Why is the Guardian blaming the people who need the homes and not the investors?
They’re not really, the article lists them along side other categories of buyers.
Desperate first home buyers have bid up the price of affordable properties as they face off against investors
Oh, those damn desperate first home buyers! Of course they aren’t deterred by rising rates, their choices are to pay $870,000 for a two-bedroom apartment, or be homeless. In October 2023 I bought a shitty little apartment for $310k (and only got it because the real estate agent said the seller wanted it to go to someone who needed to live in it rather than an investment), by mid 2024 other ones in the same building were going for $430k, one sold a month ago for $587k. It’s fucking insane.
I was pretty poor all through my 20s, I think the most I made at any time until I was 28 was $400 a week, and I never expected to own property until I started saving every extra cent for a hopeful deposit in 2022, looks like I got in at the last second. Good luck to any desperate first home buyers these days.
I live in a place that does not allow rentals. It somewhat keeps the price in check but honestly like bank foreclosures and such don’t seem keen on selling very fast. So it feels like a combo of everything else being expensive drives normal folks here who can’t compete with the corps and even then the businesses realize the condos are still useful as value stores. So despite the affordable nature relative to other places im pretty sure I could not buy where I live today. its nuts.
Bought a house in early 2021, I didn’t think we were ready but my wife loved the place we found. In retrospect, it was our last opportunity to buy in the region we are in, I can’t afford today’s home prices and rates.
That seems to be what’s happened here.
We bought in 2018, and the value has doubled since then. However, upgrading to a bigger place with room for all our stuff (and our kids stuff) is almost out of reach.
And who knows what will happen with the current world instability as it affects oil prices (and so the price of just about everything else), and as the number of refugees rises, and if we enter into the war. 😭
and as the number of refugees rises
But I’ve been repeatedly told that increasing demand by importing over a thousand people a day doesn’t have any effect on house prices?
If the number of refugees rises significantly as it is already happening it will have an effect in time, in my view. It is just my opinion. If our governments are going to support the bombing of populations and the consequent spread of destruction over the whole ME region, it will be (and should be) our humanitarian duty to take more refugees. I hope they are planning for this and for climate change refugees from our Pacific region.
