So now you are against affordable homes because you won't make big bucks from just holding them. I see. The truth comes out. Home values are only good if you sell and even then you have to live somewhere. If I have to turn around and buy another expensive place to live, how am I richer? The idea that we should keep homes scarce and prices up is quite simply vile. It is vile. The value of my home to me is how I can enjoy my life in it without selling it. That is greatly depreciated when the homeless fill our streets, lose hope, start drugs. When my neighbor is better off I am better off. When my neighbors children are educated well, I am better off for the educated workforce that will provide me goods and services. This makes for a safe lovely town to live in.

Well, yes, you could be living in Singapore or some place like that. You did not state where you live. And if you don't like paying for infastructure perhaps you shouldn't use the infastructure. Meanwhile taxes must pay for shelters, public toilets, clean up and enviromental restoration of homeless camps. I would rather my home taxes pay for appropriate infastructure and absolutely not plow outs for rich neighborhoods. They should contract and pay for it themselves. Same with sewer and electric. Everyone knows that distance increases price and therefore Single Family zoning should pay a much higher tax rate than Multi Family areas because it is way more expensive. In other words a million dollar condo in downtown should pay less taxes than a 400k home in the burbs because they use more infastructure.

It is highly unlikely that an entire city or area will have nothing to work with. There is always turnover in various location at any one time. Housing will only become affordable when it becomes plentiful. If you build 10 units in a housing shortage and that is it then no, those units won't be cheap. If you flood the city with housing then all levels of housing will become cheaper. My city is locked between a military base, mountains, and the ocean but developers are typically looking for the best deals and places to build. My city has turned three large hotels into housing last year since actual homes were being used for short term rentals. Another great idea was to allow property owners to build small rental units on their own property. Sometimes an oddball business will go out of business and the location can work for apartments or condos. I don't think you should raze homes. I think you shouldn't make it illegal to build and people: home owners, developers, and young people will problem solve if the local government will get out of the way.

I kind of want to ask where you live but I don't want you to have to say. Was it like a tourist town that is dying or something? Especially with the air b&b craze it seems strange that resell on a condo would be that hard unless the money were mismanaged or there was maintenance backlog. It does seem odd to me that they wouldn't just lower the price. If it is more expensive to buy and own a condo like you stated earlier and they aren't selling why aren't they lowering the price? I mean maybe they are clueless about supply and demand but still everyone knows a deal.

Good question. I will say that in my location people are preferring smaller less expensive places over time. I would say our birth rate as a nation is sinking. Locally it is sinking dramatically. There are way more single people or DINKs and fewer large families. Many people feel they can't afford homes that will fit children plus daycare. Utilities are also more expensive here (Alaska) and shared walls save on heating expenses. My 1100 sq foot home was snatched up within days on the market in 2012. It went for way more per square foot then larger homes because the overall expense was still cheaper. I don't have a chart in front of me but I would say <1500 tends to go for more per square foot. It isn't that they might not personally like a larger home if all costs were equal but that isn't how the world works.

I have. But it isn't meant to be a generalization or I would be complaining about myself. 🤣 There is a tendency to not want to change. I have heard the phrase "Eagle River has too many homes now, let them move farther out." I go to these meetings and I do get frustrated. They want to freeze my town in place. Why freeze it now. If we froze land use 50 years ago then the people who are complaining now wouldn't be here. A frozen town is a dead town. I want to stay in my hometown long term but I also don't want all my children to have to move out and I want to leave the labor jobs to them. 😂 We need each other and I see so many narrow views of the world that want to only benefit themselves.

Yes, housing is local but you xan tell by Prices. Lack of vacancy. Small homes and condos are more per square foot and sell faster. Large homes have a softer market where I live.

She isn't saying you should complain about either group but she is saying if you push back against NIMBYs that is what you will be accused of.

I think we have a wide range of localities represented here and housing is undoubtly a local issue with a lot of variation.

Are you actually looking at planning and in the discussions or is all this internet complaints and rumors?

If your local government really doesn't have code requirements and required plans for that, it is an interesting government to say the least but I don't live there so I can't say. I find it more probably that the people just don't like the plan but unless I was looking at the plan I couldn't tell you. Local governments can function very differently from each other.

Yes, for all the complaints about younger people wanting giant homes and the homes are bigger now days etc. The truth is there is higher demand for smaller homes but they often aren't allowed. Demand is high while supply is restricted by local government and people who don't actually own the property which drives up prices. Also, you have to include all maintenance of a single family home and difference in utilities. Plus, car centric large suburbs use way more tax dollars. Utilities are spread out, there is more road per person to plow. Snow removal has been a huge problem in our city the last couple years And people expect the city to plow the road to their mansion on the hillside faster than the sidewalks downtown which many many more people use.

Which generally have to be met by the time you get to the community comments who scream "neighborhood character". They (like Dawn it appears) believe that anyone who doesn't make big money are criminals and shouldn't be allowed into their "safe" neighborhood.

