nein51 said:
whiterock said:
nein51 said:
whiterock said:
nein51 said:
Some of you are really convinced that undocumented migrants, making $8/hr are buying homes.
Which sort of flies in the face of "houses are too expensive so gen whatever can't afford them".
In 2023 there were around 5,000 underwritten ITIN loans (that's is loans to people with no SSN).
The upward pressure argument makes sense if you mean rent for apartments and crap hole homes in terrible parts of down should go downβ¦because that's where people that make $8/hr live.
don't let yourself be convinced that all illegals are making $8/hr. Once they gain some skill in the trades, the rate gets more competitive than that. Think $12-15/hr.
the upward pressure from illegal immigration is a known dynamic in real estate markets. Sure, 20m illegals do not create immediate demand for 20m homes. But it does have effect. we do not have 20m new housing starts a year. And yes, the impact is felt first in rental and low-income housing, by first-time homebuyers, the working class, etc....downward pressure on wages, upward pressure on housing prices. The wealthy typically profit from the dynamic. which fits Rob Henderson's "luxury beliefs" model = they tend to not mind illegal immigration at all because they benefit from it (lower labor costs, more equity in real estate) without having to bear the costs of it.
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Tell you what let's say the average illegal makes $20/hr (they don't) this is about a 50 page thread about how millennials can't afford to buy homes because they don't make enough relative to the cost of housing.
You're going to have to work hard to convince me someone making $40,000 a year is buying up all the homes. I could be convinced but it's going to take a whole lot of logical argument.
You're making the same error that cowboy is. The problem is not that illegal aliens are buying the average $300k starter home in central Tx. The problem is that they are occupying dwellings.
There are only so many bedrooms in the country at any given time. When you create demand for those bedrooms that consistently exceeds supply, prices for those bedrooms will rise, even for rentals. When prices of rented bedrooms rise, it incentivizes renters to buy. Buying existing is cheaper per sq ft than buying new (so easier to qualify for). Every time someone buys an existing home, there is a seller who also needs a place to live, and typically had some equity from the sale to put down on a larger home. And of course when they do buy that larger home, there is now another seller who also needs a place to live (and on and on and on).
That dynamic may vary in intensity & complexion from place to place, but its all a response to basic macroeconomics. When illegal immigration causes population growth to accelerate faster than new home starts........REAL ESTATE PRICES WILL RISE.
(and, of course, the fed will try to choke off that cycle with higher interest rates........)
No I get what you're saying illegals take the space that poor people take, then poor people take the space the lower middle class take, then the lower middle class takes the space the middle class takes and so on
I'm saying I don't buy that argument as the demand for space at the poor people level doesn't shift upward because they can't afford for it to shift upward.
It is possible that illegals drive the price of low end housing up and it's absolutely true they are a strain on services but they are not the reason millennials can't buy homes imo.
That is not to say I'm pro illegal immigration because I'm definitely definitively not.
The "trading up" dynamic is a known thing....
https://shelterforce.org/2017/11/02/time-for-trickle-up-housing/Basically, the market segments have soft edges. A shortage on the lower end, pressures a larger percentage of buyers to buy on the upper end of their own affordability. Since the segments have soft edges, or overlap, the ripples flow easily....in an upward direction where supply is tight, and in the opposite direction where supply is low (although there is more resistance to downward dynamics due to negative wealth effects). The forces tend to abate the further they get from origin, but they're still there, contributing with other factors to put upward pressure on pricing. And of course, wherever on the spectrum the shortages & price increases are happening, it all gets picked up in "average cost" type datasets.
Within that, of course not all factors bear equally within those segments. As a rule, the middle of the market tends to get squeezed harder. For the top end, new starts are sensitive to interest rates, but otherwise housing prices tend to be largely a wealth effect......they have all the house they need, exactly what they like & where, so increasing prices just increase equity with just pads the balance sheet. On the other end, the inverse is true....most there have no real wealth. Housing is a monthly expense. At some point, increases in rents make purchasing look more attractive. Down payments & credit history are limiting factors, but there are govt programs to assist (sometimes to many of them, as we saw in the sub-prime crisis). In between are young families (needing larger houses to fit growing families) and working classes (who tend to move around in response to job opportunities).
That's all microeconomic stuff. At the macro level, pressures anywhere on the scale tend to ripple out. No, a shortage of rental housing is not going to cause corresponding movements in prices on the other end of the scale. But the adjacent segments are going to get pinched. And the response of those adjacent segments will pinch the next segment. a newer factor in all of that: institutional investment in single family homes as income property. That of course competes directly with home buyers to increase demand and provide more upward pressure on prices. (for now, let's not talk about how trade deficit-driven surplus dollars affect that......)
tacos & toilet paper. Every time someone crosses the border, demand for those things goes up. They have to sleep somewhere, sometimes even in hotels at govt expense (which does tend to drive up prices for motel rooms). and on and on and on. Population growth is the most powerful stimulus available. It's why we've seen so much of it.
