• Altofaltception@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    7 months ago

    Is it just a result of rising interest rates? Or was there another catalyst, not covered by the article? Did the supply of housing increase? What are the current rates of immigration?

    • aelwero@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      7 months ago

      My opinion is that it’s investors.

      Plenty of people out there buy houses for cash, spruce them up, and sell them for profit to extract some of the equity inherent in real property. Over time, they collectively push up the perceived value by force, and occasionally, the people who are the ultimate source of that equity, the ones looking to buy a permanent home, will stop buying.

      There’s been a chunk of time recently, a decade or maybe more, where those permanent home seekers, the true source of the equity, haven’t been buying property. COVID exasperated the issue, because the flippers went fucking crazy for a couple years and inflated the amount of non-homes. Now they want their equity back out, but nobody who wants an actual home is looking to buy one because there isn’t enough value for them.

      So prices have to come down before the actual source of equity starts buying again. The bubble has to deflate some.

      Again, the entirety of this statement is simply my personal opinion, so grain of salt, but this is what pure logic and critical thinking suggests is the true mechanism :)

    • SCB@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      7 months ago

      If interest rates went up, crippling demand for new housing, this is a temporary “burst” at best. Their economy is in the trash can right now, and that means demand is artificially low.

      The second their economy rebounds they’ll be back in the same situation.