Boomers invested all their wealth into a single asset (homes), so instead of weathering the market or diversifying, they petitioned the state to restrict supply (anti-development). At the same time, all the services they wanted were too expensive, so they petitioned the state again to depress wages by expanding the labor supply (mass immigration). Now their children and grandchildren are competing in a flooded labor market to afford homes they'll never be able to buy, and all those aging Boomers will completely bankrupt the Social Security system. At the very least they can die alone in a shoddy retirement home surrounded by all the baubles and cheap foreign labor their materialist lifestyle could want.
My grandpa bought a house in the suburbs, new construction in 1954 for $11,000. Imagine buying a brand new house at 27 with a normal job and without a high school diploma.
I noticed something in the last clip with all the people complaining about developing their areas. They are from a generation that could afford a house working a single job. Not the later Generation that has to work 2 or more just to rent a single bedroom apartment.
@@joez.2794 you can’t get fast enough internet “in the country” to work from home. Cell phone signals are important for that too (working from home). So if there’s no cell service and crappy to no internet, those people can’t work from home.
@@cynicalcindy1434 It's 2022, not 2002, kiddo Most rural areas have plenty of high-speed Internet options and decent cell service. What they usually don't have, however, is avocado toast. You'll have to learn to make that yourself.
"It was the couldn't afford part, the demand was still real" I wish people understood this. I wish people stopped treating housing as a way to make money off of people, and actually as a basic human need.
But that would be Socialism! You know why the Russians didn't all kill each other off in a bloody internal war when the USSR fell? Because nobody owned their housing - it was gov't assigned as a human need. So no one was thrown out of their houses into the snow, and if they were like the USA where everyone would just get thrown out, there's be massacres in the street - it would literally be eat the rich time.
Y'know, if you'd build more five-over-ones (AKA podium buildings) in the suburbs, you could sell apartments in those for affordable prices, increase population density and reduce travel times because everything is closer together. Put some bakeries, grocery stores and restaurants in the ground floor, give them a nice, broad sidewalk with trees, dedicated bike lanes and a park nearby and you have a pretty nice neighbourhood.
It’s 2024 and they’ve built unlimited 5 over 1s in the suburbs. Now the whole country is a 5 over 1 and rent still has the audacity to be $2000 for a studio in a suburb 40 minutes from the city. This is in every city in America except NY, LA, SF, BOSTON and SEATTLE which are obviously twice the price for a studio in the suburbs 🥲
it's a nice plan, but the problem is lack of ownership. 5 over 1's are rental property, and the buildings are owned by big property investors, so the price of rent is high, and the tenants don't build equity and savings.
@@snoopyloopy We're about to get tens of millions of new homeless too. And while there's always going to be a base level of homeless, druggies, mentally ill, just dysfunctional people, these new millions are going to be normal people who got fucked over by capitalism (look at how much richer the oligarchs have become over the last few months) and they're going to be competent, and angry.
@@alexcarter8807 Are they gonna be angry that they were rolled over by their system?(capitalism) or because they knew what was coming and did nothing to stop it while it happened in slow motion in plain view?
It is nearly impossible to afford your first home in an established career outside of college. Now that remote working is being seen as more viable, this will do wonders for the housing market and is going to put pressure back on companies to be more competitive in their salaries nationally. Give me gigabit internet and a place to get food and I’d be fine living just about anywhere - given I can still reach the other branches of my family which all live here in the KC area.
@@RyanValizan Companies will lower the salaries, but this is not going to solve the housing crisis. Working from home significantly reduces the productivity of employees. So employers will still demand employees coming to the office, but then like min. 50% of the time. In this way employees are still being forced to live close to the office which means the housing crisis will still be a thing in the future. The roads are quite calm now, but that's always the case when capacity is increased by widening the road or when white collar people works less in the office. Unfortunately, the law of induced demand will make sure those roads will be clogged again within like 3 years. The only way to tackle that issue is building (safe) bicycle infrastructure the Dutch way to at least have an opportunity to circumvent gridlock.
@@hendrikdependrik1891 Dutch safe cycling infrastructure with more missing middle housing and mixed use zoning. People don’t realize everywhere doesn’t have to be Manhattan when people talk about density
That's not how that works. You would still have all your other expenses for those three years. You can only ever use about 25% of your salary for housing costs. Everything else goes to taxes, food, transportation, and a bunch of other bills, with a little left over in savings if you are lucky.
@@mirzaahmed6589 Obviously the loan might've not been necessarily paid in 3 years back then but the point that Endjo was trying to make was that it would be nice if we didn't have to dedicate basically 40 years of our lives just trying to pay off the loan for our house.
I looked up in Zillow one of the houses I grew up in. It's in Costa mesa, Orange County. My father sold it in 1966 for $14K. I see that it's now worth $1.6 million. It's worth 114 times what he sold it for 54 years ago.
As a home builder. People are scurrying to smaller towns. And business is booming. I’ve had to turn down 3 jobs and have work for the next 2 years at least.
this video is quite possibly one of the best explanations of the American middle class mindset and all the complicated, related factors. I would’ve never thought to trace this back to the Homestead act, but it makes perfect sense
Thank you for telling the truth about home ownership and the real history. Some people still think a certain group of people had the “same” opportunities, but where just lazy. It’s never as simple as that. Even tho he had no malice and was genuinely ignorant. He still refused to listen to the facts. Videos like this slowly teaches the truth.
This is easily your best video yet Rob! Great production and flow. The writing felt compact and informational, but still very understandable and the editing was really good too. Honestly this is just about TV quality. Thanks a ton!!
A big problem driving up rent prices in Vegas is the corporate property owners. When the market crashed, these corporations swooped into Vegas and bought all the properties they could for pennies on the dollar. Many of these properties sat vacant for years because these corporations didn't want them occupied. By taking these properties off the market, they were able to artificially decrease supply as demand rose from people moving here from California. This is why home prices and rents in Vegas have been going up steadily for a few years now. So, you have housing prices artificially high as these corporate owners slowly put these vacant homes on the market and you also have rents artificially high because you have a handful of corporations that own a huge percentage of the rental properties which allows them to set whatever price they want.
And yet people who clamor for higher-density housing plug their ears & scream "LALALA" when you tell them just who is developing these housing units. These corporations have consistently proven that they're only interested in luxury units, and will gleefully let them sit vacant for eons until someone can afford them. They point at the boomers and say it's their fault when developers are the ones artificially decreasing available housing. I'm fact, I'm convinced that the shift of blame on to the boomers is a smear campaign by these companies, like how they try to shift the responsibility of recycling on to the individual when they're creating more waste than every citizen combined. It's only a matter of time before companies like Blackrock buy up literally all the land available and create modern-day feudalism.
@@someboneheadBlackRock and those other groups consistently cite the restrictions on new development as a reason to buy up the homes. They legally have to disclose that stuff to investors.
This made me remember those California City (Kern County) & California Pines (Modoc County) infomercials from the 90s. Those were just big ponzi schemes.
California City technically still exists and I wouldn't be surprised if the pandemic response pushes more people out there if they can work from home most days.
This is the whole reason I became a contractor, just get into some sort of trade whatever one you enjoy... You will always find work because there is always construction going on, or things need fixing.whether it's out of town or in the middle of town... You can live pretty much wherever you want.. and pull in $30-70/hr
It's the reason I'm still holding on to my father contracting business after his passing. Family wonder why I just don't look for a different job that pay higher more frequently. The same family members that often question if their job will still be there tomorrow or have to jump from job to job because they are losing hours while I'm finding consistent work because my skill set is in short supply and high demand.
I have often discussed this with builder friends of mine and the really important thing to do is learn how to price a job properly and get stage payments on big or expensive work. Like cops and pilots and firefighters, builders have to retire early and may suffer job related injuries more readily than office workers. That is why their life insurance and injury cover are higher than most jobs. It is also very important to have a variety of income sources from various property management companies or owners and to set up a network of likeminded people in order to get work in the lean times and share out work to others in the busy times.
This was a really informative video! I really liked how you called out specific reasonings as to how we got here today. I look forward to your next video!