I am proposing that if a neighborhood was determined to shut down building in their neighborhood and I was mayor I would assign their local park the designated homeless camping space, rather than a middle class neighborhood and I would NOTapologize for it. 😁

Sometimes it is zoning. Sometimes neighbors can get a project shut down even within zoning parameters. Sometimes it is low income. Sometimes people shut down projects that are just affordable housing not designated low income. I have been way more involved the past few years and it is eye opening. Of course, every locality is different but dang it is bad where I live.

I guess it depends on if they are BLOCKING low income housing being built in the same area because I see a lot of that happening. I see this a LOT.

My 75 year old mother runs a business from her home and has a 16 foot long arm in the basement and that certainly wouldn't work for her but I would love not maintaining a large home. Everyones needs are different. She currently can't lift her arm and is scheduled for a shoulder replacement next month but she is trying hard to prep lots of smaller quilt squares that she can sew if her arm is in a sling against her after surgery because she can't, simply can't sit and do nothing. 😂

It is surprising to me that working people, often with families to care for have time to go to meetings, testify, get into running for unpaid positions. Where I am at there are a lot of young families but they aren't running anything. Every where I go where things are getting done are at least 80% retirement age or older. Or you just mean they gripe on the internet but that doesn't do anything. I personally didn't really get involved Until I had more time in my life. You are right that it is very dangerous to give people control over others. The farmer should be able to do what he needs to with his own land. I should be able to put a 4 or 6 plex on mine to be helpful but you know despite being able to keep more trees etc then their dinky lots I wouldn't be allowed to because zoning and whining.

I actually think the housing market would sort itself out if we could have a free market. If prices shot up density would increase but as it is the older generations are the ones at the community council meetings shutting down projects on property they don't own! Then they want senior tax exemptions. Then they want the young people to shovel their driveway and get tax payer funded assistance for all sorts of things because poor me I am old. Boo-hoo. Then they wonder why younger generations are fed up with them. I am older and and own multiple properties and I'm fed up with them!

Back in the 90's my sister had birds and learned you couldn't cook with teflon around them or it could kill them. So my mom, sister, and I have always used cast iron. Our thoughts were if they killed birds it couldn't be great for us. Doesn't always work that way but....

And are they willing to take zero pay when there is no profits? I think there is very little understanding of the risk involved. There is seldom understanding of how often people go years with no pay for hope of a future payout. I personally have little tolerance for such things.

I had a lot of help with baby number 1 (laundry, meals, the works) and no help with babies 2-3, which seems a little backwards but it was just how life was at the time. People were busy. We moved away from our church family and parents were busy with their lives. We had no sitter even for the 3rd child's birth so it was good we had a home birth. DH had a major catastrophe at work and he had to work 24 hours a day for a couple days and yes was working by my bed remotely during labor. The older kids were in and out of the bedroom where I gave birth. After days of working all night long DH fell asleep when he was supposed to be watching kids the next day and was taking time off to "help". He fell asleep on the living room floor and I came out to get a drink only to find the older kids skipping around him holding raisen boxes and the raisens were not staying in the boxes but flying everywhere. It might have been nice to at least have a sitter for an afternoon after that birth.

This describes my son to a T. He obtained a job and drives himself and now eats a ton of junk. He is usually too full for homecooked meals now. 😕

I do see this and agree partly. I would say averages are not useful though. A single person without kids generally should have more disposable income and a lot more people don't choose to have children so they are bringing up the average for entertainment, travel, etc. I'd be curious what the charts looked like for those with children versus those without. A lot of things that are driving up the cost of having children are things like housing (required sizes, HOAs) , child care (with a lot of gov. mandates on licensing, child/caretaker ratios etc), car seats that don't fit in smaller cars, laws regarding allowing children home alone. In our area snow days have become common since the advent of remote learning days. If you don't have internet you don't get an education. Etc These are systematic changes that don't allow old patterns to exist and often they are pushed by laws or systems not individuals making choices for themselves. I also think a huge part of the increase in size of homes for example is mandated by law. If contractors cannot build multi family housing due to local land use ordinances then contractors build big expensive homes because that makes more money. Smaller condos, town homes, and 1 or 2 bedroom homes are in high demand which drives up the cost specifically of whatever the cheapest options are because people want cheaper options but the supply is restricted by local government, nimby neighbors and the like. Young people can't always get loans to build their own and land is often difficult to come by so they are often at the mercy of builders throwing up big mcmansions or paying crazy high prices per square foot for the in demand small, "cheaper" housing. I do think we often forget that things weren't always easier in the "good old days" so I agree with your premise somewhat but at the same time I do feel like many of the choices boomers had were taken away for younger generations and often by law. Or systems changed making things that once seemed frivolous, neccessary. It is complicated.

Just curious if anyone has knowledge of house cleaning jobs. I have seen $20-$35 an hour. I am curious if that is eaten up by travel as you only actually work a couple hours here and there. If you add in travel time do you end up in the low wage category again? I know people who make decent money but they are typically working for connections (friends or family that have air b&bs, etc.). They do it between classes for school etc but it might be one of those things where you make the most if you know someone rather then going through a service of some type.