There is no housing crisis in MoCo or most of the DMV for that matter

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agree. There are many properties available in DC at this moment for less than 400K.

Are they 3500 sq/ft SFH? No. Most people who don’t have generational wealth make compromises and trade offs in housing.

Some of us live in 1000-1500 square feet just fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Signed, a boomer that got their housing for 3 blueberries back in 1940 from a Sears catalog. Go talk to young people, even high earners, on how difficult it is to buy a house nowadays.

No Boomer was buying a house in 1940, on grounds that no Boomer was even born yet in 1940.

You dispute the above but not the blueberries?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Signed, a boomer that got their housing for 3 blueberries back in 1940 from a Sears catalog. Go talk to young people, even high earners, on how difficult it is to buy a house nowadays.

Reading OP is fundamental. Young people may have to make the very tough decision to not live in Arlington or Chevy Chase. They may have to: rent; commute from Gaithersburg (via the existing mass transit because climate); transfer jobs to Omaha; buy a condo in Arlington or Chevy Chase and live like most of Europe or NYC or urban Asia already does

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Its all a tube of toothpaste. You want low wage workers so you can get a burger for under $10? Well you either need to build enough cheap or subsidized housing for them, or deal with 270/495/most other roads being jammed up with drive-till-you-qualifiers coming to make your sandwich.

See, this is where the free market takes over. If burger flippers, teachers, and barbers can't afford to live in the area then the supplies of those who do that labor will go down, leading to a premium in wages that will allow them to eventually afford housing. No one is entitled to live wherever they want. We do not need to upend our way of life because people don't like their personal choices. There is plenty of cheap housing stock in Iowa, Kansas, Pennsylvania, Western MD, etc. It's not my responsibility to provide you housing because you don't want to live there.

Why don't people move to places where housing is cheap because there's very little demand for housing because there's no economic opportunity?!?!?!

Nonsense.

You all complain burger flippers, restaurant staff, teachers and firefighters can't afford to live in this area. Guess what? All of those jobs exist in Kansas, Ohio, Iowa, or Arkansas! Hell, the Dakotas have some of the top performing schools in the entire country if you care about your kids' education so much. You are not entitled to live wherever you want.

Here's a perfectly fine house for $375K in York, PA:

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2415-Wildon-Dr-York-PA-17403/60492446_zpid/

York is a small city with jobs for all of the people complaining about costs. They need teachers and restaurant staff.

Here are good enough homes for desperate people in Columbus, Ohio, which is a vibrant enough town for people if all they care about is owning a home:

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1465-Lockbourne-Rd-Columbus-OH-43206/33850877_zpid/

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/8437-Nimitz-Dr-Powell-OH-43065/34124344_zpid/

There is no housing crisis. The only crisis is that peoples' expectations don't match the realities of their current situations and that maybe they should make better choices for where they can truly afford to live relative to their education, income, and status in life. No one wants to be told the cold harsh reality of their networth. I'm sorry you can't afford to live in the DMV when you work a job earning $23/hour. Why should we tear down our neighborhoods to cater to your desires simply because you don't want to live in a more affordable area of the country? There are plenty of affordable places to live, you just refuse to move there.

You know the people you're telling to move to Ohio? They're the ones who make your life possible.

Again, if it was truly so unaffordable then all of those people who make all of our lives work would move because they know their true value. Yet they don't.

Welcome to the free market. Who is holding a gun to anyone's head and forcing them to live in this area? Oh wait, that's right, literally no one. Personal choices. Don't complain about dumping $3000 per month in rent because you demand to live in DC as a secretary while there are completely affordable homes in Columbus for under $300k and plenty of companies that need your line work there as well.

A secretary cannot afford a $300k house, plus a car and gas plus child care.

If you want your nanny, housekeeper and all the service and helping professions to be there for you, you need to grow up and understand what their lives are like. Don’t complain when your housekeeper wants $60 an hour and fast food is $20 a meal. Where should teachers, social workers, police, firefighters live. If they move further out, they will not want to commute and then what.

They can afford apartments or condos then. Who said you're entitled to own a home in nanny's or barista's wage?

Once again shows that the problem isn't due to affordable housing, but more to do with peoples' insane expectations from the world relative to their income, status and situation in life. Tough crap. I'm so sorry you have to live within your means.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A reminder of how incredibly affordable the DC area is.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1535-Lincoln-Way-102-McLean-VA-22102/2061487338_zpid/

249k is not affordable for a one bedroom. Plus insurance, utilities and how. And what if you have kids? Hoa is $600 a month.

lol are you serious?? What do you expect home prices to be? I honestly want to know what you think you a 3 bedroom house in McLean should cost.