And in the Phoenix area, I think Baseline Road (Phoenix/Tempe/Mesa/Gilbert/Apache Junction) and Meridian Avenue (Mesa/Apache Junction) were named after those survey lines.
Howdy Rob, my apology, but I didn’t know where else I could shoot you this suggestion. I would be greatly interested if you did a video exploring cycling more. I want alternative transportation to develop further and bring America out of its car craze its plagued with. Personally, I cycled 14 miles a day (both ways) to school growing up and continued cycling my first 3 years of adulthood to work (still about 7 miles one way). I did this in an urban Texas City and after my time on two wheels getting rained on and hit multiple times I can’t say that I recommend it, but I think a deep dive might really give people a more detailed perspective on the complexities of transit. Keep up the good work!
The point of Insurance/Tags/Insurance is to pay for road damage cars cause - bikes contribute nearly nothing to road damage. Having bikes adhere to the same laws is flawed because they are inherently different vehicles than motor vehicles of any kind as they accelerate differently - rules are about safety and having bikes adhere to the same rules will lead to increased traffic deaths. Anyway, more bikes are great for drivers, they can take up less than a lane, and relive several lanes of traffic.
@Kelly Penrod there is a reason why cyclist drive wide. In Germany there is the rule to drive like 3-4 feet from the curb and to be overtaken with like 5 foot of distance to you. And contrary to you belive, that it is easier to overtake 20 cyclists in a row, you would have to move a little to the left lane and overtake them over a long stretch. Now Imagine, there is a pothole. The cyclists will swerve. And they are in front of your car, but you're going to fast to stop now. And since you haven't fully moved over you have something to the left of you. And you have to do that 20 times. Now Imagine the same thing but with 4 or 5 cyclists next to eachother. You have to move one lane over. That slowes you down a little, but you would have to do that if you wanted to keep a safe distance to the cyclist anyway. Now imagine the pothole, the formation of cyclists will somewhat squish, but stay in its lane. And sou only have to pass 4 or 5 rows of cyclists. Making the passing shorter. But that is only whree Cars and Bikes mix. If you have dedicated cycling paths those distances get lower, because speed difference is lower, and a car hitting a cyclist, ist rally bad news for the cyclist. For the car it is just a inconvinience. nd cyclists have ro adhere to almost the same traffic laws in Germany. There are some that are slightly different, there are some, which are only there for cars, and there are some that are only there for bikes. Just look at the Netherlands. They have more cyclists than any other Nation. The cyclists don't have tags, thry don't have any special insurance, they have traffic laws for bikes. The whole thing is financed through taxes. Because infrastructure for cars is like 10 to 100 times more expensive, than for bikes. As well as lasting longer and needing lesser maintenance. And they don't have a problem with broken of mirrors, that hurts a cyclist, and i don't know a cyclist who would much rather destroy someones mirror, than to carry on driving unharmed. Same with the scratches. That is a easy way to throw yourself of your bike and is something which is way less common, than you think.
@Kelly Penrod Yes i don't know every roadlaw from the USA. But that doesn't mean, that my Argument is just plain wrong. Laws follow mostly the same principle everywhere. The first law of roadtraffic in Germany is: Don't behave in such a way, that you endanger others. I guess, that the USA has something very similar. That means: Don't overtake to closely, don't drive too fast, etc. That means: If you overtake a cyclist inside your lane, then you more often than not endanger him, if there is no space to his right. Meaning you can't feasibly overtake. If you add in a group of which are all cycling behind eachother and a semi in the opposing traffic, then you are stuck between the cyclists and the truck. No space left, no space right. But on the right, there is a human beeing wirhout a metric ton of metal protecting his flesh like you are in your car.
Cyclists take up a full lane for safety. Too often bikers get knocked down by cars who _thought_ they had enough clearance from a driver sitting on the far end of their vehicle. Plus the curbmost part of the road are usually full of drainage hazards and gravel kicked over from four-wheelers, any of which could make the cyclist spill over sideways with their head probably going right into the track of a passing car. Then there's other policies that don't make sense for cycling, like full and complete stops due to the amount of effort required to get going again (it's not just a light tap of the gas) and despite having completely unobstructed visibility compared to inside a car. Or having to wait for a green light which would never trigger from insensitive signal sensors. Or mandating liability insurance for a vehicle that in a collision causes far less damage than the rider themselves. Perhaps spend some time pedaling on public roads and you'll see how following your idea of "proper" road usage actually leaves you frustrated if not physically vulnerable, and you start bending the rules to something more rational.
Another thing worth mentioning for California specifically is Prop 13. The cap on absolute property tax increases distorts the housing market by (a) making it possible for residential landowners to benefit from land value appreciation, even if they make no improvements, without paying increased taxes, (b) makes them reluctant to sell because any new place they buy will have a tax rate matching the house’s current value, and (c) disadvantages new buyers for the same reason, since they have to pay more taxes than current owners.
The reality of this situation is that NIMBYs don't care about poor or young people and the government needs to tell them to shove it otherwise nothing will change. Common sense zoning for higher density and better public transport would have prevented these problems and is the only way to solve them. Also its always more expensive to go back and try to fix something rather then build it right in the first place, so we have no choice but to massively overpay to fix it.
The middle housing is missing. It’s all single family homes. Some people can’t afford that. You need small apartment building ls within the suburbs. Not just all single family homes
One of the other components that isn't transportation related is the ability of real estate capital to travel around the world without very little impediment. Someone in south east Asia can easily buy investment properties in North America and vice versa without much problem (at least comparatively to earlier generations). I just found this channel and I hope you keep making more, its great content!
This was amazing! I'm glad I found this channel. I hope he does a real deep dive into "2008 Market Crash". A commonly stated by somewhat deceitful statement that always comes up around that crisis is that "people took out home loans they couldn't afford" or "Banks loaned money to people they should not have" that narrative is largely incomplete and makes the situation seem less complicated than it really was, and sometimes that really messes up the points the nation should have taken away from it.
The second video link isn’t working on mobile, can you toss it into your description and let me know when it’s ready to be found? Also, the end bit, starting @15:52, reminds me a lot of the battle that took place in the town i live over some apartments being built a few years back. The battle was over, “reduced property values,” from the apartments being a, “sort sight to look at,” and, “the increased traffic it will bring.” The apartment complex was approved and went up anyways. IMO, it’s probably one of the best located apartment complexes in this small town now. it’s down the street from the local shops and those are directly off of highway access. it puts all of those people onto the highway quicker and easier, while keeping them off of longer stretches of smaller feeder road networks to reach the same destination. People seem to forget that density goes high > med > low when it comes to highway access. Being the first to do something doesn’t always mean you’ll get grandfathered in to a super sweet deal at the end.
Over in Japan, and increasingly over here in Australia, and I believe also increasingly in the US, density also goes high > med > low with rail transport access.
It's happens everywhere, not only in the US. In Germany everyone wants to live in Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne and Frankfurt am Main, in Sweden everyone wants to live in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö, in Australia everyone wants to live in Sydney and Melbourne, in Russia everyone wants to live in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Even in very small countries everyone wants to live in capital cities which get more and more expensive.
Yes, NIMBYism is why in-filling isn't helping much. However, there are no neighbors to object to development if they could only find a way to breach the Green Belt for green-field developments. The goal of modern urban development should be to push jobs and housing to these new areas so the workers of those jobs can find affordable housing right near the jobs, this produces short commutes and less road utilization.
I used to rail against home ownership. I'd pat myself on the back when I'd spend half as much a month on rent, could move every year if I want, didn't have to pay taxes or repairs, and didn't have to worry about maintenance. And then I inherited a 3/2 on 4 acres from my grandmother that's paid for. All I have to do is pay the home owners' insurance and property taxes once a year. I gotta say, maintenance and repairs notwithstanding, it's pretty nice to say "my house" and mean it. But, I didn't spend 40 years paying it off. It was given to me. This is the only way I'd ever recommend owning a house. If it's free. lol.
