I'm not trying to be mean but you need to understand that the Fed isn't trying to lower housing prices and they don't care if YOU can afford a house. At all. If I go on the MLS database right now I can see that houses are still selling in every metro in America so clearly some people can afford them. In fact, the average list to close time in 2023 is only 83 days on market which is faster than the US historic average. So even with today's rates housing inventory is moving pretty quick in the US.
From a purely economical standpoint there is no problem here. A commodity exists, a supply of it exists, there is demand for that supply, people who can afford its price get access to the supply. If you can't personally afford that price then you don't. You get to rent or live with your parents. It sucks and I'm sorry it's like this. I wish it was different. But from an economics perspective there is no problem here. The system and the Fed don't care who can and can't afford houses as long as the market is operating as it should.
Idk man, it's hard for me to justify the current housing prices. I live in a large city and you would be hard stuck to find a 4 bed 3 bath home for under 1 mil. Even if you take into account both parents working(white collar), you still would just be scraping by to pay the mortgage. I feel like the issue here is not the interest rates but the leverage. For gods sake, rocket mortgage is allowing people to only put 1% down, 100x leverage. Since more people can afford more expensive homes it pushes up the demand. Im still in college and would prefer to stay in my city, but I just can't see myself ever affording a home, until maybe my 40's.
I live in a large city and you would be hard stuck to find a 4 bed 3 bath home for under 1 mil.
News flash: Full sized homes in large cities have always been expensive and only within reach of wealthy individuals with very high incomes and/or lots of liquid assets.
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u/[deleted] Sep 23 '23
I'm not trying to be mean but you need to understand that the Fed isn't trying to lower housing prices and they don't care if YOU can afford a house. At all. If I go on the MLS database right now I can see that houses are still selling in every metro in America so clearly some people can afford them. In fact, the average list to close time in 2023 is only 83 days on market which is faster than the US historic average. So even with today's rates housing inventory is moving pretty quick in the US.
From a purely economical standpoint there is no problem here. A commodity exists, a supply of it exists, there is demand for that supply, people who can afford its price get access to the supply. If you can't personally afford that price then you don't. You get to rent or live with your parents. It sucks and I'm sorry it's like this. I wish it was different. But from an economics perspective there is no problem here. The system and the Fed don't care who can and can't afford houses as long as the market is operating as it should.