Real estate & inflation ver. 2022.

[boris bubbanov]

I did business with the same insurance company for over thirty years. They'd send me a bill, I'd pay it. Now I buy insurance from somebody on the internet. Any time I call ANY business, I get a list of things I can punch a button for, but it's never what I'm actually calling about. The world has moved on, I haven't. I sure would like to buy a ticket to about 1995.

I love these local agencies, though, where you work with the professional staff. Meanwhile "the guy" who gets the riches from the agency, he's playing golf or at the massage parlor. I see his face in his advertising, and that's what reminds me I haven't actually been in the presence of the guy in almost ten years.

And don't you know, he acquired the agency from his mother in law - and once he had it a couple years, this guy and the woman's daughter weren't even together anymore.

If you buy on the Internet, at least you don't have to think about this sort of foolishness!

 

[boris bubbanov]

Anyway, I want to say that for many, the American Dream really has changed. Not ended. Talking to the youngsters, it seems to me they don't want to be shackled to a house. They want mobility. They don't (many of them) want to drive. So maybe the individual material objectives have changed some, but this is where Opportunity Lives - at least, compared to virtually anyplace else.

 

[Jupiter]

inflation is what happens to bread and telecasters

what's happening to gas is price gouging and what's happening to real estate is a bubble, not inflation

 

[Toto'sDad]

inflation is what happens to bread and telecasters

what's happening to gas is price gouging and what's happening to real estate is a bubble, not inflation

It's like a whirlwind that rips though many parts of the world, leaving behind destruction in its path. It's musical chairs, but when the music stops and you are still standing, well...

 

[Toto'sDad]

Anyway, I want to say that for many, the American Dream really has changed. Not ended. Talking to the youngsters, it seems to me they don't want to be shackled to a house. They want mobility. They don't (many of them) want to drive. So maybe the individual material objectives have changed some, but this is where Opportunity Lives - at least, compared to virtually anyplace else.

You know I came back and re-read you post and thought about it. Things are really just coming back to where they were before they took off after the great war. As a kid on a sharecropper farm in north Alabama I never had any dreams or aspirations, I just got up in the morning and met another day. Even when we came out to California, most everyone I knew was dirt poor.

After high school a few kids went on to college most didn't. I was around twenty-eight years old before I was smitten with ambition, and that driven by having children to take care of. More chance than plan saw my modest success in life but compared to where I was when I was back on the farm, it was like I was rich! I was just past fifty when I really dug in and prepared for my retirement. My kids did realize the American dream, perhaps abundantly. My younger son's children, also have followed in his footsteps. So, we'll see, some will make it, some wont. I think just as people always have.

 

[imwjl]

Anyway, I want to say that for many, the American Dream really has changed. Not ended. Talking to the youngsters, it seems to me they don't want to be shackled to a house. They want mobility. They don't (many of them) want to drive. So maybe the individual material objectives have changed some, but this is where Opportunity Lives - at least, compared to virtually anyplace else.

It's very much alive, the car point you made is certainly some change, and birth rate should probably be considered in this stuff as fact vs opinion. We seem to have a lot of people here in USA and who've witnessed a decline in birthrate whether or not they realize it. A lot of people can't think about immigration as they'd like when that is so much of what has fueled a growth-based economy. In that we also have a whole lot of traditional American Dream alive.

The late age parent me sees the car just doesn't have to be so important anymore. That includes the VERY different areas where we have the main home and cabin. A car isn't driving the way kids communicate as they did when I grew up.

Having gotten much better with history over my years I also think all waves of exploration and immigration have or represent energy, guts, strength and ideals we call American Dream. The wave before my family got "off the boat" did much, then that generation, as I age I see newer generations of people just like the past even if the languages and other characteristics are not the same.

 

[Toto'sDad]

It's very much alive, the car point you made is certainly some change, and birth rate should probably be considered in this stuff as fact vs opinion. We seem to have a lot of people here in USA and who've witnessed a decline in birthrate whether or not they realize it. A lot of people can't think about immigration as they'd like when that is so much of what has fueled a growth-based economy. In that we also have a whole lot of traditional American Dream alive.

The late age parent me sees the car just doesn't have to be so important anymore. That includes the VERY different areas where we have the main home and cabin. A car isn't driving the way kids communicate as they did when I grew up.

Having gotten much better with history over my years I also think all waves of exploration and immigration have or represent energy, guts, strength and ideals we call American Dream. The wave before my family got "off the boat" did much, then that generation, as I age I see newer generations of people just like the past even if the languages and other characteristics are not the same.

I have a Hispanic buddy who works for a large farming company. All of his necessities are furnished by the company, a decent house, utilities etc. He makes the worst deals on cars of anyone I know, he trades up before the contract is paid off, and takes a whipping like an Alabama mule pulling a plow in hard ground every time he gets a new car.

One day I asked him, why don't you buy yourself a house? Someday you're going to need one of your own. Why do you keep buying cars instead of a house? He replied, "you can't drive your house to town on Saturday night ese!"

