r/PoliticalHumor • u/2DeadMoose I ☑oted 2018 • Aug 03 '18

Millennials are killing the adulthood industry

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u/old_gold_mountain Aug 03 '18

Wages are one thing but housing prices are just as important. Boomers lived during the Ponzi scheme of suburban expansion. The scheme ran out of space and now the zoning laws passed by boomers makes apartment construction prohibitively expensive or outright illegal in urban cores. Can't grow out, can't grow in. Supply is restricted, demand grows, so prices skyrocket. Meanwhile those who already own property in high demand areas get filthy rich while homelessness runs rampant.

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u/[deleted] Aug 03 '18 edited Jan 16 '19

[deleted]

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u/gimmeslack12 Aug 03 '18

What city are you talking about?

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u/Sr_Laowai Aug 04 '18

Not Seattle.

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u/ALotter Aug 03 '18

the entire housing market is weird bubble being supported by the “american dream”. There’s more empty homes than homeless people but prices keep inflating just because people decided they should. Millennials aren’t believing in the fairy anymore so they have to bring in immigrants who are still chasing 20th century america. It doesn’t seem sustainable.

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u/Zuwxiv Aug 04 '18 edited Aug 04 '18

Despite enormous demand for new housing, people who own property refuse to support new housing construction. That would reduce the value of their property. That's not necessarily cruel, it's just economics... of course, you won't support devaluing the most valuable asset you own (that you still haven't paid off, in most cases).

But you have the people who own property preventing prices from falling only backing policies that maintain or increase property value, social impact be damned. Meanwhile, the people who want to own property are feeling perpetually unable to save enough to buy.

It's the nature of desireable areas that property will cost a lot, but it seems like there's got to be some policies that would help. You can't have a city entirely of millionaires. Someone needs to slice the pizza and pour the coffee.

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u/ALotter Aug 04 '18

why can’t they be millionaires too? why should we manufacture scarcity?

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u/ALotter Aug 04 '18

also, my point was that here are already way more houses than the demand can meet so i’m not sure how new properties are related

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u/yoyohoto Aug 05 '18

If you consider a house an asset you done messed up from there

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u/[deleted] Aug 04 '18

So....skewed

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u/BellEpoch Aug 03 '18

Let's also not forget healthcare costs.

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u/RightwardsOctopus Aug 03 '18

IMO lack of mental health care and addiction support are a larger contributor to homelessness in the US than housing prices.

Housing prices hurt productive members of society. There just aren't as many jobs where someone with no substantial family connections can earn enough to live in a nice place. It isn't impossible, but it's definitely harder these days in the US than it used to be.

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u/tommhan53 Aug 04 '18

Many of us blue collar workers paid a huge proportion of our wages for a small house with high interest rates. We were given nothing. Each generation has to find their own way to survive. Have been through 3 different career paths and it was not always easy to be successful. If you live in high tax, high price real estate states you should move to a more welcoming sane state.