The number of US cities where first-time homebuyers are faced with at least a $1 million price tag on the average entry-level home has nearly tripled in the past five years, according to new research.
A Thursday report from Zillow indicates that a typical starter home is now worth $1 million or more in 237 cities, up from 84 cities in 2019, underscoring America’s ongoing home affordability crisis.
“Affordability has been strained across the board,” Orphe Divounguy, a senior economist at Zillow, said. “We see the largest number of million-dollar starter homes in expensive coastal markets. We see them in markets with very low homeownership rates and we see them in markets with more building regulations.”
20 years is enough to double twice which would be 4x the price. That is how appreciating assets work.
What about income…?
Mine more than quadrupled in 20 years.
Try this: when you first started working, what were people with 20 years of experience making in your industry? How does that compare to what you make with the same 20 years of experience now?
My income has not doubled in the 10 years I’ve been working full time. But, more importantly, the amount of money people with 10 years of experience were making when I first started is not drastically different from what I am making with the same experience now.
Housing shouldn’t be an (in real-terms) appreciating asset. In the long run that just leads to feudalism.
Imagine if everything keeps appreciating for 200 years… now only cyborg Elon musk can afford to buy a house.
With finite land, it’s never going to not be appreciating.