There is one of those close to downtown wake Forest. It looks like someone bought and old house, tore it down and put up a set of townhomes. But when we drove by we realized there were entries and drive ways on the front and back so they were duplexes
Housing
- Thread starter UNCatTech
- Start date
- Replies: 58
- Views: 893
- Off-Topic
Anything in North Atlanta metro is going to carry a premium price. Always has. Suspect a developer sees an opportunity with a few acres of left over land to explain this particular housing.
Have a demographic trend thanks to baby boomers rearing its ugly head. The large boomer group were over housed thanks to hitting it just right when housing could be built cheaply thanks to a legacy construction workforce that is now aging out, lower interest rates for a period, and (I know this is going to be an unpopular comment) thanks to the mortgage interest deduction which capitalizes its benefit into higher housing costs.
All these factors allowed boomers to overbuild. Now their families have graduated and many boomers would like to downsize. Well, empty Nestor housing in good areas doesn't exist.
Oh and the luxury building which all those factors favored and due to wealth inequality that we now have, doesn't favor a balanced housing market. It takes much more labor and studs to build luxury housing. That factor alone, drives up the cost of building for the market.
All these factors allowed boomers to overbuild. Now their families have graduated and many boomers would like to downsize. Well, empty Nestor housing in good areas doesn't exist.
Oh and the luxury building which all those factors favored and due to wealth inequality that we now have, doesn't favor a balanced housing market. It takes much more labor and studs to build luxury housing. That factor alone, drives up the cost of building for the market.
All of these things cry out for regulation, but vested interests are strong...
1. PE ownership of rental properties. They move in when they identify an arbitrage advantage between rental income and purchase price. When the market inverts, the property values of first-time property owners in those neighborhoods start to tank.
2. Outright price collusion by large-scale landlords using AI. IMO, this is more significant than currently believed.
3. single-housing zoning regulations, often a historic vestige of trying to keep black people out of neighborhoods. People have a strong aversion to living in neighborhoods that include multi-family housing, and it is a limiting factor on ownership rates for the young. Even progressive areas have had difficulty in addressing legacy zoning issues.
4. Air B&B - this reduces affordable housing stock in cities and tourism areas. If you're renting your property on a short-term basis more than three weeks a year, you are a hotel and should be regulated and zoned accordingly.
Point 2 is illegal and points 3 and 4 are outright regulatory arbitrage, but the cries of "free market" from opponents is maddening.
1. PE ownership of rental properties. They move in when they identify an arbitrage advantage between rental income and purchase price. When the market inverts, the property values of first-time property owners in those neighborhoods start to tank.
2. Outright price collusion by large-scale landlords using AI. IMO, this is more significant than currently believed.
3. single-housing zoning regulations, often a historic vestige of trying to keep black people out of neighborhoods. People have a strong aversion to living in neighborhoods that include multi-family housing, and it is a limiting factor on ownership rates for the young. Even progressive areas have had difficulty in addressing legacy zoning issues.
4. Air B&B - this reduces affordable housing stock in cities and tourism areas. If you're renting your property on a short-term basis more than three weeks a year, you are a hotel and should be regulated and zoned accordingly.
Point 2 is illegal and points 3 and 4 are outright regulatory arbitrage, but the cries of "free market" from opponents is maddening.
lawtig02
Inconceivable Member
- Messages
- 2,772
Good comments on this thread recently. Housing problems are something on which (populist) Republicans and Democrats should be able to find some common ground. It won't be an easy fix, and some people who don't want to move will need to do so, but there's a lot of consensus on why we have a problem right now and what could be done about it.
This goes against all of my instincts, but I would almost be in favor of providing some tax incentive for Boomers to downsize. If that happens, it would free up a tremendous amount of housing for people who just want their kids to have a little space to run around in the backyard.
This goes against all of my instincts, but I would almost be in favor of providing some tax incentive for Boomers to downsize. If that happens, it would free up a tremendous amount of housing for people who just want their kids to have a little space to run around in the backyard.
One approach is to eliminate the cap tax gains threshold for people who have lived in their primary residences for 15 years or more. It's probably bad tax policy - the threshold is currently $250K-$500K, so it's hard to feel sorry for the near wealthy - but it provides a clear incentive to rotate housing stock. Maybe sunset the threshold elimination after five years.
lawtig02
Inconceivable Member
- Messages
- 2,772
Very interesting. I haven't heard that idea before.
