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Comment by brigadier132 | Hacker News Reader

> Get a better job and start working weekends. A house isn't worth it if you're alive to enjoy it

Literally never seen this argument be made.

> Move to a poor area and gentrify the shit out of it. Everyone will love and appreciate you.

The last thing I think of when choosing a place to live are the societal implications of it. I really don't care if everyone "loves and appreciates me" because of my apartment choice.

> Maybe don't buy a house "yet". Keep paying your ever increasing rent, you'll get there someday

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>> Get a better job and start working weekends. A house isn't worth it if you're alive to enjoy it

>Literally never seen this argument be made.

From TFA:

"Earn more: If you feel like you will be forever priced out of the housing market, start finding ways to earn more. I know this won’t help in the short run, but raising your income is the best thing you can do to improve your financial situation in the long run. If you have both Saturday and Sunday off every single week, then there is no excuse to get started on something that can eventually increase your earnings."

To be fair, the single best thing you can do from a budget perspective is get better pay.

But a big portion of house price appreciation can be tied to single earner households moving to two earners, so eventually "work harder" becomes "pay more".

> The last thing I think of when choosing a place to live are the societal implications of it.

I think this is part of the issue of rising housing costs. People not considering how their decisions impact their wider world. And paradoxically, I suspect many people buy property in cities because (a) others are doing it and (b) the fear of not doing it early enough (the costs are "only going to continue to rise"). Two reasons that are societally driven.

> People not considering how their decisions impact their wider world

This is absurd. You do not hold yourself to this same standard. Even this entire gentrification argument has an implicit bias that because these people were there first they deserve to be there more than others.

If I were to come in and state tautologically "actually gentrification is good". You would not have any real response because your argument is also based on a tautology "gentrification is bad".

Other people have to move out because they can't afford it is bad? Why isn't it an equally valid argument that it's bad that other people can't live there because people are already there?

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