this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2025
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Typically, when demand drops, prices follow. But even when the number of buyers dropped, prices kept climbing. The median price of a single-family home hit record highs in 2024, and has only continued going up. In May, the median price was $427,800 – up from $357,100 in 2021, when home prices started to climb.

At today’s prices, a family would need to earn $126,700 a year to afford monthly payments on an average home purchased in 2024, up from $79,300 annually in 2021, according to a report from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.

jagoff Economists say a historically low inventory of existing homes, coupled with sluggish new construction, is keeping prices high.

All over my are there are shit tons of new mcmansion starting at $350-400k

There isn't a damned shortage. There is a shortage of affordable homes. Who is afording these mcmansion is beyond me because the jobs in the area don't pay nearly enough and there can't be that many upper management / C-suite families that can afford them. I am seeing banks offering Zero down / no PMI like in 2008. Like they are baking another housing crash.

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[–] PKMKII@hexbear.net 39 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Zero mention of private equity investment firms buying up single family homes and driving up housing inflation.

[–] trashxeos@lemmygrad.ml 32 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, I noticed that as well. Not to mention AIRBNB who are renting out "investment" homes. Housing needs to be fundamentally redesigned to remove housing scalpers from the equation...

[–] Le_Wokisme@hexbear.net 17 points 6 days ago (1 children)

we should remove the leeches from earth.

[–] Des@hexbear.net 19 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Who is affording these is beyond me

nobody is. most of them sit empty, with just a baseline of maintenance, so line goes up.

at some point the desperate masses are going to just move themselves into empty neighborhoods. i suppose at some point they'll just have armed patrol drones

[–] Doubledee@hexbear.net 15 points 5 days ago (1 children)

We're doing the China Ghost Cities thing but real and somehow even more wasteful and horrific than the fantasy projection.

[–] Des@hexbear.net 12 points 5 days ago (1 children)

holy shit u are right. just without any of the associated infrastructure. "ghost neighboorhoods/5 over 1s and datacenters"

My fairly lib coworker has frequently said "no one I know owns a house who hasn't gotten financial help or inherited it" and he's 40.

[–] Doubledee@hexbear.net 17 points 5 days ago

One of the things I hate most about capitalism is how it makes you a psychopath. Whenever I read stuff like this, I find myself literally hoping the market crashes so all this money we've spent years saving up will let us get out of renting forever. It makes you wish everyone will suffer, including yourself, so that you can time the market and scrape out something.

[–] SacredExcrement@hexbear.net 15 points 6 days ago
[–] palacedoctor@hexbear.net 13 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I see two kinds of construction:

  • apartment buildings where rent is several thousand a month
  • single-family and double-decker flips starting at $1M
[–] Philosoraptor@hexbear.net 11 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (3 children)

I live in one of the most "affordable" parts of my city, and there are mobile homes in my area selling for over $400,000. I am not in a coastal state or a top ten metro area. Shit is insane and unsustainable.

[–] homhom9000@hexbear.net 6 points 5 days ago

I live in a pricier area and mobile home are $75-$200k but you have to pay land rent worth $2400-$3200/month. There's no winning.

[–] Evilphd666@hexbear.net 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)
[–] Philosoraptor@hexbear.net 3 points 4 days ago

It's super bleak. Prices in my city have basically tripled in the last 6 years. Shit that would have been $100,000 in 2019 is going for $350,000 now. It's out of control.

[–] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)
[–] Philosoraptor@hexbear.net 5 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Also called a "manufactured home." They're pre built structures that are meant to be trailered to a plot of land and then dropped there (either with or without a standard foundation) and then hooked up to water/sewer/power/gas. The build quality is generally quite a bit lower than a standard ("stick built") house, because they need to be light enough to move around and totally self-contained. They only tend to last 20-30 years before they start to fall apart. If they're well made and newer, though, you wouldn't necessarily know from looking at the inside that they're not regular houses.

Historically, they've been a way for lower income people to own a home (at least in the US), but that's receding rapidly. When people talk about "trailer parks," they mean mobile home complexes in which the residents (usually) own the structure but pay rent on the land, though in some areas (like where I live) lots of folks buy the plot of land and either drop a home on it or get the one that's already there. You can buy the structures for $100,000 or less (though they can definitely go higher), but the insane price of land and real estate price gouging is pushing up the overall cost into the mid six-figures in some places, even for units that are a decade or more old.

[–] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Thanks

The build quality is generally quite a bit lower than a standard (“stick built”) house

Wow that sounds pretty awful considering the normally awful standard of homebuilding in US.

They only tend to last 20-30 years before they start to fall apart.

Same as the intent for Krushchevka in socialist countries, but Khrushchevka stand strong till today (there's even one in Germany that survived direct jet fighter crash and people still live there) and the prices often outstrips the modern private development houses which quite often starts to crack even before anyone actually moves in.

Overall conclusion for "mobile homes": how fucking dare muricans joke about houses build from prefabs while they have this shit.

[–] Philosoraptor@hexbear.net 4 points 4 days ago

Yeah, modern home building quality in the US is also shit. I watched one go up few months ago near where I work, and you could see that it was basically 100% press board. I'm sure it sold for $550,000.