It's weird how in one of the richest countries in the world, many people even couples with 2 full time incomes can't afford a house?
It's extra weird, since it seems to me many American homes are built with rather cheap materials compared to Denmark where I live.
What makes even weirder, is that USA is a country with a lot of room on average for building and expanding living spaces.
Seems to me this may be a case of lacking political planning.
It's weird how in one of the richest countries in the world
Not that weird when most of the riches are held by a handful of people. The rest of us are just trying to get by.
Yes that's a problem, still Americans have higher average pay than most countries. With lots of room and cheap materials, it should be relatively easy to afford a house. And AFAIK it used to be that way. People could afford a house, car, children and health insurance on one income.
It's a mix of outdated zoning laws, investment firms buying up all the available housing and car centric infrastructure
With lots of room
Country size is irrelevant. People like clustering together in cities.
True, but there is still generally better possibility to expand those cities outwards. But that requires that new building plots are developed, and made available at fair prices.
If new legal building plots aren't made available as needed, prices will increase on existing homes.
But that just means people are commuting in. There is cheaper housing spread out from the cities, but few people actually want to live there, and those who do will commute hours into the city for work. It's often more prudent to rent in a city..
We need density, not spreading out.
It's not a lack of political planning, it's a lack of political power for the working class.
It’s done by design to drive people into poverty and subservience.
Can you expand on the superior Danish building materials? Genuinely curious.
Basically that many houses in USA are made of wood, we can't do that here, because the climate is too wet. So wood doesn't last very long. That means we need to make brick houses. Brick houses are way more expensive to build than wood.
Also many places in USA don't require the same level of isolation.
In large parts of Sweden they can make wood houses too, and their house prices are way lower than here.
I'm not saying American houses are bad, but the climate in large parts of USA allows for more and cheaper options.
Not the person you're asking this from but as a Finn who watches a lot of construction related videos on YouTube I too get the feeling that houses in the US are built to a lower standard than here. It's not so much that the materials are worse quality but more that the building code is much stricter here.
I'm a plumber by trade so my area of expertise is quite narrow but couple things that come to mind is how copper pipes are often soldered in the US where as here they're always brazed which is a much stronger joint. We also don't allow any connections to be made inside walls but in the US they're common. Toilets there also tend to clog up quite often because of the way they operate which almost never happens here. Another thing I've noticed is that in the US they use a lot of wood and plywood even on bigger structures which poses a fire hazard as well as there doesn't seem to be as much thought put into the insulation and vapor barriers.
The other 60% have already accepted it and aren’t worrying about it anymore.
Thanks for confirming I won't be having any original thoughts today :D
the other 60% are just delusional about their chances
I'm about to buy a home, but it's taking 4 employed adults combined to afford a 3 bedroom house. It's insane.
Have you tried pulling yourself up by the bootstraps, surviving on the interest of your invested wealth, and forgoing toast with healthy yet expensive toppings? /s
Ah shit you know what? That's a great idea. I was actually just throwing that interest money away because I wasn't sure what to do with it.
Have you tried asking your rich dad to buy it for you?
He actually is helping (but not rich) he is taking out a personal loan to gift me some money, enough for a portion of the down payment. Even with that, (and I am very grateful and priveliged to receive it) it's still almost unaffordable. (I'm still not actually sure we can afford it.) Which, considering most people aren't so lucky, is fucking insane.
Just buy some money.
Heyo! It’s me!
I figure that since every single house costs the same, I might as well just jump into a new-build for the same price and move on with my life.
I’m 100% certain that once I get really going with this process, I’ll find out that it’s still out of realistic reach range, but it’s fun to dream for a bit. 🥹
Oh it's not a worry, it's a reality.
How does this compare to renters in previous decades? Are there similar surveys from those eras?
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