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Prices go up when babies are born, and down when homes are built.

Except that in many cities there is no room to build any more houses, so prices go up based on how many people want to live in a city.

People want to live in a city usually for economic reasons. (Close to jobs, cheap services etc).

So basically, unless you are buying rural property, prices will go up when people want to move to cities.

All that's economics - but the real world is a bit more complicated. People determine how much to pay for a house based on two things: how much the seller wants, and how much money they have.

Easy loans made it such that people had lots of money for houses. Sellers like to make a profit when they sell a house (it's emotional, not logical).

Put those together and you have a housing price boom. But it can't (couldn't) last because it doesn't match the real economics of the situation.

At the end of the day prices should move based on population in cities, and inflation.

And BTW people are already buying up city blocks in Detroit. The biggest problem there is crime though, which makes it hard to buy a house and hold it for a while.



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