Try living and working in a tourist area that has been decimated by AirBnB. I've lived in Clear Creek County Colorado for almost 10 years, and watched home prices triple or more, and rental costs more then double in that time. AirBnB has removed most of the housing options from my county, creating an artificial shortage of supply, and a big jump up in price, regardless of renting or buying. Meanwhile AirBnB owners have no reason to sell or rent, not when they can charge a months mortgage for a weekend stay. The County has done NOTHING to seriously assist locals who actually keep the tourist industry going. Sure they build some new, cramped, so called "affordable" apartments now and then, and then allow owners to price them based on average rents, not based on what actual people who live and work in the county make. I make a lot for the county, being at the same job almost 10 years, and I still spend about 55% of the household income on housing alone. And we only rent, because unless you have half a million, you can't buy a 1 room shack. I remember a town meeting in Silver Plume when the town Mayor was trying to pass an ordiance limiting AirBnB's, regulating how they operated, and two AirBnB owners claimed, in a town meeting, that AirBnB's had zero impact on housing supply. They literally lied, the town board caved to them (they didnt even live in Silver Plume, they lived in Denver therefore were not locals), and the ordinance failed. Then the town let THEM write a new ordinance. They let the foxes build the freaking henhouse.
It is not only access to the city. Another problem is that many Central banks decreases interest rates and funneled record sums of new money into the market to prevent market collapses. This money keeps getting mainly on piles of those who have already much. As there is not enough investment opportunity for this money they go into real estate. People willing to pay much for houses in the hope they will find a tenant paying $3,000 a month or increasing prices in the future to sell the real estate again. That is what is happening in all metro areas.
Love your vids, Rob, all the way from AUS! Keep it up. We got more or less the same problems with housing affordability because of the same reasons, especially in Sydney. It's awful
SOAPBOX OF PEDANTRY: Las Vegas is sloppy, but so too are parts of Phoenix. The PLSS grid struggles to deal with the realities of being on a round earth, and not a Mercator projection. Therefore, the meridian lines sometimes have to jut and shift awkwardly to accommodate the (mostly) 36sqmi survey townships, lest they converge to nothingness at the higher latitudes. Imagine a U.S. survey township at the north pole! Therefore the grids are far from perfect and road alignments need to be shifted to account for this. In the very screenshot you show representing Phoenix (showing Tempe/Chandler/Mesa, etc.) the street grid shifts abruptly when you go north/south of the appropriately named Baseline Road! It's noticeable as a gentle yet short bend to realign with the survey grid, which is about 1/8 mile misaligned south of Baseline Road. Arguably much better than the long, slanted mess of Vegas streets, but Phoenix has those as well - check out some of the heinous gridwork in the west valley! Thanks for letting me be a pedantic prick!
Yeah... one of the problems I have is that the costs for a condo is nearly the same for a single family home in my neck of the woods (SD). I was always told to get an older home in a more remote neighborhood since "older homes are starter homes", but for the last 5 years nearly every single one of those "starter" homes have been used to "start" someone's foray into owning rental property. Those home happen to be the ones that cost the same as a condo... but the person buying it isn't living there. 😡 As much as I hate to say it: Prop 13 shouldn't apply to people that use these homes as a revenue generator. So many of these homes are someone who got into the game early, paid their mortgage off (or got in early enough to pay a song for the mortgage) and then began to rent them out to then upgrade to a larger home themselves. It let grandma keep her home and get another....instead of grandma staying in her home because she was able to afford her taxes. :/ The lack supply of property to own is what is raising all these prices. Condos and the like aren't attractive enough (pricewise) for me to buy into.
I think some people need to start rebuilding small town America towns but keep them somewhat small. Breathe life into places it’s needed but don’t go in to change the place, better it with the locals. Most live in these towns for the same reason as you would, to avoid other people. Anyways, self reliance, homesteading out in the hills, may not be a bad thing for people, go back to our roots, better survivalists and more knowledgeable on practical things, with space to grow.
Baloney! Most of America is empty space. It's time to reinvent, not outlaw the suburbs. When taxes, permits and fees go north of $125K per unit, not including the recently mandated solar installation on all new construction, it's no wonder people can't afford a home. As soon as government realizes that it's the problem, all discussion about affordable housing stops.
No, it's mostly NIMBY incumbent homeowners that collude to suppress the housing supply where it's actually wanted. It's fundamentally an excess demand issue; even China has a huge issue trying to get people away from the coasts into its _really_ empty western half, despite having none of the bureaucratic impediments. For California, the units still sell once up for sale despite all the markups, further inflated by often corporate ownership who controls the release of properties to ensure that low availability leads to high prices. One of America's biggest competitive advantages is in a largely unspoiled environment, sometimes made official as a National Park or Forest, providing enormous amounts of lumber, tourism, green space, and biodiversity that can be readily studies and potentially exploited.
@@doujinflip You haven't addressed the affordability issue. I live in socal, anyone can build a house for $600K but very few people could afford it. Take the 125K I mentioned, add 30K for the mandated solar system you have 155K. Add 150K for the lot (that's cheap) and 125K to build a decent house, you arrive at $430K as a minimum.
I recall reading an article about the big auto companies in the US buying up all the streetcar and bus companies to put them out of business and increase demand for cars. Also there was a minor contributor to turning to cars by the military who wanted a large population of motorised young men to fill vacancies in the military with already trained drivers which you would not get in a population mostly dependent on public transport. The fact that the government could readily tax these cars and the fuel they used also helped in the mass adoption of cars for transport.
To add. The first modern suburbs were built by people who had gained experience in mass produced construction during WW2. Bill Levitt of Levittown fame had become an expert in building airstrips and facilities in the S. Pacific using modular, mass produced and uniform parts, and brought that idea to home construction.
Where I grew up, there was an intense battle over what to do with a 35 acre plot of land that has been abandoned since the 1990's. A mall, a mixed use residential/office space, and now, an Amazon warehouse. I remember hearing about it in the late 90's while still in high school. I've basically heard the same argument over, and over, and over again: traffic, congestion, it will ruin the neighborhood, and ruin the aesthetics. But recently, I've heard one more thing: overcrowding of the school system. The second problem, besides this, is the fact that people involved in the construction industry wants profit over everything else, so that luxury housing are almost always the first things being built here. All of this while price of housing has continuously gone up and up and up and people have been moving out to cheaper cities and towns. Honestly, it's rather disappointing, mainly because affordable housing is becoming extinct in my area. You're absolutely right; the dream of owning a home is something that we will bury until we change this attitude of "Not here, not ever."
None of these people mentioned the real problem with adding more housing in a lot of these places. They already have water shortages and adding more houses will increase the population, which will increase the demand for water.
Where I live it's zoned R2 so developers are tearing down the run down WW2 houses and putting two on a lot. Its a slow process but eventually infill will happen.
I wish I could remember the name of it, but I watched a documentary once that discussed how the discrimination of where blacks could live, and how police were biased against them created the environment for neighborhoods like Compton to form.
Known as redlining, the practice was used to create separate neighbourhoods for the different races. I only found out about this after the Floyd murder.
Some states still do this, especially in the Midwest. Just look at the economic disparity in Cincinnati, Columbus, Detroit, hell even Chicago. Most of the cities also have housing market caps and extremely rigid zoning laws. It's a pain in the ass doing any kind of new construction in ANY of these cities because of that.
The Interstate Highway System is AKA the National Defense Highway System. I'm from Hawaii and yes, we have Interstate highways there, the H1, H2, and H3. This baffles visitors, since you can't really drive to any other state on them. BUT .... what they DO do, is connect our various major military bases. They all go from one major base to another major base. I think the system got named the Interstate because after WWII there was a big movement to go on car tours, "see the USA in your Chevrolet" and all that, and driving to another state was an enticing idea so calling it the Interstate was a good PR move.
I just have to comment to say this video is so well made; thank you for making it. I was ignorant to a lot of these things, or at least I didn't make sense of it all the way you have. I took history classes in school but somehow I feel like this video was more useful to me than much of what I was taught. More people need to see this. I wasn't a fan of work from home but perhaps it would help solve at least some of these ever growing problems.
With the laws of supply and demand, the idea that we will supply what is demanded didn't account for lack of ability to afford and the fact that supplies ran dry because we have no where else to build so demand is even higher than it should be
I just recently found your channel and I'm hooked. The quality of the information, the delivery and the editing is professional TV like. Please, keep them coming!
