I feel that it’s more complex than just the interest rates… That only explains part of the demand.
Then there’s the supply. New housing construction in the US bottomed out after the 2008 recession and has never returned to where it needed to be since. At least here in the PNW we have a major shortage of housing (both affordable housing, and just new home/unit construction in general) that has been more than a decade in the making and is not trivial to overcome. It would likely take a huge investment in new/affordable housing construction incentives to get us anywhere close to where we need to be.
On top of that, immigrants are not a problem, but institutional investors (both foreign and domestic) are. There are many American homes being bought by people and firms merely as investments, which means they wind up expensive and empty. I’ve seen this happen in Vancouver BC, Seattle and Portland, and I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if it’s happening elsewhere. We really need laws and tax benefits that help put regular people in homes that they will actually live in. Homes are one of the few kinds of assets that have really appreciated in value over the last couple of years, and because of that regular people who simply want a place to live or raise a family are being priced out of the market by rent-seekers or investors would would be perfectly happy to leave a house empty.
I feel that it’s more complex than just the interest rates… That only explains part of the demand.
Then there’s the supply. New housing construction in the US bottomed out after the 2008 recession and has never returned to where it needed to be since. At least here in the PNW we have a major shortage of housing (both affordable housing, and just new home/unit construction in general) that has been more than a decade in the making and is not trivial to overcome. It would likely take a huge investment in new/affordable housing construction incentives to get us anywhere close to where we need to be.
On top of that, immigrants are not a problem, but institutional investors (both foreign and domestic) are. There are many American homes being bought by people and firms merely as investments, which means they wind up expensive and empty. I’ve seen this happen in Vancouver BC, Seattle and Portland, and I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if it’s happening elsewhere. We really need laws and tax benefits that help put regular people in homes that they will actually live in. Homes are one of the few kinds of assets that have really appreciated in value over the last couple of years, and because of that regular people who simply want a place to live or raise a family are being priced out of the market by rent-seekers or investors would would be perfectly happy to leave a house empty.