462
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2023
462 points (96.8% liked)
Ask Lemmy
27008 readers
801 users here now
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
We're starting to see prices decrease right now, since high interest rates are holding. The big analytics firms think we will see a return to affordable housing in 2024 as long as the fed continues to raise interest rates. The reality for larger cities is that prices will most likely stabilize and possibly decrease slightly, but never return to reasonable. Lots of people are in 2% mortgages right now on homes with inflated values. Those people are never moving unless life forces them to. So while rising interest should decrease housing affordability and force prices back down, inventory will remain low, keeping prices pretty stable. Areas with abundant inventory should see a return to normalcy, but for big popular cities, this is probably the new normal. Unfortunately nobody has a crystal ball, and we can't be sure of anything. But this is what the experts think.
The point is that those price declines would benefit only the wealthy who had the money in cash, but regular people are not having so much savings and for them even those "lower" prices are actually higher when considering the interest they will pay to the banks.
If you can eat the higher mortgage payment until the interest comes back down, and then you refinance, you'll actually come out ahead of people who bought at high prices when interest was low. You can always refinance. You can't re-negotiate what you paid for your house.
I have heard people say this, but why are we assuming the interest rates will come back down?
Because of their historical averages. They could stay high forever, but they probably won't.
Historical average home prices were lower too though. Why is this different?
That isn't really holding up this year. Interest rates are correlated with price increases. Prices corrected after the initial increase but have since continued to increase. While the cost to borrow has gone up, the reason for increased interest rates will always drive up prices. The federal reserve will raise interest rates if inflation is high (driving up nominal prices) or if employment is too high (increasing demand). Home prices will decrease if there is a recession but then the fed will lower rates to fight unemployment (assuming inflation isn't an issue).
In the US home prices are only down 0.5% year over year. In my high cost of living area (SF Bay area), prices are down 10% but climbing every month. At the current rate of home price growth, the Bay area will be back at all time highs this winter/spring.
https://ycharts.com/indicators/case_shiller_home_price_index_national#:~:text=Case%2DShiller%20Home%20Price%20Index%3A%20National%20is%20at%20a%20current,0.50%25%20from%20one%20year%20ago.