Just a thought.
We do not have a housing affordability problem. We have a crime and schools problem.
Yes rents (to a lesser degree) and mortgage payments (to an astronomical degree) are now “too high” compared to family incomes. They are high above historical levels.
But historically, the greatest generation the baby boomers could live in places
with affordable starter homes and those places were in safe decent neighborhoods and had safe decent schools. Today buying or or even renting an affordable home means living in those same neighborhoods, which have gone to hell, and sending your kids to those same schools, which have also gone to hell.
The homes are still there, the homes are still affordable.
This is 2477 Harris Terrace, Harrisburg, PA.
It was built in 1950, shortly after WW2.
The greatenst generaton used it as a starter home and probalby had young kids while living there (3 BR.)
The baby boomers used it as a starter home and probably young kids there.
The home has been renovated at least once. It is livable and afforadable/
Qualifying for $1,020 monthly payment requires an icome of only $21.85 an hour. (Like a dad working full0time at McDonalds and his wife working part time at McDonalds.)
By the sclools and the neighborhood has gone to hell. What has become unafforadable. Ergo, what has become unafforable is not decent housing. what has become unaffordable is avoiding high crime rates and rotten schools.
The government (shcools and justice system) has failed. The free market has not.
There are also unrealistic expectations about what constitutes a starter home.
At the other end of things, you do have people who have downsized and are retiring in what used to be a starter home, taking them off the market while the new homes being built are not starters.
New home prices are high now. Wife and I just bought what will be our retirement home. Down sized to a 3 bedroom, new construction, Cost $312,000. Part of the problem affecting starter homes is also the fact that 8-10 million new low income individuals/families are competing for those same starter homes. And, unfortunately an element of these new individuals are driving down conditions in the schools and neighborhoods.
when there are no well paying jobs the neighborhood tends to go to hell and houses are cheap. Once good jobs come back the street gets gentrified and houses get more expensive. So how do we bring good paying jobs to Harrisburg such that there will be a larger tax base for better schools, . But even that specific property has undergone price inflation in the last few years. It sold for $97k in 2021, prior to that in 2004 $61K.
Our first home was purchased in a pretty rough neighborhood, about 45 years ago. It was all we could afford at the time. One of the first things we did was to put bars on our windows. We stayed there for about three years before moving up to a slightly better neighborhood. Over time, as our purchasing power increased, we moved to more upscale neighborhoods. We are now living in a 55+ neighborhood. That will be our last home purchase.
For years, we would occasionally drive by our first house to see how the neighborhood is doing. Unfortunately, it has continued to disintegrate over time. We no longer feel safe driving in the old neighborhood, even during daylight hours.
I have to wonder the percentage of single parent households are in these less desirable neighborhoods, and the percentage of children from single parent homes are in the schools of these neighborhoods… I opine that neighborhoods with a high percentage of fathers living in the neighborhood has an impact.
That’s hard to say. From professional experience I know that the criminal element is somewhere between 2-5 % of a local population. It is usually closer to 2-3% but can be as high as 5%. The rest of the neighborhood is usually just trying to get by and live their lives. In the case of immigrant elements, we have seen higher concentrations of single males and concentrations of transnational gang members. Where these two sub groups congregate the percentage is going to be closer to the 5% extreme.
This is just the criminal conduct impact. Boys without a father in the home in these neighborhoods are more susceptible to falling under the control of a gang. And if the district has high concentrations of non-English speakers, the educational output of the local district will be depressed. There will also be more friction between native English speaking children and non-English speaking children in such an environment. Add in native and non-native gang elements and you have the wild, wild West.
