<story><title>Falling Home Prices Could Be a Good Thing</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/10/upshot/popping-the-housing-bubbles-in-the-american-mind.html?smid=fb-nytimes&amp;smtyp=cur&amp;_r=0</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>techsupporter</author><text>At the risk of sounding brusque, don&amp;#x27;t just read the headline of this article and then comment because the headline doesn&amp;#x27;t mean what it reads like on the surface.  It&amp;#x27;s not &amp;quot;house prices are falling and this could be awesome.&amp;quot;  Instead, the article&amp;#x27;s thesis is:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; So instead of looking at homes as investments, what if we regarded them like a TV or a car or any other consumer good? People might expect home prices to go down instead of up. Homebuilders would probably spend more time talking about technology and design than financing options. Politicians might start talking about their plans to lower home prices further, as they often do with fuel prices.&lt;p&gt;The article is going over a paper[0] that asks what would happen to house prices if houses were treated as disposable consumer goods instead of a means of storing wealth.  It also points out, correctly in my opinion, that such a shift would be monumental (if only because everyone would have to do it at the same time).&lt;p&gt;0 - &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;realestate.wharton.upenn.edu&amp;#x2F;research&amp;#x2F;papers&amp;#x2F;full&amp;#x2F;802.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;realestate.wharton.upenn.edu&amp;#x2F;research&amp;#x2F;papers&amp;#x2F;full&amp;#x2F;802...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>twblalock</author><text>Incidentally, this is what has happened in Japan, but with one big difference.&lt;p&gt;In Japan, people expect houses to be worthless after a decade, and they rebuild their houses frequently. This is partly because the poor quality of houses built in the first decades after WWII has created a bias against older homes that is probably no longer justified. Many buyers tear down homes and replace them -- this happens everywhere, but it is more common in Japan. People who have owned their home for a few decades will have it torn down and rebuilt every 20-30 years, and they will continue to live in the new one without any intention of selling the land.&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, while homes are worthless after a decade, land is extremely expensive. This leads to 40-year mortgages or to people building homes on land they lease for decades, and having them torn down when the lease ends.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t expect that kind of situation to develop in the US, nor do I want it to, but it&amp;#x27;s always good to learn about other approaches to home ownership, because it demonstrates that considering a home as an investment is not natural or inevitable.</text></comment>
<story><title>Falling Home Prices Could Be a Good Thing</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/10/upshot/popping-the-housing-bubbles-in-the-american-mind.html?smid=fb-nytimes&amp;smtyp=cur&amp;_r=0</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>techsupporter</author><text>At the risk of sounding brusque, don&amp;#x27;t just read the headline of this article and then comment because the headline doesn&amp;#x27;t mean what it reads like on the surface.  It&amp;#x27;s not &amp;quot;house prices are falling and this could be awesome.&amp;quot;  Instead, the article&amp;#x27;s thesis is:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; So instead of looking at homes as investments, what if we regarded them like a TV or a car or any other consumer good? People might expect home prices to go down instead of up. Homebuilders would probably spend more time talking about technology and design than financing options. Politicians might start talking about their plans to lower home prices further, as they often do with fuel prices.&lt;p&gt;The article is going over a paper[0] that asks what would happen to house prices if houses were treated as disposable consumer goods instead of a means of storing wealth.  It also points out, correctly in my opinion, that such a shift would be monumental (if only because everyone would have to do it at the same time).&lt;p&gt;0 - &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;realestate.wharton.upenn.edu&amp;#x2F;research&amp;#x2F;papers&amp;#x2F;full&amp;#x2F;802.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;realestate.wharton.upenn.edu&amp;#x2F;research&amp;#x2F;papers&amp;#x2F;full&amp;#x2F;802...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bloaf</author><text>Isn&amp;#x27;t Japan a case study in treating homes as disposable?  They frequently rebuild homes rather than renovate for a variety of reasons [1].  Some people believe that this attitude has contributed to Japan&amp;#x27;s slow economic growth: replacing all the homes every few decades is essentially wasteful.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;freakonomics.com&amp;#x2F;podcast&amp;#x2F;why-are-japanese-homes-disposable-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast-3&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;freakonomics.com&amp;#x2F;podcast&amp;#x2F;why-are-japanese-homes-dispo...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>