Interesting insight that the conspiracy thinking is a result of not having had to hunt for housing in a while.
When I think of the people in my city who buy this whole conspiracy bit, most of them are longtime homeowners. But some are even relatively recent -- in the past 2 decades, perhaps, but before the latest price spike -- and they're all the more paranoid precisely because they had to work decades before that just to afford a home around here. They're paranoid about being forced out of one of their capstone achievements!
But yeah, none of them have had to deal with a real estate agent telling them it's no longer the norm to inspect the damned house. None of them have had to deal with a $100k+ bidding war, or the rug-pull of another buyer coming in with an offer they can't compete with. None of them have had to watch, like we just did, an apartment we loved but knew there were issues with go for 100% of what our old landlord was asking.
They don't really get how bad it's gotten. They see the insane rents and just think, "Good. Go somewhere else!".
Yeah, I honestly don’t wanna hear it from anyone who hasn’t tried to buy a home in the last four years. Whew. My parents often comment on how ballooned the prices are becoming in their neighborhood of over 20 years…. and it was just painful explaining how wild our buying experience was a couple years ago.
Living in Chicago, I often hear comments along the lines of "why do we need more housing when the population is shrinking?" While the overall population of Chicago has been mostly stagnant or declining over the past several decades, many parts of the city have gained population, especially the areas in or adjacent to downtown.
The parts that are loosing population tend to have issues that make them unattractive to people looking for a new place to live. Specifically, they generally have old housing that is in poor repair, few local amenities such as grocery stores and restaurants, worse schools than the more desirable neighborhoods , relatively high rates of violent crime, and are often in areas with mediocre public transit. On top of that, if you want to buy a house in such a neighborhood, you are going to struggle to get a loan that will cover both the purchase price and the repairs that it most likely needs.
I know I've posted this here before, but I keep trying to get the term "housing pluralism" to stick: just like any other form of pluralism, it's hard to get into the mindset of supporting stuff that you yourself don't like, but which you know other people want to exist. But it's an important part of society and that mindset is often crucial to enabling positive sum outcomes in place of zero or negative sum ones.
I used to go hiking with a group whose membership was drawn primarily from outer suburbs. If our hikes took us to a vantage point with a view of the distant city skyline, there would inevitably be disparaging remarks about urban life. I tried to make the argument that having a vibrant city made development less likely to threaten the wilderness areas where our hikes took us, but I'm not sure if any of the exurbanites really got the message.
Interesting insight that the conspiracy thinking is a result of not having had to hunt for housing in a while.
When I think of the people in my city who buy this whole conspiracy bit, most of them are longtime homeowners. But some are even relatively recent -- in the past 2 decades, perhaps, but before the latest price spike -- and they're all the more paranoid precisely because they had to work decades before that just to afford a home around here. They're paranoid about being forced out of one of their capstone achievements!
But yeah, none of them have had to deal with a real estate agent telling them it's no longer the norm to inspect the damned house. None of them have had to deal with a $100k+ bidding war, or the rug-pull of another buyer coming in with an offer they can't compete with. None of them have had to watch, like we just did, an apartment we loved but knew there were issues with go for 100% of what our old landlord was asking.
They don't really get how bad it's gotten. They see the insane rents and just think, "Good. Go somewhere else!".
Yeah, I honestly don’t wanna hear it from anyone who hasn’t tried to buy a home in the last four years. Whew. My parents often comment on how ballooned the prices are becoming in their neighborhood of over 20 years…. and it was just painful explaining how wild our buying experience was a couple years ago.
Living in Chicago, I often hear comments along the lines of "why do we need more housing when the population is shrinking?" While the overall population of Chicago has been mostly stagnant or declining over the past several decades, many parts of the city have gained population, especially the areas in or adjacent to downtown.
The parts that are loosing population tend to have issues that make them unattractive to people looking for a new place to live. Specifically, they generally have old housing that is in poor repair, few local amenities such as grocery stores and restaurants, worse schools than the more desirable neighborhoods , relatively high rates of violent crime, and are often in areas with mediocre public transit. On top of that, if you want to buy a house in such a neighborhood, you are going to struggle to get a loan that will cover both the purchase price and the repairs that it most likely needs.
I know I've posted this here before, but I keep trying to get the term "housing pluralism" to stick: just like any other form of pluralism, it's hard to get into the mindset of supporting stuff that you yourself don't like, but which you know other people want to exist. But it's an important part of society and that mindset is often crucial to enabling positive sum outcomes in place of zero or negative sum ones.
This is really good. A little long and repetitive, but this is THE story to be told. Thanks for working it through.
I used to go hiking with a group whose membership was drawn primarily from outer suburbs. If our hikes took us to a vantage point with a view of the distant city skyline, there would inevitably be disparaging remarks about urban life. I tried to make the argument that having a vibrant city made development less likely to threaten the wilderness areas where our hikes took us, but I'm not sure if any of the exurbanites really got the message.