[alx__]

I'm sure there probably research on it.

But my guess is that we're in a womb of water for 9 months so subconsciously are soothed by it. Personal anecdotal evidence is any time I've slept where i could hear ocean/rain/rivers I've had great sleep.

Would 100% move to Hawaii in the future

[brezelgoring]

>Would 100% move to Hawaii in the future

I wish you best of luck in chasing your dream but I feel compelled to tell you that the word is that in non-tourist areas there is some pretty heavy racism going on against non-islanders. It is based on them (you) driving up property prices and basic goods availability.

Maybe you already knew but still.

[deathanatos]

> It is based on them (you) driving up property prices and basic goods availability.

Sounds like where I am now. Near as I can tell, nobody wants my generation to settle anywhere, because we "drive up" property prices. Like we want to pay $1M for a home, or had any hand in the local zoning idiocracy.

[stavros]

You don't want to, but you do. That's the problem.

[saghm]

The problem is people having the audacity to want to choose where they live and buy a house there? It was reasonable to do that if you were born more than 35 years ago, but if not, you're just out of luck?

[stavros]

No, that's perfectly sensible. Unless you were born in a poor area, I guess, in which case fuck you, you don't get to choose where to live OR buy a house there because all the rich people from out of town are driving you out of your own city.

But that's fine, poor people shouldn't be alive anyway.

[blitzar]

I was born and raised in a rich area.

It is unfair that I can not get a 12 bedroom detached house on the upper west side of New York, where I was born and raised for $50,000. I demand someone gives it to me.

[jklein11]

> But that's fine, poor people shouldn't be alive anyway.

I am glad that you are finally speaking sensibly. /s

[deathanatos]

At some point, there simply isn't going to be much choice; I have a job that now requires space for a home office, and at some point, a family will require space, and it can only be delayed so long. Rent goes up year after year without so much as skipping a beat for the pandemic, and so it might, in some ways, be nice to put that into equity — even equity that might crash — rather than just continuing to enrich my local landlords.

[stavros]

There isn't choice? That makes it sound like you're forced to spend 1M on a home. There are people with families and space requirement who don't even have 10k, let alone 1M. What choice do they have?

The issue isn't that rich people buy homes in rich areas, it's that they buy homes in poor areas and poor people can no longer afford to.

[mvc]

There really isn't a choice. Nobody pays more than they have to, to secure a house purchase. If the price paid is 1M, that's because that's the price the seller wanted. They'd have demanded that price whoever bought it. And if the price is 1M in whatever town we're gentrifying, then a similar house in SF would be considerably more (and thus not affordable).

I get the frustration with gentrification. But what's the alternative? Everyone must live and die in the town/city in which they were born? What's more, if nobody is coming to your town to live/work, it just slowly declines as the population ages out of work. Visit some of the old mining towns in the UK to see what that's like.

At least if you have a steady stream of incoming "rich people", then the entrepreneurial folk in the town have a chance at extracting some of that wealth.

[blitzar]

> That makes it sound like you're forced to spend 1M on a home

No they are 'forced' to buy a home.

The home that fulfills their needs is 1M. If they could find a home that fulfilled their needs for $5 and 10c they would spend $5.10 on their home.

The 'poor' person who sold their house to them in the poor area for $1mil ('where back in my day a house cost nothing') now has $1mil. The 'rich' person has a mortgage.

[jelliclesfarm]

It could also mean that there is an erosion of poverty and more people want to buy property. Only the poverty is visible. The reality is that a larger percentage of the worlds population is more prosperous and richer and consuming/desiring luxury more than any other time of our planet’s existence.

[ironmagma]

Isn’t the issue equally that people (presumably poor people, since it’s poor neighborhoods) are selling their houses to rich buyers? It’s entirely possible to only sell to a poor person for a lower price.

[ironmagma]

Demand is a group phenomenon; anyone who participates in the act of desiring a house drives up the prices. It’s not just the buyers, and certainly not just a particular age group of buyers.

[mvc]

There's two sides to every transaction. Why blame only the buy side?

[alx__]

The folks driving up property prices are the speculators/flippers/airbnb buyers. Nothing wrong with moving into a space if you're going to live there full time.