To the Private Equity comment: All that is, is financial engineering on steroids. Which is what our whole economy has become. Some folks in MAGA world complain about globalism but I have a hunch their real complaint is about financial engineering and everything it causes.
What PE does in real estate, and its the same thing I have to explain to young folks who read these books on how you can get rich on rental property is that there is a big difference between financial engineering and making a good, honest investment. The books tell you to go in and do everything possible to raise rents to the maximum. That way, you can report the higher rents to your banker (and appraiser). And just like that, you got a higher new worth that you can borrow on for your cash flow. And you can keep repeating that as long as you have the energy for it.
PE is doing that. And sometimes they even create new entities to buy from their entities to keep the trend going as long as they can...........and to off load their eventual loss.
Not saying the financial lessons these books teach are wrong. Just that their readers have trouble in the application to meet their particular needs.
What PE does in real estate, and its the same thing I have to explain to young folks who read these books on how you can get rich on rental property is that there is a big difference between financial engineering and making a good, honest investment. The books tell you to go in and do everything possible to raise rents to the maximum. That way, you can report the higher rents to your banker (and appraiser). And just like that, you got a higher new worth that you can borrow on for your cash flow. And you can keep repeating that as long as you have the energy for it.
PE is doing that. And sometimes they even create new entities to buy from their entities to keep the trend going as long as they can...........and to off load their eventual loss.
Not saying the financial lessons these books teach are wrong. Just that their readers have trouble in the application to meet their particular needs.
I was impressed that the Biden Administration in the summer of 2023 made some changes to FHA lending that actually lowered the interest rate and seem like made some changes to the down payment
Bring that up only to show that the government can actually do some constructive things So what maybe we should consider is to encourage going from 30 year mortgages to 25 year mortgages that have the interest rate locked in for 15 years and then repriced at that point for the remaining 10 years.
The interest rate would be lower which could mean a slightly lower payment. But the big thing is that the buyer could accumulate equity much quicker. With that extra equity, those homeowners are much more likely to sell quicker and this would help the market to rebalance. Building equity is never a bad thing.
Most people would like to sell before 15 years anyway and often do, so there wouldn't be much interest rate risk.
Bring that up only to show that the government can actually do some constructive things So what maybe we should consider is to encourage going from 30 year mortgages to 25 year mortgages that have the interest rate locked in for 15 years and then repriced at that point for the remaining 10 years.
The interest rate would be lower which could mean a slightly lower payment. But the big thing is that the buyer could accumulate equity much quicker. With that extra equity, those homeowners are much more likely to sell quicker and this would help the market to rebalance. Building equity is never a bad thing.
Most people would like to sell before 15 years anyway and often do, so there wouldn't be much interest rate risk.
Great comment. In my view, this what the democratic party should be positioning against most fervently.
- Messages
- 3,796
Forsyth county is doing a decent job with zoning. A higher percentage of new development included, at a minimum, townhomes and single family. But many, such as the one referenced, also have apartments and other density options.
The one in Cumming is being built by The Providence Group. You can Google and see them.
Ha, I have family in Forsyth and am pretty familiar with the area. There are worse places to live for sure but I always felt like it was stuck in no man’s land. Technically a north Atlanta suburb so it naturally commands high prices (that $450K price tag for a cookie cutter new build townhome sounds about right), but if you live there and commute into Atlanta daily it would be absolutely brutal. It’s very Republican as well, but the suburbia, middle/upper-middle class, smug variety of Republican, which in my opinion is more obnoxious to be around than the rural type.
- Messages
- 3,796
Do you work in real-estate?
Yes, and construction for the last 30 years. Out of college spent 8 years in bank regulation with a state regulatory department.
- Messages
- 3,796
The drive down 400 is brutal.
Forsyth is growing, there are several new mixed use developments and I can think of a at least a dozen neighborhoods on my drive home.
It's pretty expensive in general. The $400k price range isn't purchasing a new single family home in Forsyth.
Forsyth has Its political issues, but it has definitely gotten better since they scared Oprah off in the 90s.
That was the “no blacks live here” county, right?
- Messages
- 3,796
Yes. After Oprah's town hall she immediately flew home.
It has changed, my two neighborhoods have been very diverse.
Good thing she was gone before sundown.
CeruleanBlueHeel
Active Member
- Messages
- 43
Building them with our Hispanic immigrant workforce shouldn't be a problem. Well...there is that detail of them mostly having been detained, arrested, and deported by this incompetent administration.