@futurebird I live with 3 other educated adults and none of us has ever had an opportunity to buy a home.

The notion that most americans have a chance to buy a home is fundamentally false, and furthermore, the widespread prevalence of rental homes and apartments, is an open admission that everyone knows it is a lie. The real estate industry insists we all pretend there are five lights, but that pretension serves only to further amplify its fundamental dishonesty.

The options that work for middle class people to buy in a city are: coops, condos. Owning a whole building isn't practical.

The existing market and legal structure makes condos outrageously expensive and coops are very rare and like secret clubs that you have to be in the know to join. It's a terrible system.

Of course those making tons of money by renting hate all of these ideas.

@llewelly

Around 50 percent of people own their home or are paying a mortgage. It's fairly common, but the reality of renting for life needs to stop being treated like an anomaly or a mistake.

Everything about the US is set up to advantage home owners. It's kind of disgusting.

@futurebird this can be helped by building housing and expanding public transit, but that's kind of a political non-stater in New York. Heck, most of America right now, but it does work.

@quinn

Building more housing isn't a "non-starter" in NYC. We are NOT SF.

In fact, over the past two decades we have built tons and tons of housing, it's why the city is thriving. Tons of "in-fill" and "80-20" development. It has not been very focused on ordinary people, so much has been built strictly to rent, but that could change as we keep building. (And even building rentals is better than not building.)

We love to increase density.

Now the transit part.

@quinn

Building more housing isn't a "non-starter" in NYC. We are NOT SF.

In fact, over the past two decades we have built tons and tons of housing, it's why the city is thriving. Tons of "in-fill" and "80-20" development. It has not been very focused on ordinary people, so much has been built strictly to rent, but that could change as we keep building. (And even building rentals is better than not building.)

We love to increase density.

Now the transit part.

@futurebird this can be helped by building housing and expanding public transit, but that's kind of a political non-stater in New York. Heck, most of America right now, but it does work.

@quinn

People who live in NYC are very pro-transit. That's because we all depend on it to ... live. Transit obviously needs massive funding increases, modernization and new lines and that is harder, but I would not call it a "non-starter" just difficult.

@futurebird but it is one of those situations with transit improvement that everyone wants it in general, but not to be locally inconvenienced by someone actually coming in and doing it. Which is a hard problem no doubt! But you can't build new infrastructure in a city like NY without pissing off the locals (it's understandable given how disruptive it can be, buuut)

Of course fixing the housing market also means addressing the fact that a lot of Americans want to live in cities but cities have not been planned for long-term living. You rent in the city in your 20s then you are supposed to move to a suburb. But not everyone wants to do that. So you have a lot of people renting into their 40s and beyond. This is NOT their fault.

I'm a little obsessed with property and real estate so I found a way to buy in NYC, but this took a manic focus.

@futurebird

I also think that the country needs more dense and walkable cities.

There is NYC and then Chicago but otherwise living without a car takes a lot of effort and inconvenience

@futurebird fair! It's been a long time since I "lived" in New York. (I couldn't afford housing them)

@gbargoud

Living without a car is WHY I'm here. And it's true for so many people that I know. It's this massive benefit and attraction of the city, but US car culture means that we don't talk about it directly.

Living car-free is very luxurious but implying this would make car manufactures and many people angry. So, we pretend that the half of NYC residents without cars are sad and poor about it.

This is a lie.

@futurebird

I wonder how many people who move to NYC from all over the country would still do so if they could live car free with everything they need at their fingertips within a short commuter train ride to where their family lives instead

@llewelly

Around 50 percent of people own their home or are paying a mortgage. It's fairly common, but the reality of renting for life needs to stop being treated like an anomaly or a mistake.

Everything about the US is set up to advantage home owners. It's kind of disgusting.

@futurebird @llewelly I don't agree, mortgage deductions mean that renters are effectively subsidizing home owners, which is sucky.

@gbargoud

Like half I bet.

One of the reasons home prices in the US are so high is... the 30 year mortgage. For sanity, and the future we ought to be planning to slowly transition to 20 and 15 year mortgages as the default. This would increase middle class wealth, cool down the housing market and frankly, it might make buying a home less daunting.

Older Americans have most of their wealth in their home. Hence, the "slow" part. We won't be done till they are all dead. Not to be impolite about it.

@futurebird The recent construction in my neighborhood will probably last 30 years. Not sure those houses will make it to 50.

@keefeglise

Increasing supply is also important. I just hate the idea of people paying that much interest over their lives.