Yes, Phoenix here. And all major streets are 1 miles apart and all neighborhood trunks are 1/2 miles. You can go anywhere just knowing the address since it's a perfect grid!
I'm a good bit above the average American worker and the best I could afford near me for 6000 work hours is an old condo in need of work. Houses in need of work start around 7900, and a house good to go starts around 9200 hours. We're talking basic 2 bed 1.5 bath 1100-1200 sq/ft here.
It would be better to double the price of the 1960's house to get a fair comparison in size alone. If you do that a $15,100 house in 1960 is worth $132,751.96 and doubled that is $265,503.92 which of course does not account for the higher valuation of the land the house is built on. Interestingly if you look at the rest of the American Southwest, such as Nevada or Arizona where they share a booming and rapidly developing economy similar to California, and this 265k price is actually fairly in line with their actual house prices. The fact that labor and wages are devalued relative to back then is an issue of the pool of labor being over-saturated with workers. If you're not in an industry where people are on some occasions actively soliciting you for work, you're likely in an over-saturated pool of laborers where employers could replace you with someone else There's a higher demand to live around the same area in California than there was in the 1960s. Now those same areas people are interested in are more built up and provide more services and more value to the people living in the area than it did before. People in 1960 did not have the degree of things/goods/services/infrastructure available to someone who lives there now, not just out of technological advancement but from even more development within the desirable areas. Again, if you consider a smaller town in in the American Southwest, the opportunity for an American dream is still there. No one in the 1960's would advocate that you could have it all in a highly developed and desirable Manhattan without a very nice job and just the same today no one would advocate that you could make it in a highly developed and desirable California. You can, however, on $20/hr (below median rate of $24.80) make $3k in monthly take home pay after taxes and healthily afford 1/4 of the after tax income for $750 monthly 30 year mortgage on a 1300 square foot $150k Las Vegas house and have enough for a used car, groceries, utilities, savings, etc. It's also interesting how you do look at smaller houses that are far away as affordable but make a comedic effort of the neighborhood being run down. Back then the people moving TO California were able to make their neighborhoods work - I wonder why the people moving to these neighborhoods are unable to make as nice of a neighborhood as those Californians back then? You also cite lending practices being different and racist from then and now. One could almost make the inference from your video that if it were not for the changes in lending practices there might be more affordable "nice" neighborhoods due to less demand (because of less qualified buyers) and I guess that would mean less people that leave their large dogs to bark outside and not take care of their yard who would otherwise, it seems, be living in an apartment.
(I should be asleep) I find jt kinda interesting how I subscribed to "Road Guy" and end up with both a historian and alarmist. Not that I'm complaining, RGR is certainly one of the most underappreciated TH-cam channels out there.
One place where homes aren't increasing in value is Rochester, NY where I grew up. My mom still lives there, and her house was recently appraised for $30k *less* than her and my dad (RIP) paid for it 26 years ago. Mainly because no one wants to live in Upstate NY anymore (myself included, I left 20 years ago)
This reminds me of a quote from a documentary on the Mountain men in the Appalachians. “We didn’t know we where impoverished until the government told us we were”. I hope to get back to a country home soon away from cities and suburbs. Screw these over priced cities traffic and the annoyances.
I live in a rurL part of the country and people are buying houses out here in the middle of no where because they can work from anywhere. I on the other hand can't. Now housing prices is sky rocketing and becoming even more unaffordable than it was just a year ago.
17:58 I hope that can be the solution. Right now in ignorance Elon Musk is busy calling employees "lazy dogs" and trying to get them back into the office. Google is trying to get employees to come in every week....
Your videos rank way up there Rob, are informative, fascinating, and are great storytelling; you deserve to have many more subscribers. They will come.
Increasing home prices and increased demand (high prices) for new development reflects booming personal wealth... The people who want the development to stop can either buy that land and leave it undeveloped or they can shut up and deal with it.
14:36 you shouldn’t ignore the government’s role in creating the mandatory loans for people who could never pay them back. It’s not just wall streets fault. Earlier in the video you discuss how banks we bad for discriminating against people who they felt couldn’t pay their loans back but that precicely how we got into the second worst financial trouble in the nations history
What will happen to society if so many people are working from home, getting everything delivered by Amazon? Will people feel interconnected enough to justify paying any taxes at all?
Old Folks: "I don't want any new development."
The same Old Folks: "When are you going to give me grandkids?"
Lol
Boomers invested all their wealth into a single asset (homes), so instead of weathering the market or diversifying, they petitioned the state to restrict supply (anti-development). At the same time, all the services they wanted were too expensive, so they petitioned the state again to depress wages by expanding the labor supply (mass immigration). Now their children and grandchildren are competing in a flooded labor market to afford homes they'll never be able to buy, and all those aging Boomers will completely bankrupt the Social Security system. At the very least they can die alone in a shoddy retirement home surrounded by all the baubles and cheap foreign labor their materialist lifestyle could want.
@@Schlabbeflicker well explained
@@Schlabbeflicker You must either work in the government or academia. No one else thinks that way.
@@SteviePaints no. I doubt that's true, you cannot speak for "everyone else". Maybe you refuse to see it because you are part of that group.
My grandpa bought a house in the suburbs, new construction in 1954 for $11,000. Imagine buying a brand new house at 27 with a normal job and without a high school diploma.
You could get 4 corvettes for the same price at the time.
@@jamestucker8088 ... I'm assuming you mean a type of car there, small warships seem like they'd be more expensive than that :p
Bruh.... they made 7-13 cents an hour. Top dollar at the ol’mans lumber mill was $7 a day.
James Tucker 11k - 4 corvettes? Damn inflation really is a thing.
@@boundarysentinel4181 The minimum wage in 1954 was 75 cents an hour. Either you are lying or too stupid to use Google.
I noticed something in the last clip with all the people complaining about developing their areas. They are from a generation that could afford a house working a single job. Not the later Generation that has to work 2 or more just to rent a single bedroom apartment.
I thought the same thing. Same generation and thought process.
And you're from a generation that has the opportunity to literally work from anywhere, if you can just get over living in "the country."
You mean a single bedroom (or couch, even balcony) in someone else’s cramped apartment?
@@joez.2794 you can’t get fast enough internet “in the country” to work from home. Cell phone signals are important for that too (working from home). So if there’s no cell service and crappy to no internet, those people can’t work from home.
@@cynicalcindy1434 It's 2022, not 2002, kiddo Most rural areas have plenty of high-speed Internet options and decent cell service. What they usually don't have, however, is avocado toast. You'll have to learn to make that yourself.
this video has the same vibe as the ones teachers would show in grade school when they didnt feel like teaching and for that i love it
"It was the couldn't afford part, the demand was still real"
I wish people understood this. I wish people stopped treating housing as a way to make money off of people, and actually as a basic human need.
But that would be Socialism! You know why the Russians didn't all kill each other off in a bloody internal war when the USSR fell? Because nobody owned their housing - it was gov't assigned as a human need. So no one was thrown out of their houses into the snow, and if they were like the USA where everyone would just get thrown out, there's be massacres in the street - it would literally be eat the rich time.
That's an oversimplification.
It is an oversimplification however this person is making a important statement.
@@camrenmugabe3062 yep greed is ruining everything in this world
Yes.
Y'know, if you'd build more five-over-ones (AKA podium buildings) in the suburbs, you could sell apartments in those for affordable prices, increase population density and reduce travel times because everything is closer together. Put some bakeries, grocery stores and restaurants in the ground floor, give them a nice, broad sidewalk with trees, dedicated bike lanes and a park nearby and you have a pretty nice neighbourhood.
Careful now, the Americans might panic if you suggest a European city
@@agonzgonzalez7748 🤫
It’s 2024 and they’ve built unlimited 5 over 1s in the suburbs. Now the whole country is a 5 over 1 and rent still has the audacity to be $2000 for a studio in a suburb 40 minutes from the city. This is in every city in America except NY, LA, SF, BOSTON and SEATTLE which are obviously twice the price for a studio in the suburbs 🥲
it's a nice plan, but the problem is lack of ownership. 5 over 1's are rental property, and the buildings are owned by big property investors, so the price of rent is high, and the tenants don't build equity and savings.
