[bkjelden]

One major problem I see with comparing housing prices to income is that most homebuyers in the US are using leverage (a mortgage) to buy their home, and the last 15 years or so have seen comparatively low mortgage rates compared to the several decades beforehand.

Housing prices have been able to balloon because debt has been very, very cheap. Whether or not that will continue remains to be seen.

[bradleyjg]

A majority of consistent voters own homes and want house prices to increase. That means most politicians want house prices to increase. The government dominates all aspects of residential lending.

What’s the smart bet on what will happen?

[nitrogen]

This comes up a lot. But it's wrong, or at least incomplete. People who want to live in their house don't want the value of that house to go up, because then their taxes go up.

[mattnewton]

There are laws like California's prop 13 which allow some demographics of consistent voters and home buyers to have their cake and eat it too by insulating them from property tax increases as their home value increases.

[acchow]

> People who want to live in their house don't want the value of that house to go up, because then their taxes go up.

That's the real reason California has Prop 13

[brnaftr361]

How many people in this day have actually decided "Hey, I want to be in this one house for the rest of my life."; moreover how many are actually presented with that option? I live in a boom town so I can't really say one way or another, but it strikes me that very few people born of recent generations have the impetus or place enough faith in the systems they're reliant on to yield the security necessary for that sort of commitment - and it's not a new development, and it's not necessarily specific to my locale, but is rather a shift in principals of business and government.

So while I understand your argument I'm reticent to accept it on the basis of the concerns mentioned above. Settling down permanently is not the same proposition it was fifty years ago. My grandma grew up in Denver, the rapidity that it grew with was apparently astounding and that growth drastically altered the culture and the landscape, what were once dirt roads are now median-divided 3-lanes with cookie cut houses lining them as far as the eye can see. If you can imagine not wanting to live there with the rapidly accelerating growth and the headaches that come with it, you're not alone.

There are also economic concerns, which can be highly unpredictable, and these are considerations I'm sensitive to. I've watched commodity fluxuations result in massive layoffs time and time again. When given the requisite information to make a decision on whether or not to sell, it's plain to see that it's a benefit to have pricing steadily increasing, whether it's to avoid the wave of sells when an industry reels back or shutters, or when one is intent on moving to greener pastures, or at least a better home in a more agreeable neighborhood.

I'd pay taxes which, given the parent statements terms, would roughly equivocate them with asset price insurance before I stuck my neck out to get burned or blown up.

[bombcar]

Most people who own are moderately content for their house to stay somewhat stable in price.

They definitely don't want it to go down, especially below the loan amount; but tools like Zillow make it way too easy to book "paper profits".

If you bought for $100k and later noticed Zillow say your house as $250k, and now it's saying $200k you can feel like you lost out even though you're still "up" - something that was more difficult before as you'd have to try to compare similar homes for sale.

[fortran77]

Exactly right. I would be much happier if the prices of the houses and properties around me didn't go up so much out of proportion to everything else.

[HWR_14]

> A majority of consistent voters own homes and want house prices to increase.

Are there actually data that say that? I'd only expect data to exist on the first half, but there may also be data (as opposed to a fairly good supposition) from the second.

[jrumbut]

If we ignore the word majority (since that will vary by jurisdiction I'm sure) and say that homeowners are more likely to vote and pay particular attention to issues that affect their home's price then this recent paper does provide some support: https://www.andrewbenjaminhall.com/homeowner.pdf

I'll say from personal experience, it does change your perspective. If a sewage treatment plant moves in next door, I can't move like a renter can. It's a feeling of real vulnerability that I didn't fully understand until I felt it.

[HWR_14]

Thanks for the paper.

I understand the NIMBY-ism. I do wonder how much people care about the value of their house going up if they don't plan to sell soon. There are advantages to your home being less valuable and the only disadvantages come if you want to leverage your home more, refinance (not likely with rates going up) or sell it.

[jrumbut]

If they didn't care except when they were selling, that makes the effect of them being more consistent voters on zoning issues hard to explain.

I think this idea of wanting your house price to be low to avoid property taxes then suddenly increase the value when it's time to sell is like the idea of having your employer pay a trust so you can collect food stamps 11 months of the year then the trust pays you all your money in December.

It might be possible and it wouldn't shock me if a few people do it but it's not the normal approach.

[HWR_14]

> the effect of them being more consistent voters on zoning issues hard to explain.

No one wants to live next to a dump. That's why it affects property values. Because it also effects living conditions.

Meanwhile, a lot of people never plan to sell their home. Yes, if you plan on moving soon, you care about property values going up. If your horizon is 10 years, 20 years, or your kids selling the place? Less so.

[rrrrrrrrrrrryan]

As rates rise to more normal historical levels, and purchasing power diminishes, who will people sell their homes to? Prices will eventually have to come down.

This is the argument that homes are currently overvalued.

[ipaddr]

Companies will. We are in a new era.

[helge9210]

> Prices will eventually have to come down.

Or, as an alternative, market is going to freeze.

[fny]

This is the exact same phenomenon as with the stock market. Yields progressively moving towards zero means more and more leverage driving PE ratios and prices to extremes.

Given that we've rediscovered fiscal stimulus and inflation as a result, I have a feeling that era is dead. You can't have low rates in an inflationary environment.

[dunk010]

Yup, buried half way down the page this is the simple answer. Cheap money means people can and do borrow more.

[autokad]

Yes, and interest rates have gone up, thus all those homes are now over valued (if price of debt is your metric)