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Man, this housing thing is going to get REALLY ugly

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MrSquished said:
I work real estate in NJ. People are paying plenty of money for 2 and 3BR condos in multi unit buildings specifically so they can have a family there, whether 1 or 2 kids. I'm talking 600K minimum and higher, money that would easily buy them a single family home further west in the burbs, like where I grew up. You are just wrong. Like I said, some people place value just on space, and some people place value on other things that I mentioned.
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You sure they have kids (DINKs) or aren't just wannabe landlords?
 
jpiniero said:
You sure they have kids (DINKs) or aren't just wannabe landlords?
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Uh yeah. Are you this sheltered? I mean literally I have seen many many many homes in multi unit buildings with people with kids in them and have clients with kids looking for condos in multi unit buildings. I got one client right now with a kid looking to upgrade their 2BR condo in a pre-war with dozens of units to a 3BR condo in a multiunit building in the same neighborhood. What's a wanna be landlord gonna do with a 3BR condo in a multi unit building, airbnb a room out to be a landlord? What are you talking about?
 
jpiniero said:
Uh, rent it out to childless roommates?
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I mean maybe. I haven't really encountered anyone that spends 1/2 a million or 3/4 a million dollars or more on a condo to rent a room out to roommates. It's amazing you think that is more likely the case than that they actually have a partner and a kid. Where do you live?

People that do roommate situations in cities tend to rent from landlords, and then find roommates to share a lease with. It's not that they drop 750K on a condo then find roommates. Nobody really wants roomates they don't know. They'd just buy a 1BR condo for 400K so they could just afford their mortgage on their own, or whatever the price is.
 
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ideally i'd like to live in a place where everyone has to have 5 or 10 acres minimum

there are a few neighborhoods like that withing 30 minutes of here and they're VERY nice

when i grew up, most everyone in my township had a few hundred acres and you were a half mile away from the next door neighbor

it was glorious
 
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brianmanahan said:
ideally i'd like to live in a place where everyone has to have 5 or 10 acres minimum

there are a few neighborhoods like that withing 30 minutes of here and they're VERY nice

when i grew up, most everyone in my township had a few hundred acres and you were a half mile away from the next door neighbor

it was glorious
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I'm just curious but what would you do with 5 or 10 acres? I mean I get the ideal behind it and why people like the idea of owning land but what would you do with it? Just look at it and enjoy it? Don't get me wrong if that's a reason I get it but when people say "I want to own acreage" it makes me wonder why.
 
MrSquished said:
I mean maybe. I haven't really encountered anyone that spends 1/2 a million or 3/4 a million dollars or more on a condo to rent a room out to roommates.
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Oh it'd be the entire unit rented out. Isn't that where NYC's population boom is coming from - childless roommates, DINKs, imported foreign workers who probably don't have kids... And NYC is great for that. You're spending most of your life in an office, living as close as possible and not having to deal with driving would make life easier.

Where do you live?
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I do live in a condo complex. It's like 50-50 owned and rented out.
 
brianmanahan said:
ideally i'd like to live in a place where everyone has to have 5 or 10 acres minimum

there are a few neighborhoods like that withing 30 minutes of here and they're VERY nice

when i grew up, most everyone in my township had a few hundred acres and you were a half mile away from the next door neighbor

it was glorious
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Waste of space. You stay in the basement anyway, that acreage is doing nothing for you other than more work maintaining it.
 
dasherHampton said:
The problems are real (and serious), but then you have drivel like this trying to foment outrage over the fact that a single minimum wage earner can't afford to buy a house with 30% of their income:

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Just wondering why you chose to focus on home ownership and ignored the other group mentioned…renters, you know, that group that was mentioned specifically in the title?
 
We have a couple acres and a small house. Keeping my property up gives me a sense of purpose, as well as a form of exercise as a disabled person. Through my life as a masonry builder, we saved, and made sacrifices in order to afford a small piece of tranquility and space in retirement. The property also gives my kids the choice to live the choice we made if they choose, or cash out the constant appreciation of Real Property. I also don't need to deal with neighbor indiscretions.

I see the housing problems outside of, and now Covid, problems of inflation and gouging respectively.
 
bbhaag said:
I'm just curious but what would you do with 5 or 10 acres? I mean I get the ideal behind it and why people like the idea of owning land but what would you do with it? Just look at it and enjoy it? Don't get me wrong if that's a reason I get it but when people say "I want to own acreage" it makes me wonder why.
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i'd like to have most of it be field and woods, maybe a pond in there too. lawn would probably only be an acre or two tops. just deep enough to get me away from the road.

i grew up surrounded by corn or soybeans all summer so i love that. i don't have the stuff to plant but i have some friends that would rent 5 acres.

and woods would be great for making a nice long path through and cutting firewood, provided the drainage was good so it wasn't mosquito heaven.
 
10 years ago i almost bought a house and 80 acres for 300$-some thousand dollars... i should have done it!