NIMBY: "NO MORE HOUSES!"
Homeless: 👍
NIMBY: "Oh, oh no! OH NO!"
I don't got it
Accurate
@@snoopyloopy We're about to get tens of millions of new homeless too. And while there's always going to be a base level of homeless, druggies, mentally ill, just dysfunctional people, these new millions are going to be normal people who got fucked over by capitalism (look at how much richer the oligarchs have become over the last few months) and they're going to be competent, and angry.
@@alexcarter8807 Are they gonna be angry that they were rolled over by their system?(capitalism) or because they knew what was coming and did nothing to stop it while it happened in slow motion in plain view?
I felt like just as the video was going to touch on one of the most.. touchiest issues, it's over.
I have this strange compulsion to learn about highway interactions, and this channel will forever be the best way to scratch that itch.
You would enjoy Death Stranding.
Play Cities Skylines
Incredible video as always really reminiscent of the quality discovery and history channel content back in their golden ages for me. Thanks man!
This is how I wish people would make YT videos.
Honestly, you've probably heard it before, but curiosity stream is really good with this kind of stuff.
I paid under 200k for my house, now the area starts at 600k, i wouldn't be able to afford that
You also benefit from prop 13, which isn't mentioned at all in this video.
It is nearly impossible to afford your first home in an established career outside of college. Now that remote working is being seen as more viable, this will do wonders for the housing market and is going to put pressure back on companies to be more competitive in their salaries nationally. Give me gigabit internet and a place to get food and I’d be fine living just about anywhere - given I can still reach the other branches of my family which all live here in the KC area.
@@RyanValizan Companies will lower the salaries, but this is not going to solve the housing crisis. Working from home significantly reduces the productivity of employees. So employers will still demand employees coming to the office, but then like min. 50% of the time. In this way employees are still being forced to live close to the office which means the housing crisis will still be a thing in the future. The roads are quite calm now, but that's always the case when capacity is increased by widening the road or when white collar people works less in the office. Unfortunately, the law of induced demand will make sure those roads will be clogged again within like 3 years. The only way to tackle that issue is building (safe) bicycle infrastructure the Dutch way to at least have an opportunity to circumvent gridlock.
@@hendrikdependrik1891 Dutch safe cycling infrastructure with more missing middle housing and mixed use zoning. People don’t realize everywhere doesn’t have to be Manhattan when people talk about density
@@RyanValizan a gigabite,
I crie with my 5kbs :'(
I live in the suburbs but work in a rural area. It's great, I am going the opposite way of all the traffic both to and from work.
I live on the edge of the city and work in the same neighborhood I live in. It’s nice. Half the time I ride an electric scooter to work.
I also go against the traffic flow to and from work(most of the route anyways). Its great.
Well here in houston living in Katie going into the city there is traffic both ways where do you guys live
@@dark12ain I thought the West Houston suburb was called Katy. I live on the east side of Phoenix in the lower end of Arcadia.
@@danieldaniels7571 I10 is what I drive on
work 3 years to pay a house by yourself? damn that would be great
That's not how that works. You would still have all your other expenses for those three years. You can only ever use about 25% of your salary for housing costs. Everything else goes to taxes, food, transportation, and a bunch of other bills, with a little left over in savings if you are lucky.
@@mirzaahmed6589 Obviously the loan might've not been necessarily paid in 3 years back then but the point that Endjo was trying to make was that it would be nice if we didn't have to dedicate basically 40 years of our lives just trying to pay off the loan for our house.
I love your videos Rob. You’re so underrated and deserve so many more views! Keep making these awesome videos! 👍🏼
Couldn’t agree more.
A young clawboss prior to becoming popular.
I looked up in Zillow one of the houses I grew up in. It's in Costa mesa, Orange County. My father sold it in 1966 for $14K. I see that it's now worth $1.6 million. It's worth 114 times what he sold it for 54 years ago.
Good God that is insane
That's 114 times, not 1143 times.
Beat me to it, was writing a similar story.
As a home builder. People are scurrying to smaller towns. And business is booming. I’ve had to turn down 3 jobs and have work for the next 2 years at least.
it will all burst just like 2008 the population is on credit
The country is dying. You're only seeing the top income brackets doing anything.
"Any escape might help smooth the unattractive truth, but the suburbs have no charms to sooth the restless dreams of youth..."
-Rush, Subdivisions...
this video is quite possibly one of the best explanations of the American middle class mindset and all the complicated, related factors. I would’ve never thought to trace this back to the Homestead act, but it makes perfect sense
This guy does a better job than a lot of my college professors did
Thank you for telling the truth about home ownership and the real history. Some people still think a certain group of people had the “same” opportunities, but where just lazy. It’s never as simple as that. Even tho he had no malice and was genuinely ignorant. He still refused to listen to the facts. Videos like this slowly teaches the truth.
I sit here, watching this in my 430 square foot apartment in Boston....
This is easily your best video yet Rob! Great production and flow. The writing felt compact and informational, but still very understandable and the editing was really good too. Honestly this is just about TV quality. Thanks a ton!!
Excellent documentary, Rob! Well researched and very informative!
A big problem driving up rent prices in Vegas is the corporate property owners. When the market crashed, these corporations swooped into Vegas and bought all the properties they could for pennies on the dollar. Many of these properties sat vacant for years because these corporations didn't want them occupied. By taking these properties off the market, they were able to artificially decrease supply as demand rose from people moving here from California. This is why home prices and rents in Vegas have been going up steadily for a few years now. So, you have housing prices artificially high as these corporate owners slowly put these vacant homes on the market and you also have rents artificially high because you have a handful of corporations that own a huge percentage of the rental properties which allows them to set whatever price they want.
And yet people who clamor for higher-density housing plug their ears & scream "LALALA" when you tell them just who is developing these housing units. These corporations have consistently proven that they're only interested in luxury units, and will gleefully let them sit vacant for eons until someone can afford them. They point at the boomers and say it's their fault when developers are the ones artificially decreasing available housing. I'm fact, I'm convinced that the shift of blame on to the boomers is a smear campaign by these companies, like how they try to shift the responsibility of recycling on to the individual when they're creating more waste than every citizen combined. It's only a matter of time before companies like Blackrock buy up literally all the land available and create modern-day feudalism.
@@somebonehead who do you think owns Blackrock? Boomers.
@@someboneheadBlackRock and those other groups consistently cite the restrictions on new development as a reason to buy up the homes. They legally have to disclose that stuff to investors.
This made me remember those California City (Kern County) & California Pines (Modoc County) infomercials from the 90s.
Those were just big ponzi schemes.
You can still buy a house in California City pretty cheap. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to live there, though.
California City technically still exists and I wouldn't be surprised if the pandemic response pushes more people out there if they can work from home most days.
@@snoopyloopy Well california city is a booming city mostly due to the fact their is a lot of flat land to develop
Man what a great video, I don't even live in the US but this helps me understand a lot of things. Thanks and please keep them coming ❤️❤️❤️
Our home was 60k, now 450k. But it was underwater for some years due to equity loans they passed out and then values went down all at once by 1/3.
Nearly complete lack of middle density development over the past 70 years has really screwed us over.
This is the whole reason I became a contractor, just get into some sort of trade whatever one you enjoy... You will always find work because there is always construction going on, or things need fixing.whether it's out of town or in the middle of town... You can live pretty much wherever you want.. and pull in $30-70/hr
It's the reason I'm still holding on to my father contracting business after his passing. Family wonder why I just don't look for a different job that pay higher more frequently. The same family members that often question if their job will still be there tomorrow or have to jump from job to job because they are losing hours while I'm finding consistent work because my skill set is in short supply and high demand.
I have often discussed this with builder friends of mine and the really important thing to do is learn how to price a job properly and get stage payments on big or expensive work. Like cops and pilots and firefighters, builders have to retire early and may suffer job related injuries more readily than office workers. That is why their life insurance and injury cover are higher than most jobs. It is also very important to have a variety of income sources from various property management companies or owners and to set up a network of likeminded people in order to get work in the lean times and share out work to others in the busy times.
