting bigger houses, and bigger houses being what's available.

So wants have increasingly overtaken needs. I agree with one 750K house will be more profitable but it won't be that simple because once demand is aggregated selling 50 3x priced homes would quite a bit more difficult then selling 150 1x priced homes. Just an example in my area I see townhomes selling much faster than single family homes. So much that there is premium on town homes.

> significantly more profitable for builders to build bigger, more expensive houses

This is also the reason why car buying also sucks so much now. There is more profit it bigger higher trim cars full of features than smaller reliable basic cars.

Some of this is also fuel economy regulation. You can't make an F150 the size they were in 1992 without onerous fees because of the gas mileage the engine will get (while still being able to meet the needs of anyone who wants a truck, such as towing capacity). The regulations are written so that larger vehicles are permitted to have lower gas mileage. As a result, we see the ever growing trucks and SUV's on the road when people would kill for small trucks that companies just will not make anymore.

Same thing happened with trucks and the auto market in general as well, There is more profit margins in bigger stuff so thats what companies focus on making and stop making the low end rendering everything unafforadable. Also the cheap base models went from majority to mostly nonexistant.

Buyers want more house? Or builders want richer buyers?

Starter homes generally just don't get built, as it generally costs more per square foot to build a start home than a larger home (as some of the features are going to mostly cost the same regardless of the floor plan, such as some of the kitchen outfitting). The reduced supply moreover makes it so smaller houses don't even end up costing much less, because there's enough demand for them from people who not only don't need the space, but would prefer not paying the utility bills and dealing with the maintenance.

> that buyers want more house

Is it that buyers are wanting more house or that builders make more profit selling more house due to red tape and zoning?

At least by me, 100% buyers wanting more space.

Each kid gets their own bedroom. A home office. Maybe a movie room.

Compare that to the 1950s boomer house, that has 2 kids in 1 bedroom, and no "extra" rooms.

> At least by me, 100% buyers wanting more space.

Perhaps you have them all.

Everywhere else, buyers can only buy what exists. Affordable home buyers buy nothing because there is nothing within reach.

The notion that people would choose detrimental living because they couldn't get a house that was 3x their need seems absurd.

The more likely cause is the reality that new houses cost more than double what they were in the 1980s - adjusting for inflation and comparing for size, amenities and market.

> Each kid gets their own bedroom. A home office. Maybe a movie room.

With dropping fertility rates I'm sure there are plenty of people with 1 or even no kids that don't need those rooms. Home office will be entirely domain dependent (I don't see e.g. a couple of dentists needing or wanting a home office).

So the fact that the default house is pretty massive means that all sorts of people are priced out entirely.

Anecdata; my dad is a dentist I've been in 20 or 30 dentists' homes for parties and such, they all have home offices which are glorified library / trophy rooms.

> buyers want more house

Builders want more house. Buyers can't buy what isn't built.

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