300$k seemed like a lot of money back then. i never stopped to think that when i'm saving %50+ of my income for 10 years, 300$k would be nothing in a decade.
 
brianmanahan said:
10 years ago i almost bought a house and 80 acres for 300$-some thousand dollars... i should have done it!

300$k seemed like a lot of money back then. i never stopped to think that when i'm saving %50+ of my income for 10 years, 300$k would be nothing in a decade.
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The reward for holding SFH detached is precisely the appreciation, especially after the crash. Now, there’s maintenance all over, like septic, well, evil neighbors, but if you can handle it....

Hillbillystan land can be quite valuable if you can afford the commute. 300k for 80 acres doesn’t even exist in my area, even the far out countryside.
 
jpiniero said:
Oh it'd be the entire unit rented out. Isn't that where NYC's population boom is coming from - childless roommates, DINKs, imported foreign workers who probably don't have kids... And NYC is great for that. You're spending most of your life in an office, living as close as possible and not having to deal with driving would make life easier.



I do live in a condo complex. It's like 50-50 owned and rented out.
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NYC has primarily Co-Ops, not condos. About 75% of NYC real estate are Co-Ops. I think it's a unique city in that regard in the US. They are a bit of a different animal than Condos. You don't actually own your unit, you own a share of the building. There are usually stricter rules in many Co-Ops for renting, but some do operate similarly to condo buildings. But yes, as you say, of course people do buy condos and co-ops as investment properties and rent them out. I don't deny that whatsoever, what I'm trying to tell you is that people that can afford to buy them to live in themselves, they do so and they don't rent out the extra bedrooms, they have families in them. I do follow some NYC real estate groups online because NYC real estate has a causational effect on most of the market I work in Jersey.

Also mortgages do change when a condo or co-op building is less than 50% occupied by owners. If you owned a condo in a 4 unit building, and now three of the owners are renting their units out, it will be harder to sell as fewer lenders will give that loan as the building is 75% renters. I'm in that situation now. I'm in a 3 unit building. When I moved here it was three of us as owners. One girl moved in with her BF and rented her unit out. The other unit sold their condo and an investor bought it and rented that out. So now my building is 2/3 renters. A buyer will have a harder time getting a loan to buy my unit. So some buildings will keep their owner living in them ratio above 50% in the association rules.

The markets I work are much of the coast of NJ that borders the Hudson, from Jersey City in the south to Edgewater in the North. And while there are single family homes, these are areas where there are tons of multi-unit buildings, from 2 unit to 80 unit condo buildings. I can tell you that most of the nicer 2 and 3BR condos are not bought by investors. They are bought by couples with kids or who are planning to have kids. These condos are as much or more than a nice single family home would be if you went a bit further west into more traditional suburbs with almost all SFH. Without a doubt, as you've said, people live in multi-unit buildings because they can't afford a single family home where they want, I agree, but you keep saying that's everybody - but there are plenty of people who can afford SFH in the burbs, but choose to live in more dense areas, for amenities like culture, food, arts, diversity, walkability, etc.. This is not just from my small experience but from all my colleague's experiences.

We talk about our clients and the market. There is no invasion of investors buying these new 3BR condos to rent them out. It's couples with kids. Many come from NYC. Many are from around here and want to upgrade their 1BR or 2BR to something bigger as they are now married and gonna pop out a baby or two. 600K or more will get you a single family if you went further west. They choose to buy in a multi unit condo building because they want to be nearer to the city and nearer to those amenities. Some will move to the burbs as their kids grow, some will not. It really varies.

I can tell you, on a personal anecdotal level as well, as 3BR condos have been developed near me, one thing I have seen more in the neighborhood is couples with little kids or strollers.
 
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MrSquished said:
Being against public transport, just another symptom.
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I haven't taken public transit in decades, then only because I was in another city without a car.

I won't take public transit here. The transit authority shares the same radio system with other city agencies, including police, fire, streets, sanitation, etc. Each is on their own set of channels, so they only hear their own department. However, an 800MHz trunking scanner picks all of these groups up. While listening to police and fire, we also hear transit.

Stuff that makes me want to get on the bus, where the driver radios in that someone just took a piss or shit in the back, someone threw up, need the police because a rider is threatening others, they refuse to wear a mask and won't get off... etc., etc.
 
MrSquished said:
Also mortgages do change when a condo or co-op building is less than 50% occupied by owners. If you owned a condo in a 4 unit building, and now three of the owners are renting their units out, it will be harder to sell as fewer lenders will give that loan as the building is 75% renters. I'm in that situation now. I'm in a 3 unit building. When I moved here it was three of us as owners. One girl moved in with her BF and rented her unit out. The other unit sold their condo and an investor bought it and rented that out. So now my building is 2/3 renters. A buyer will have a harder time getting a loan to buy my unit. So some buildings will keep their owner living in them ratio above 50% in the association rules.
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This is true that it is harder but I think in practice it means you are forced to put 20% down and your DTI can't be crazy but not much more than that.
 
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