Doesn’t work if you don’t have any of those skills though.
This was a really informative video! I really liked how you called out specific reasonings as to how we got here today. I look forward to your next video!
That is the clearest prediction of the next 10 years that I have ever seen. wow.
Suburbs aren't even financially sustainable.
And in the Phoenix area, I think Baseline Road (Phoenix/Tempe/Mesa/Gilbert/Apache Junction) and Meridian Avenue (Mesa/Apache Junction) were named after those survey lines.
Suburbs actually predate highways and automobiles. The first ones were based on rail transit.
Yeah, but they were few in number, and extremely expensive. Think Philadelphia's Main Line suburbs.
Probably not with a 55/45 ratio of garden - house.
@@Angel24Marin My point is that the problem is not suburbs per se, but rather the way we build suburbs.
@@davidbarts6144 I agree. We should have a mix of our car dependent suburbs with some walkable and transit oriented suburban neighborhoods.
Howdy Rob, my apology, but I didn’t know where else I could shoot you this suggestion. I would be greatly interested if you did a video exploring cycling more. I want alternative transportation to develop further and bring America out of its car craze its plagued with. Personally, I cycled 14 miles a day (both ways) to school growing up and continued cycling my first 3 years of adulthood to work (still about 7 miles one way). I did this in an urban Texas City and after my time on two wheels getting rained on and hit multiple times I can’t say that I recommend it, but I think a deep dive might really give people a more detailed perspective on the complexities of transit. Keep up the good work!
Austin D I second this. A video about sprawl in America would be great.
The point of Insurance/Tags/Insurance is to pay for road damage cars cause - bikes contribute nearly nothing to road damage. Having bikes adhere to the same laws is flawed because they are inherently different vehicles than motor vehicles of any kind as they accelerate differently - rules are about safety and having bikes adhere to the same rules will lead to increased traffic deaths. Anyway, more bikes are great for drivers, they can take up less than a lane, and relive several lanes of traffic.
@Kelly Penrod there is a reason why cyclist drive wide.
In Germany there is the rule to drive like 3-4 feet from the curb and to be overtaken with like 5 foot of distance to you.
And contrary to you belive, that it is easier to overtake 20 cyclists in a row, you would have to move a little to the left lane and overtake them over a long stretch. Now Imagine, there is a pothole. The cyclists will swerve. And they are in front of your car, but you're going to fast to stop now. And since you haven't fully moved over you have something to the left of you. And you have to do that 20 times.
Now Imagine the same thing but with 4 or 5 cyclists next to eachother.
You have to move one lane over. That slowes you down a little, but you would have to do that if you wanted to keep a safe distance to the cyclist anyway.
Now imagine the pothole, the formation of cyclists will somewhat squish, but stay in its lane. And sou only have to pass 4 or 5 rows of cyclists. Making the passing shorter.
But that is only whree Cars and Bikes mix.
If you have dedicated cycling paths those distances get lower, because speed difference is lower, and a car hitting a cyclist, ist rally bad news for the cyclist. For the car it is just a inconvinience.
nd cyclists have ro adhere to almost the same traffic laws in Germany.
There are some that are slightly different, there are some, which are only there for cars, and there are some that are only there for bikes.
Just look at the Netherlands.
They have more cyclists than any other Nation.
The cyclists don't have tags, thry don't have any special insurance, they have traffic laws for bikes.
The whole thing is financed through taxes.
Because infrastructure for cars is like 10 to 100 times more expensive, than for bikes.
As well as lasting longer and needing lesser maintenance.
And they don't have a problem with broken of mirrors, that hurts a cyclist, and i don't know a cyclist who would much rather destroy someones mirror, than to carry on driving unharmed.
Same with the scratches. That is a easy way to throw yourself of your bike and is something which is way less common, than you think.
@Kelly Penrod Yes i don't know every roadlaw from the USA. But that doesn't mean, that my Argument is just plain wrong.
Laws follow mostly the same principle everywhere.
The first law of roadtraffic in Germany is:
Don't behave in such a way, that you endanger others.
I guess, that the USA has something very similar.
That means:
Don't overtake to closely, don't drive too fast, etc.
That means:
If you overtake a cyclist inside your lane, then you more often than not endanger him, if there is no space to his right.
Meaning you can't feasibly overtake.
If you add in a group of which are all cycling behind eachother and a semi in the opposing traffic, then you are stuck between the cyclists and the truck. No space left, no space right.
But on the right, there is a human beeing wirhout a metric ton of metal protecting his flesh like you are in your car.
Cyclists take up a full lane for safety. Too often bikers get knocked down by cars who _thought_ they had enough clearance from a driver sitting on the far end of their vehicle. Plus the curbmost part of the road are usually full of drainage hazards and gravel kicked over from four-wheelers, any of which could make the cyclist spill over sideways with their head probably going right into the track of a passing car.
Then there's other policies that don't make sense for cycling, like full and complete stops due to the amount of effort required to get going again (it's not just a light tap of the gas) and despite having completely unobstructed visibility compared to inside a car. Or having to wait for a green light which would never trigger from insensitive signal sensors. Or mandating liability insurance for a vehicle that in a collision causes far less damage than the rider themselves.
Perhaps spend some time pedaling on public roads and you'll see how following your idea of "proper" road usage actually leaves you frustrated if not physically vulnerable, and you start bending the rules to something more rational.
Another thing worth mentioning for California specifically is Prop 13. The cap on absolute property tax increases distorts the housing market by (a) making it possible for residential landowners to benefit from land value appreciation, even if they make no improvements, without paying increased taxes, (b) makes them reluctant to sell because any new place they buy will have a tax rate matching the house’s current value, and (c) disadvantages new buyers for the same reason, since they have to pay more taxes than current owners.
The reality of this situation is that NIMBYs don't care about poor or young people and the government needs to tell them to shove it otherwise nothing will change. Common sense zoning for higher density and better public transport would have prevented these problems and is the only way to solve them. Also its always more expensive to go back and try to fix something rather then build it right in the first place, so we have no choice but to massively overpay to fix it.
Keep it up Rob and yes, you’re one of the channels that have notifications enabled on my smartphone.
The middle housing is missing. It’s all single family homes. Some people can’t afford that. You need small apartment building ls within the suburbs. Not just all single family homes
One of the other components that isn't transportation related is the ability of real estate capital to travel around the world without very little impediment. Someone in south east Asia can easily buy investment properties in North America and vice versa without much problem (at least comparatively to earlier generations). I just found this channel and I hope you keep making more, its great content!
Some states have tried starting making suburbs build apartments, such as Massachusetts
This was amazing! I'm glad I found this channel. I hope he does a real deep dive into "2008 Market Crash". A commonly stated by somewhat deceitful statement that always comes up around that crisis is that "people took out home loans they couldn't afford" or "Banks loaned money to people they should not have" that narrative is largely incomplete and makes the situation seem less complicated than it really was, and sometimes that really messes up the points the nation should have taken away from it.
this is an incredibly well written peice.
The second video link isn’t working on mobile, can you toss it into your description and let me know when it’s ready to be found?
Also, the end bit, starting @15:52, reminds me a lot of the battle that took place in the town i live over some apartments being built a few years back. The battle was over, “reduced property values,” from the apartments being a, “sort sight to look at,” and, “the increased traffic it will bring.” The apartment complex was approved and went up anyways. IMO, it’s probably one of the best located apartment complexes in this small town now. it’s down the street from the local shops and those are directly off of highway access. it puts all of those people onto the highway quicker and easier, while keeping them off of longer stretches of smaller feeder road networks to reach the same destination.
People seem to forget that density goes high > med > low when it comes to highway access. Being the first to do something doesn’t always mean you’ll get grandfathered in to a super sweet deal at the end.
Over in Japan, and increasingly over here in Australia, and I believe also increasingly in the US, density also goes high > med > low with rail transport access.
