Who is the new face of American homeownership?: "New homeowners in 2015 were noticeably older than those in 2001, when the median age of new owners was 34 (Figure 1). Some of this is due to the general aging of the U.S. population–renters and established owners were also older in 2015 than the same groups in 2001–but the age distribution has changed more dramatically for new owners. In particular, the share of new homeowners under age 30 declined from 29 percent in 2001 to about 15 percent in 2015. During the same time, the share of all households under age 30 declined slightly from 13 percent to just under 10 percent..In 2015, 7.5 percent of new homeowners and 3.3 percent of all households lived in newly built housing. By contrast, in 2001, 25 percent of new homeowners lived in newly built housing, as did 8.5 percent of all households..Despite much media attention to millennials’ supposed preference for high-density urban living, the data suggests that most new homeowners still purchase single-family houses. The dearth of new housing development during the Great Recession and recovery–and the scarcity of new single-family homes in particular–may constrain both first-time homeowners and established homeowners looking to trade up."
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Housing construction virtually stopped during the recession, when it started again there were more apartments, lending standards became tougher, the job market for young people hasn't been all that great, and many of the ones with higher earning potential are paying off student loans. Experts keep predicting the end of the suburban dream and the return to the city, but people keep wanting to buy single-family homes in the suburbs.
3 comments:
Those aren't "experts". They are employees of PR firms selling snake oil to starry/glazed eyed urbanophiles.
> Who is the new face of American homeownership?
. . . Private equity investors have become the single largest group of buyers in the residential housing market, purchasing $20 billion worth of steeply discounted properties between 2012 and 2014 alone and reaping huge rewards as housing prices have slowly risen from their troughs. Blackstone, the biggest of the big private equity firms, with more than $330 billion in assets under management, has become the largest investor landlord in the country, with a portfolio of 46,000 homes and other properties that generated $1.9 billion worth of income in 2014, making real estate the largest profit center for the firm. Blackstone’s CEO, the infamous Wall Street titan Stephen Schwarzman, has called the firm’s move into the rental business in places like the Inland Empire a “bet on America.”
To be more precise, it’s a bet on the fact that fewer Americans can afford, in the wake of the financial crisis, to own a home. Thus an increasing number will be forced to rent from a Wall Street investor like Blackstone. Indeed, private equity’s rush into real estate goes some way toward answering one of the most perplexing economic questions of late: If housing is back, then why is the percentage of people who own homes in our country at a twenty-year low? . . .
. . . One worry in the aftermath of the subprime crisis is that this dynamic, in which those without lots of cash and stellar credit (which is most people) have been left unable to buy homes, while Wall Street is able to continue to shape the housing market in ways that aren’t necessarily to the public benefit, will result in a spate of new soulless communities owned by investors who couldn’t care less what happens in them, as long as they get paid. . . .
- When Wall Street Owns Main Street — Literally
The rise of Wall Street landlords and the decline of homeownership
by Rana Foroohar
evonomics.com/when-wall-street-owns-main-street-rana-foroohar-makers-takers/
IC_deLight said… “As a followup, these are not ‘property managers’. They are HOA corporation or condo corporation managers”
The trend I’ve noticed among these parasites is calling themselves “community managers”; which ranks up there with “Ministry of Truth”, “Ministry of Peace”, “Ministry of Love”, and “Community Associations Institute” (I guess “Ministry of Protecting Property Values” was too wordy) in the annals of Orwellian double-speak.
Most of us go to work for 8 hours a day, where we are paid to be managed and told what to do. Employees don’t pay their employer. But at the end of the workday, millions of Americans have the privilege of paying an H.O.A. corporation to manage them and tell them what they can do at home. It’s absolute insanity, yet we Americans have been successfully conditioned to accept this as normal.
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