Where can you afford a home on your income?

[Ken]

Perhaps y’all should consider living in a place where housing is affordable, then?

The more expensive places are the ones that are most productive. They are the place with a vastly wider variety of jobs and opportunities. Sure one can find cheap housing in places like rural West Virginia or western Nebraska. Then what? Those places are depopulating for a reason.

In any event, if everyone moves to where there is cheap housing then those places will become expensive. Supply and demand. Then what?

The more productive discussion is to discern what makes certain cities more expensive and then look at ways to address those problems. Especially because they aren't the result of some sort of natural law. They are man-made and the result of choices.

[Bootstrap]

Perhaps y’all should consider living in a place where housing is affordable, then?

Hence the maps ;->

I do think it's interesting to compare.

[Bootstrap]

The more expensive places are the ones that are most productive. They are the place with a vastly wider variety of jobs and opportunities. Sure one can find cheap housing in places like rural West Virginia or western Nebraska. Then what? Those places are depopulating for a reason.

But I think there are places where you can find good paying jobs for lower cost of living.

And some people ... like me ... have jobs that are portable. Fortunately, my house was also paid off long before the prices soared.

[ohio jones]

In any event, if everyone moves to where there is cheap housing then those places will become expensive. Supply and demand. Then what?

"Nobody lives there anymore, it's too crowded."

[Ken]

The more expensive places are the ones that are most productive. They are the place with a vastly wider variety of jobs and opportunities. Sure one can find cheap housing in places like rural West Virginia or western Nebraska. Then what? Those places are depopulating for a reason.

But I think there are places where you can find good paying jobs for lower cost of living.

Yes, there are some, like Houston. It is instructive to examine what they are doing differently. Mostly they are just getting out of the way and let the market build more housing where it is wanted and of the type that is wanted. Unlike say Silicon Valley or Seattle or other cities where it has become prohibitively expensive to live. That was the way things were everywhere in the US before WW2. Cities mostly grew organically and government mostly stayed out of the way.

[temporal1]

In any event, if everyone moves to where there is cheap housing then those places will become expensive. Supply and demand. Then what?

"Nobody lives there anymore, it's too crowded."

people move to where there is work. housing is costly where there is work. “you can’t win.”

- - - - - - -

there have been many U.S. “boom+bust” economies in my lifetime.
over years, in Texas, Las Vegas come to mind. maybe South Dakota? not sure, SD seems to have become stable.
some nice communities, built up, then, gone.

presently, it seems all are “bust,” none offer much hope. even the “toniest” places are troubled.

- - - - - - -

i keep reading about “20% inflation.” Where?
Example: my internet service is now $78/mo. it started at $20/mo. my “old math” isn’t seeing 20%.

[Ken]

In any event, if everyone moves to where there is cheap housing then those places will become expensive. Supply and demand. Then what?

"Nobody lives there anymore, it's too crowded."

Look at what happened to North Dakota during the oil boom. One day houses were cheap and towns were losing population. The next day the place was full of "man camps" because there was housing shortages everywhere. And cheap camping trailers were renting for thousands a month. This is Williston ND in 2015 when rents for a crummy trailer approached Manhattan apartment rent levels

[Josh]

The more expensive places are the ones that are most productive. They are the place with a vastly wider variety of jobs and opportunities. Sure one can find cheap housing in places like rural West Virginia or western Nebraska. Then what? Those places are depopulating for a reason.

But I think there are places where you can find good paying jobs for lower cost of living.

Yes, there are some, like Houston. It is instructive to examine what they are doing differently. Mostly they are just getting out of the way and let the market build more housing where it is wanted and of the type that is wanted. Unlike say Silicon Valley or Seattle or other cities where it has become prohibitively expensive to live. That was the way things were everywhere in the US before WW2. Cities mostly grew organically and government mostly stayed out of the way.

If Houston is such a paragon of good government, why don’t you and your children move there?

[Ken]

But I think there are places where you can find good paying jobs for lower cost of living.

Yes, there are some, like Houston. It is instructive to examine what they are doing differently. Mostly they are just getting out of the way and let the market build more housing where it is wanted and of the type that is wanted. Unlike say Silicon Valley or Seattle or other cities where it has become prohibitively expensive to live. That was the way things were everywhere in the US before WW2. Cities mostly grew organically and government mostly stayed out of the way.

If Houston is such a paragon of good government, why don’t you and your children move there?

I didn't claim it was a paragon of good government. I said that housing is relatively affordable because the government largely stays out of the way compared to in west coast cities that have put up so many barriers to new housing that prices have gone out of sight.

My wife and I lived in Texas for 13 years and we did explore staying and moving to one of the larger cities and checked out Houston, Fort Worth, San Antonio, etc. Neither of us found the Houston climate very compatible although we have friends there who like it and have made lives there. Ultimately we moved back to the Pacific Northwest for family reasons. If we had decided to stay in Texas we would more likely have stayed in Fort Worth or San Antonio both of which I liked fairly well. And both of which also have reasonably affordable housing markets for much the same reason as Houston.

What are your answers to the housing crisis? Do you have any? Other than moving to rural Ohio? Which I promise you is not any sort of answer. Invite 10 million Californians to move to rural Ohio and you'll see what I mean.

[Josh]

I didn't claim it was a paragon of good government. I said that housing is relatively affordable because the government largely stays out of the way compared to in west coast cities that have put up so many barriers to new housing that prices have gone out of sight.

But you just told us earlier:

The more expensive places are the ones that are most productive. They are the place with a vastly wider variety of jobs and opportunities. Sure one can find cheap housing in places like rural West Virginia or western Nebraska. Then what? Those places are depopulating for a reason.

Doesn't this mean Houston is less productive and has a narrower range of jobs and opportunities? (Perhaps Houston has fewer daycares and bank branches, to use a recent definition of "opportunity" from this august forum.)

By your statement above, any place that is "productive" with good jobs, etc. is going to have expensive housing.

What are your answers to the housing crisis? Do you have any? Other than moving to rural Ohio? Which I promise you is not any sort of answer. Invite 10 million Californians to move to rural Ohio and you'll see what I mean.

The answer to the housing crisis is to stop moving millions of people into America, mostly from places where housing is quite affordable and cheap, into America which lacks the housing to hold millions of new arrivals who don't have any money nor the ability, skills, or resources to build themselves a house.

As I've told you countless times, I live in a place with absolutely no zoning and very, very few restrictions on building - none whatsoever on single family homes or duplexes, and minimal restrictions on larger buildings. You could move here, buy a 5 acre piece of land that sold for $35,000, and put up high rise apartment buildings and go as dense as you want. There are also plenty of job opportunities nearby (and, believe it or not, daycares and bank branches, including a bank headquarters, so I guess opportunity really does bound here).

Yet surprisingly the most in-demand construction here is single-family homes, not "dense" apartments, duplexes, and so forth.