It's happens everywhere, not only in the US. In Germany everyone wants to live in Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne and Frankfurt am Main, in Sweden everyone wants to live in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö, in Australia everyone wants to live in Sydney and Melbourne, in Russia everyone wants to live in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Even in very small countries everyone wants to live in capital cities which get more and more expensive.
This channel is CRIMINALLY underrated, I really can’t stop watching
same; by making comments you help out his channel get boosted by the algorithm!
Yes, NIMBYism is why in-filling isn't helping much. However, there are no neighbors to object to development if they could only find a way to breach the Green Belt for green-field developments. The goal of modern urban development should be to push jobs and housing to these new areas so the workers of those jobs can find affordable housing right near the jobs, this produces short commutes and less road utilization.
Holy heck this is an incredible mini doc.
You’ve outdone yourself this time. Very good information and quality. And fourth phase: agreed.
I used to rail against home ownership. I'd pat myself on the back when I'd spend half as much a month on rent, could move every year if I want, didn't have to pay taxes or repairs, and didn't have to worry about maintenance. And then I inherited a 3/2 on 4 acres from my grandmother that's paid for. All I have to do is pay the home owners' insurance and property taxes once a year. I gotta say, maintenance and repairs notwithstanding, it's pretty nice to say "my house" and mean it. But, I didn't spend 40 years paying it off. It was given to me. This is the only way I'd ever recommend owning a house. If it's free. lol.
My god. I am Greek but this video helped me understand so much about USA.
Rob, it has taken me 60 years to find you and now I am very happy to be a subscriber to your channel. Thank You!
Try living and working in a tourist area that has been decimated by AirBnB. I've lived in Clear Creek County Colorado for almost 10 years, and watched home prices triple or more, and rental costs more then double in that time. AirBnB has removed most of the housing options from my county, creating an artificial shortage of supply, and a big jump up in price, regardless of renting or buying. Meanwhile AirBnB owners have no reason to sell or rent, not when they can charge a months mortgage for a weekend stay. The County has done NOTHING to seriously assist locals who actually keep the tourist industry going. Sure they build some new, cramped, so called "affordable" apartments now and then, and then allow owners to price them based on average rents, not based on what actual people who live and work in the county make. I make a lot for the county, being at the same job almost 10 years, and I still spend about 55% of the household income on housing alone. And we only rent, because unless you have half a million, you can't buy a 1 room shack. I remember a town meeting in Silver Plume when the town Mayor was trying to pass an ordiance limiting AirBnB's, regulating how they operated, and two AirBnB owners claimed, in a town meeting, that AirBnB's had zero impact on housing supply. They literally lied, the town board caved to them (they didnt even live in Silver Plume, they lived in Denver therefore were not locals), and the ordinance failed. Then the town let THEM write a new ordinance. They let the foxes build the freaking henhouse.
It is not only access to the city. Another problem is that many Central banks decreases interest rates and funneled record sums of new money into the market to prevent market collapses. This money keeps getting mainly on piles of those who have already much.
As there is not enough investment opportunity for this money they go into real estate. People willing to pay much for houses in the hope they will find a tenant paying $3,000 a month or increasing prices in the future to sell the real estate again.
That is what is happening in all metro areas.
Your best one yet Rob, this one deserves an award
Love your vids, Rob, all the way from AUS! Keep it up. We got more or less the same problems with housing affordability because of the same reasons, especially in Sydney. It's awful
What’s the hooker situation like down there?
This is a very informative and interesting video. I am at a cross road in my life and desperately needed to know this history. thank you
As always Rob, you know your stuff! Thanks for covering the homestead Act and the part of Sherman
SOAPBOX OF PEDANTRY: Las Vegas is sloppy, but so too are parts of Phoenix. The PLSS grid struggles to deal with the realities of being on a round earth, and not a Mercator projection. Therefore, the meridian lines sometimes have to jut and shift awkwardly to accommodate the (mostly) 36sqmi survey townships, lest they converge to nothingness at the higher latitudes. Imagine a U.S. survey township at the north pole!
Therefore the grids are far from perfect and road alignments need to be shifted to account for this. In the very screenshot you show representing Phoenix (showing Tempe/Chandler/Mesa, etc.) the street grid shifts abruptly when you go north/south of the appropriately named Baseline Road! It's noticeable as a gentle yet short bend to realign with the survey grid, which is about 1/8 mile misaligned south of Baseline Road. Arguably much better than the long, slanted mess of Vegas streets, but Phoenix has those as well - check out some of the heinous gridwork in the west valley!
Thanks for letting me be a pedantic prick!
Round Earth! What the hell kind of heresy is that?
George Carlin used to say that it's called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.
yup
Yeah... one of the problems I have is that the costs for a condo is nearly the same for a single family home in my neck of the woods (SD). I was always told to get an older home in a more remote neighborhood since "older homes are starter homes", but for the last 5 years nearly every single one of those "starter" homes have been used to "start" someone's foray into owning rental property. Those home happen to be the ones that cost the same as a condo... but the person buying it isn't living there. 😡
As much as I hate to say it: Prop 13 shouldn't apply to people that use these homes as a revenue generator. So many of these homes are someone who got into the game early, paid their mortgage off (or got in early enough to pay a song for the mortgage) and then began to rent them out to then upgrade to a larger home themselves. It let grandma keep her home and get another....instead of grandma staying in her home because she was able to afford her taxes. :/
The lack supply of property to own is what is raising all these prices. Condos and the like aren't attractive enough (pricewise) for me to buy into.
Our older yomes have gone to rentals also.
I think some people need to start rebuilding small town America towns but keep them somewhat small. Breathe life into places it’s needed but don’t go in to change the place, better it with the locals. Most live in these towns for the same reason as you would, to avoid other people. Anyways, self reliance, homesteading out in the hills, may not be a bad thing for people, go back to our roots, better survivalists and more knowledgeable on practical things, with space to grow.
Baloney! Most of America is empty space. It's time to reinvent, not outlaw the suburbs. When taxes, permits and fees go north of $125K per unit, not including the recently mandated solar installation on all new construction, it's no wonder people can't afford a home. As soon as government realizes that it's the problem, all discussion about affordable housing stops.
No, it's mostly NIMBY incumbent homeowners that collude to suppress the housing supply where it's actually wanted. It's fundamentally an excess demand issue; even China has a huge issue trying to get people away from the coasts into its _really_ empty western half, despite having none of the bureaucratic impediments. For California, the units still sell once up for sale despite all the markups, further inflated by often corporate ownership who controls the release of properties to ensure that low availability leads to high prices.
One of America's biggest competitive advantages is in a largely unspoiled environment, sometimes made official as a National Park or Forest, providing enormous amounts of lumber, tourism, green space, and biodiversity that can be readily studies and potentially exploited.
@@doujinflip You haven't addressed the affordability issue. I live in socal, anyone can build a house for $600K but very few people could afford it. Take the 125K I mentioned, add 30K for the mandated solar system you have 155K. Add 150K for the lot (that's cheap) and 125K to build a decent house, you arrive at $430K as a minimum.
@@doujinflip There are no NIMBYs left. They have all gone BANANAs. Not in my backyard has become “Build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone.”
I don't think the suburbs were a 'great idea.'
Cars are not a good way to get around when too many people are trying to do it.
I recall reading an article about the big auto companies in the US buying up all the streetcar and bus companies to put them out of business and increase demand for cars. Also there was a minor contributor to turning to cars by the military who wanted a large population of motorised young men to fill vacancies in the military with already trained drivers which you would not get in a population mostly dependent on public transport. The fact that the government could readily tax these cars and the fuel they used also helped in the mass adoption of cars for transport.
Literally the Bill Nye of roads, he deserves all the views and subs in the world
To add. The first modern suburbs were built by people who had gained experience in mass produced construction during WW2. Bill Levitt of Levittown fame had become an expert in building airstrips and facilities in the S. Pacific using modular, mass produced and uniform parts, and brought that idea to home construction.
Where I grew up, there was an intense battle over what to do with a 35 acre plot of land that has been abandoned since the 1990's. A mall, a mixed use residential/office space, and now, an Amazon warehouse.
