[seanmcdirmid]

Any high COL will have expensive trades people. Maybe when demand quiets down or more people start chasing money in the trades will prices come down, but it is $800K ATM because that's what it takes to get on the list.

I was quoted $150K for a full kitchen renovation in Seattle. Ugh.

[red-iron-pine]

That's what prices in the US should have been like, but housing and food was kept artificially low for decades due to use of migrant labor. The US market could stomach stagnating wages because illegals did all of the work for at or below minimum wage.

Now there is a shortage of trades and COVID + "build the wall" anti-immigration pushes meant there are no migrants, so you're paying regular price for 1st world labor.

[seanmcdirmid]

> but housing and food was kept artificially low for decades due to use of migrant labor.

Food maybe, but housing? It has been rising since the last huge housing bust in the 90s, with only a blip downturn after 2008. Migrant labor is great because they want to do those jobs at all, and it isn't really about wages, poorer Americans just seem to be content to complain about immigrants while watching FoxNews with no ambition to do those jobs, richer Americans are the ones employing those migrants in the construction and agriculture (as well as Trump-style hospitality) industries while at the same time using illegal immigration as a wedge issue.