I'm not sure that is completely true. In the Washington DC area people were happy to move further out during the pandemic because they could work remotely. But now that return to office mandates are back, people have to live closer to their offices. Or they get fired. They are forced into a limited housing market that they would otherwise not want. And the housing market continues to be artificially inflated because of these mandates.

Not to mention there are plenty of empty/abandoned housing spaces and an over abundance of short term rental properties these days. We don't need more space for building. We need to utilize the space already built upon.

Agree. The high prices of everything desirable is due to market forces. Things cost what people are willing to pay. When you have a debt based fiat system that allows people to mortgage for 25 - 40 years some people will take that deal. Lots of them. They don't care or don't know what the amortization schedule means for the actual price paid, ultimately.

Maybe, but that doesn't explain the expensive housing also in bad communities. Even ghetto housing these days is fucking insane

Disagreed, people are forced to live in great communities (access to public transport, jobs, etc.) because cities and governmental officials are to dumb (to corrupt rather)to expand or to go remote

Depending on the area, of course. Some places are worse than others for pricing in general.

Yeah. I don't think many people (at least over the age of 30) live in places like London or New York because of how fab the city life and community is. Yes, some really enjoy it. Some have had a lot of success and are professionally motivated. But most are being held hostage by employers or business needs and would move to smaller communities given the opportunity.

What we see in Germany, is that the people are moving to urban areas, sending house prices skyrocketing there, but villages an hour or two away turn into ghost towns. As the urban population ages and dies away, their real estate prices will also fall. Another decade or so.

Well, yeah, you need/want to live close to where you work to minimize the commute. You can always live 2hrs away, but who wants that commute? People are happy to pay extra to live in town.

there is also too many places that have empty houses, whole towns that used to have thousands of people in them but now only have like 50. but people want to *move to* a nice place and a place full of empty houses is not a nice place until nice people move to it, so they pass over millions of options that would work. in fact the people in such towns who own the property basically gave up trying to sell and you can't even find out about them without going there and asking the skeleton staff at the local courthouse (or more often, regional) to even find out who owns it and then who wants to sell, it's a lot of rigmerole. i personally very much like the idea but i don't mind the idea of having many empty houses around me. there is some 160 villages like this in bulgaria, and a few, that people have moved into. you get the nice old house, usually, and have to spend a lot on getting it set up because, for example, it is often the case that the municipal water is not being maintained, and so on and so forth. but yes, a lot of people want out of the big cities. it has to be a life decision so it's only gonna be smatterings of people going and getting a small acerage property and homesteading that will repopulate the areas that have emptied out because of industry moving away. once a few of these kind of people show up there can be a bigger movement, but someone has to go out to the frontier first even when it's mostly all ready to use and sitting idle.

Victor's point is good, and I think you're all supporting it. Individual choices make the market. I'm hearing a lot of talk about being held hostage by employers and companies, but that is a choice. Individuals are choosing to go back to the office. They are choosing to live in the cities where the employer operates. It's all choices

While places that have nice climates and/or good job markets will always be in demand, this kind of fatalistic "oh well prices will always be high" narrative ignores the real and significant factors of NIMBY-ism and decades of car-centric design that have ballooned housing prices way beyond what they would be in a true Free Market, especially in the West coast. There are significant swath of land in the middle of Los Angeles, even literally at the doorstep of mass transit, where is it *literally illegal* to build anything except for a 1-story single-family house. Not so much as a HOT DOG STAND, let alone housing that would get close to satisfying demand.

Statistically, almost by definition, there will never be "a lot of people" who "want out of big cities." And it wouldn't work anyway. Not everyone can homestead for their Raw Milk. The global trend historically is towards urbanization, except perhaps in the post-WWII period in the US, but the latter was always driven by massive incentives, regulations, and "red-lining" segregation. However, Europe and Asia build cities that allow for urban density and effective urban transportation by default... In the US, it's the exception, and in most places it's literally illegal to build things like high-density housing and pedestrianized boulevards.

True. I quit my job when the mandate came. I have bitcion though. Gave me more choices.

People do that commute in my area. Look up "slugging" in DC. It's wild.

This seems like characterization of India ( or may be China ) .. cuz US is probably the most spread out nation .. people literally live in campers with their dogs ..and guns ..

there's just a lot of land that is far away from cities that is a bit inhospitable in one way or another especially in the centre of USA, it's similar in australia, mostly desert or low scrub, not much water, really hot summers. people live in trailers and hovels out in the boonies, work at mines or logging or farming, wherever there is especially a lot of farm land. i've seen sparse areas of eastern europe, and they are not much different, usually there is a gypsy neighbourhood especially in bulgaria, off the side of most small towns, and they are pretty poor.

yeah, zoning laws are such bullshit, and don't even really achieve anything except making living near your work difficult. anyhow, i always wanted to live on a farm and do farming as part of my work. not all of it, since i'm a programmer but with the internet homesteading and working at the same time is very possible. the other thing is that the industrial produced food is so bad now that it's not just fringe anymore to want to grow your own. both vegan hippies and based bitcoiners and paleo people want to raise their own livestock and/or grow gardens for their own food supply. it's absolutely abysmal what they sell in shops now, and if you have allergies, like me, it's a torment to be stuck not being able to have a veggie patch and some chickens and goats.

The right choices lead to better and more choices, yes

Inflation adds a premium to all established stores of value. A house in a desirable neighbourhood has extra premium.

Urban development in USA is totally corrupted. You are not allowed to make good neighbourhoods, it's against the law. Same shit is happening here now, forcing this American car dependent suburban sprawl onto us, destroying our way of life to make us give money to oil companies

Car dependence is not freedom, it's literally the opposite. You need permission from the government to do anything.

How about food dependence ? And air dependence :-)

My point is literally the opposite. We have great cities in the US that are more expensive than ever to live. People are paying a lot to move and live here. And the wait line is still huuuge.

Nah, it's easy access to loans. Stop that and prices drop.

Expensive away from town too thanks to remote work. At least in part.