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by eachro 867 days ago
Can this actually be observed from data though?
2 comments

Demographic dips are not very frequent in modern history, and on longer timescales we rarely have normalized housing affordability data.

But we have those for Paris since 1200.

The great plague -> population reduction of about 30% in the area, housing market quickly divided by four.

Then the first and second world wars, the demographic dip was not as harsh, but many young men lost their lives during the first war, and the morale was not good, also the 30s economic crisis, overall the housing market was divided by 15. Unprecedented for the whole Paris housing market recorded history.

It was followed by the well known baby boom. Housing was historically dirt cheap. It took about 50 years to reach the levels seen before the wars.

The relationship between housing market and fertility has also been studied in some countries, such as Italy.

And you can see a very flat housing market in Tokyo and dirt cheap houses on the countryside of Japan, simply because there is no one to occupy them.