 

[buster poser]

Stories that are 100% true and definitely happened

 

[boris bubbanov]

inflation is what happens to bread and telecasters

what's happening to gas is price gouging and what's happening to real estate is a bubble, not inflation

I definitely hear what you're saying. Prices of some things are going up because we've flooded the country with spending money and prices and dollar values will have to equalize. Bread and Telecasters, yes.

Huge amount of gouging in fuel prices right now. A review of the Cushing spot prices shows WTI crude jumping all over the place over the months and years and in defense of the Oil Men, some of them got ripped off and just about forced to eat peanut butter and Spam for a while and now they're trying to get even with a world where you might have to PAY someone $ 22 a barrel to take the crude oil off your hands. Wicked price swings, everyone taking turns getting killed and right now, it is the consumer getting killed.

Various "guys" from all over the world have tons of money they need to secrete someplace. And IMO a lot of it takes "residence" in places like Fairfax County, VA, Atlantic Coast Florida, SoCal, SF, and anything between Philly and Boston - plus many other hot spots. The thieves or whatever that stole this money from back home and they're hiding it here - no difference really than the Cayman Island bank accounts. And anyway, these moneymen have pumped up real estate prices to the point where normal people can't even recognize these numbers. Anyone who pays $ 3,000 for bottled water, didn't buy that real estate to live in it, and maybe we need to investigate further.

 

[P Thought]

buyers snapping up houses as investments and then renting them, in many cases, to those who got priced out of the market.

Immoral. Should be illegal.

 

[Spox]

Yeah, for only $400K you can get a whopping 320 sq ft.! This was a quick sale.
View attachment 972255

London’s smallest microflat sells for 80% above asking price

Seven-square-metre ‘posh cell’ in Lower Clapton fetches £90,000 at auction

www.theguardian.com

 

[OmegaWoods]

inflation is what happens to bread and telecasters

what's happening to gas is price gouging and what's happening to real estate is a bubble, not inflation

They all look the same when it's time to get out the checkbook...

 

[P Thought]

this is a depressing topic

 

[imwjl]

this is a depressing topic

My wife's parents house sold this week for more than she expected. Should we have been good patriots shouting don't aid inflation to those who bid it up?

 

[sax4blues]

…. what's happening to real estate is a bubble, not inflation

This wisdom must be sound because I’ve heard it consistently for 40 years. Unfortunately I didn’t listen/understand and bought into the bubble age 25. I might do some personal reflection on that bubble today as I take the dogs for a hike, play guitar, and sip bourbon watching the Giants game. Like most days the last five years of no housing payment.

 

[Telekarster]

Yup...education...real education. Being patient and understanding that one starts somewhere to work up to something better is also a big piece of this. An expectation of starting out with a salary/home/car/you name it... comparable to one's parents, who have worked 20-40 years to get there...is unrealistic.

Couldn't have said this better myself. And, case in point, I know a young man who is about 32. I met him when he installed our HVAC system a few years ago. We did a complete change out, to include all new duct work etc. This young man was recommended to us for his work ethic and professionalism. This young man has now become friends of ours LOL! I was so impressed with his work ethic and the stellar job he did on our new system, I just wanted to count him as a friend. He told me that he grew up poor, single parent home, and didn't have the means to go to college etc., sort of bounced around a bit until he landed a job with a guy who did HVAC. He stuck with it, became an expert and got licensed and insured etc. and started his own operation. Today this young man is making way more $ than me and my wife put together, and we both have graduate degrees! He's a heck of a kid and we are proud to call him a friend today. Frankly he reminds me of me in a lot of ways! LOL!! Point is - Yes... the "right education" is what they need.

 

[imwjl]

The American Dream is gone. We allowed foreigners and conglomerates to buy up real estate driving prices out of reach, now the average Joe cannot afford a house while we let foreign companies buy 300 houses to rent at profit. Essentially we are back to 1000 AD, where the rich Lords own it all and the serfs/workers slave to pay them rent. The Mexican system of requiring nationals to own 51% of any real estate is a good one.

That might be a good idea on ownership but I disagree on the American dream being gone unless some of us just witnessed a period where a lot of people not really so great were lucky.

I do have an untested new theory on costs and inflation. It might also be that we have a whole lot of people who just will not go back to conventional work relationships and especially go back to working in the office.

In my environment work from home is fantastic for some but not productive for everyone. Just as I've seen news of high level exec cashing out and saying no to work in the office again, I see people with modest wages say that too. We have accounting, logistics, pricing and marketing people who will not go back to the old ways.

Full disclosure: Typed by the guy bothered that he has to go meet a vendor at a site when the plans were go ride a bicycle and get work done tonight.

 

[imwjl]

At same time I see a flipper's home listing near my house tell me that inflation likely peaked, at work we have a major food distributor tacking on a fuel surcharge that is about 10% increase on the wholesale cost of regular deliveries our 4 commercial kitchens get.

At same time I don't think driving will be slowing down. Our daily sales (grocery stores) and product mix says people will be traveling this holiday weekend.

It also looks like another summer where drought will be adding to our food costs.

I did my part only driving twice so far this week but I still feel it's recession here we come.