Being priced out
If you ever lived in an area with a hot housing market, you’ve probably had more dinners that you’d like to admit where the conversation…
If you ever lived in an area with a hot housing market, you’ve probably had more dinners that you’d like to admit where the conversation started and ended with how “crazy” it is out there. Anecdotal evidence about multiple bids on some broken down shitty houses with no pictures on RedFin and how many hundreds of thousands over asking the house down the street sold for dominate.
This in turn tends to drive the renters between us to go on a buying frenzy, desperately looking for a house, any house to buy. Because you know… if you don’t buy today, you’ll be priced out forever. I know I’ve heard that many times; including here in Seattle.
The same people always bring up the same examples. Look at San Francisco they say. Seattle (or insert the city that you live in) is the next San Francisco. “If I bought ten years ago I could have retired today”.
So here’s my contrarian theory. Now this probably doesn’t apply in all cases 100% of the time. But, ask yourself this:
Were you ever priced in to the city in the first place?
For example, San Francisco has always been more expensive then Seattle by about a factor of two. If you happened to be the age that you are now, working in San Francisco a decade ago, could you afford it then? Keep in mind that it’s very unlikely your salary would be the same.
I’m not just talking about inflation. I’m thinking more broadly like what industry you’re in. Are you in tech or nursing? You’re probably making way more money then you could a decade ago. These jobs are simply in higher demands now.
So when your Grandpa reminds you how he bought this house for 60k, don’t forget to ask him how much he was earning per hour. It could make a lot of difference. Now, if you couldn’t buy it then and you can’t buy it now does not mean you shouldn’t strive for it. I am just suggesting that we should keep this in mind when complaining about the state of affordability and how Amazon “ruined” everything.