I remember hearing about it in the late 90's while still in high school. I've basically heard the same argument over, and over, and over again: traffic, congestion, it will ruin the neighborhood, and ruin the aesthetics. But recently, I've heard one more thing: overcrowding of the school system. The second problem, besides this, is the fact that people involved in the construction industry wants profit over everything else, so that luxury housing are almost always the first things being built here.
All of this while price of housing has continuously gone up and up and up and people have been moving out to cheaper cities and towns. Honestly, it's rather disappointing, mainly because affordable housing is becoming extinct in my area. You're absolutely right; the dream of owning a home is something that we will bury until we change this attitude of "Not here, not ever."
This was great. I wish it was twice as long!
None of these people mentioned the real problem with adding more housing in a lot of these places. They already have water shortages and adding more houses will increase the population, which will increase the demand for water.
Where I live it's zoned R2 so developers are tearing down the run down WW2 houses and putting two on a lot. Its a slow process but eventually infill will happen.
I bought a house in the recession for a great price. More then doubled in value now.
Sound like a Win to me!
That's because you had cash to spend in a recession. Most people didn't, or were forced to live on their savings when they lost their jobs.
@@mirzaahmed6589 As always, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
Extremely good video, you cover literally everything on this suburbanization topic and others.
I wish I could remember the name of it, but I watched a documentary once that discussed how the discrimination of where blacks could live, and how police were biased against them created the environment for neighborhoods like Compton to form.
Known as redlining, the practice was used to create separate neighbourhoods for the different races. I only found out about this after the Floyd murder.
Some states still do this, especially in the Midwest. Just look at the economic disparity in Cincinnati, Columbus, Detroit, hell even Chicago. Most of the cities also have housing market caps and extremely rigid zoning laws. It's a pain in the ass doing any kind of new construction in ANY of these cities because of that.
Praise be!
To the almighty youtube algorithm which gave me another wholesome channel to subscribe to.
Greetings from Europe
The Interstate Highway System is AKA the National Defense Highway System. I'm from Hawaii and yes, we have Interstate highways there, the H1, H2, and H3. This baffles visitors, since you can't really drive to any other state on them. BUT .... what they DO do, is connect our various major military bases. They all go from one major base to another major base. I think the system got named the Interstate because after WWII there was a big movement to go on car tours, "see the USA in your Chevrolet" and all that, and driving to another state was an enticing idea so calling it the Interstate was a good PR move.
This is the content I like to see!
I just have to comment to say this video is so well made; thank you for making it. I was ignorant to a lot of these things, or at least I didn't make sense of it all the way you have. I took history classes in school but somehow I feel like this video was more useful to me than much of what I was taught. More people need to see this.
I wasn't a fan of work from home but perhaps it would help solve at least some of these ever growing problems.
Heck yeah man. Another great video. Glad to see you so active.
Its better than ANYTHING I've seen on PBS! - Great Work!
With the laws of supply and demand, the idea that we will supply what is demanded didn't account for lack of ability to afford and the fact that supplies ran dry because we have no where else to build so demand is even higher than it should be
Great video! Really good production!
You are seriously underrated.
This was an awesome entertaining video. So much work put into this.
I just recently found your channel and I'm hooked. The quality of the information, the delivery and the editing is professional TV like. Please, keep them coming!
Yes, Phoenix here. And all major streets are 1 miles apart and all neighborhood trunks are 1/2 miles. You can go anywhere just knowing the address since it's a perfect grid!
I'm a good bit above the average American worker and the best I could afford near me for 6000 work hours is an old condo in need of work. Houses in need of work start around 7900, and a house good to go starts around 9200 hours. We're talking basic 2 bed 1.5 bath 1100-1200 sq/ft here.
It would be better to double the price of the 1960's house to get a fair comparison in size alone. If you do that a $15,100 house in 1960 is worth $132,751.96 and doubled that is $265,503.92 which of course does not account for the higher valuation of the land the house is built on. Interestingly if you look at the rest of the American Southwest, such as Nevada or Arizona where they share a booming and rapidly developing economy similar to California, and this 265k price is actually fairly in line with their actual house prices. The fact that labor and wages are devalued relative to back then is an issue of the pool of labor being over-saturated with workers. If you're not in an industry where people are on some occasions actively soliciting you for work, you're likely in an over-saturated pool of laborers where employers could replace you with someone else
There's a higher demand to live around the same area in California than there was in the 1960s. Now those same areas people are interested in are more built up and provide more services and more value to the people living in the area than it did before. People in 1960 did not have the degree of things/goods/services/infrastructure available to someone who lives there now, not just out of technological advancement but from even more development within the desirable areas. Again, if you consider a smaller town in in the American Southwest, the opportunity for an American dream is still there. No one in the 1960's would advocate that you could have it all in a highly developed and desirable Manhattan without a very nice job and just the same today no one would advocate that you could make it in a highly developed and desirable California. You can, however, on $20/hr (below median rate of $24.80) make $3k in monthly take home pay after taxes and healthily afford 1/4 of the after tax income for $750 monthly 30 year mortgage on a 1300 square foot $150k Las Vegas house and have enough for a used car, groceries, utilities, savings, etc.
It's also interesting how you do look at smaller houses that are far away as affordable but make a comedic effort of the neighborhood being run down. Back then the people moving TO California were able to make their neighborhoods work - I wonder why the people moving to these neighborhoods are unable to make as nice of a neighborhood as those Californians back then? You also cite lending practices being different and racist from then and now. One could almost make the inference from your video that if it were not for the changes in lending practices there might be more affordable "nice" neighborhoods due to less demand (because of less qualified buyers) and I guess that would mean less people that leave their large dogs to bark outside and not take care of their yard who would otherwise, it seems, be living in an apartment.
(I should be asleep)
I find jt kinda interesting how I subscribed to "Road Guy" and end up with both a historian and alarmist. Not that I'm complaining, RGR is certainly one of the most underappreciated TH-cam channels out there.
The American dream is freedom of time. Of course with access to shelter, water, food, and health thrown in there.
One place where homes aren't increasing in value is Rochester, NY where I grew up. My mom still lives there, and her house was recently appraised for $30k *less* than her and my dad (RIP) paid for it 26 years ago.
Mainly because no one wants to live in Upstate NY anymore (myself included, I left 20 years ago)
Thank you Rob for another great video! Always interesting and informative content, well done.
Unexpected Thorough Historical Overview of US and Western US … Kudos RGR🙏
This reminds me of a quote from a documentary on the Mountain men in the Appalachians. “We didn’t know we where impoverished until the government told us we were”. I hope to get back to a country home soon away from cities and suburbs. Screw these over priced cities traffic and the annoyances.
I live in a rurL part of the country and people are buying houses out here in the middle of no where because they can work from anywhere. I on the other hand can't. Now housing prices is sky rocketing and becoming even more unaffordable than it was just a year ago.
I really enjoy your videos and appreciate the work you put in! Keep up the good work!
My fucking ghoul lake dwelling neighbors oppose possible housing development down the road so they can build a boathouse instead.
17:58 I hope that can be the solution. Right now in ignorance Elon Musk is busy calling employees "lazy dogs" and trying to get them back into the office.
Google is trying to get employees to come in every week....
This is amazing content! Thank you
Your videos rank way up there Rob, are informative, fascinating, and are great storytelling; you deserve to have many more subscribers. They will come.
Increasing home prices and increased demand (high prices) for new development reflects booming personal wealth...
The people who want the development to stop can either buy that land and leave it undeveloped or they can shut up and deal with it.
That's exactly what I say. Or they can just pack up and leave to some middle of nowhere in Nebraska if they hate development so much
Dude you make awesome videos, it feels like I’m watching a legit show. Subscribed!
14:36 you shouldn’t ignore the government’s role in creating the mandatory loans for people who could never pay them back. It’s not just wall streets fault. Earlier in the video you discuss how banks we bad for discriminating against people who they felt couldn’t pay their loans back but that precicely how we got into the second worst financial trouble in the nations history
They could have refinanced/restructured these loans but chose to make more profit off it, they might not have caused it but they sure made it worse.
What will happen to society if so many people are working from home, getting everything delivered by Amazon? Will people feel interconnected enough to justify paying any taxes at all?