They won’t be happy until it’s provided by the state and we are all living in 1960s soviet style apartments.

Yup, it is entirely the vision the council has for MoCo 2050. They want everywhere to look like Soviet Style Bloc housing. Terrible.

Everything will be affordable once the govt makes everything crappier and so much more medicore/borderline terrible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A reminder of how incredibly affordable the DC area is.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1535-Lincoln-Way-102-McLean-VA-22102/2061487338_zpid/

249k is not affordable for a one bedroom. Plus insurance, utilities and how. And what if you have kids? Hoa is $600 a month.

lol are you serious?? What do you expect home prices to be? I honestly want to know what you think you a 3 bedroom house in McLean should cost.

It's entitlement mentality. It is mental rot. Americans have been told their entire lives they deserve everything just for existing. Anyone should have the fundamental right to live wherever they want despite their incomes. Why aren't there $125,000 homes to buy in Arlington, Potomac, Bethesda, McClean, etc. Wah wah wah

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Signed, a boomer that got their housing for 3 blueberries back in 1940 from a Sears catalog. Go talk to young people, even high earners, on how difficult it is to buy a house nowadays.

Ok sure it's tough to buy a sfh, but that's not what they're trying to change all of the codes to build. There will be even fewer sfh under these policies. Is there really a shortage of apartments?

There does seem to be a mismatch. People want smaller single family starter homes. They are knocking down the old small SFH homes to build big houses that take up the whole lot, and then also building mixed use luxury apartments. Lots being built, just not what young families want. I guess in theory the boomers can sell their old houses to move to those apartments — some do. I’ve seen lots of decent older homes in my neighborhood be knocked down for developers — the incentives are all wrong for people to be able to buy the older housing stock. Years ago there was an article on maybe WaPo about neighbors that bought a house on their street and rehabbed it so the developers would not overbuild it, and explaining the economics of why that doesn’t really work.

This. Massive ugly houses or tiny apartments. What people actually want are the existing right sized homes.

So entitlement. They want homes even though apartments are available.

Thanks for confirming entitlement mentality.

Why are you entitled to your house?

Because I paid for it, dumbass.

You might want to check the Constitution, dimwit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Signed, a boomer that got their housing for 3 blueberries back in 1940 from a Sears catalog. Go talk to young people, even high earners, on how difficult it is to buy a house nowadays.

Ok sure it's tough to buy a sfh, but that's not what they're trying to change all of the codes to build. There will be even fewer sfh under these policies. Is there really a shortage of apartments?

There does seem to be a mismatch. People want smaller single family starter homes. They are knocking down the old small SFH homes to build big houses that take up the whole lot, and then also building mixed use luxury apartments. Lots being built, just not what young families want. I guess in theory the boomers can sell their old houses to move to those apartments — some do. I’ve seen lots of decent older homes in my neighborhood be knocked down for developers — the incentives are all wrong for people to be able to buy the older housing stock. Years ago there was an article on maybe WaPo about neighbors that bought a house on their street and rehabbed it so the developers would not overbuild it, and explaining the economics of why that doesn’t really work.

This. Massive ugly houses or tiny apartments. What people actually want are the existing right sized homes.

So entitlement. They want homes even though apartments are available.

Thanks for confirming entitlement mentality.

Why are you entitled to your house?

Because I paid for it, dumbass.

You might want to check the Constitution, dimwit.

Why are you entitled to all of your neighbors' houses, too?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Its all a tube of toothpaste. You want low wage workers so you can get a burger for under $10? Well you either need to build enough cheap or subsidized housing for them, or deal with 270/495/most other roads being jammed up with drive-till-you-qualifiers coming to make your sandwich.

See, this is where the free market takes over. If burger flippers, teachers, and barbers can't afford to live in the area then the supplies of those who do that labor will go down, leading to a premium in wages that will allow them to eventually afford housing. No one is entitled to live wherever they want. We do not need to upend our way of life because people don't like their personal choices. There is plenty of cheap housing stock in Iowa, Kansas, Pennsylvania, Western MD, etc. It's not my responsibility to provide you housing because you don't want to live there.

Why don't people move to places where housing is cheap because there's very little demand for housing because there's no economic opportunity?!?!?!

Nonsense.

You all complain burger flippers, restaurant staff, teachers and firefighters can't afford to live in this area. Guess what? All of those jobs exist in Kansas, Ohio, Iowa, or Arkansas! Hell, the Dakotas have some of the top performing schools in the entire country if you care about your kids' education so much. You are not entitled to live wherever you want.

Here's a perfectly fine house for $375K in York, PA:

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2415-Wildon-Dr-York-PA-17403/60492446_zpid/

York is a small city with jobs for all of the people complaining about costs. They need teachers and restaurant staff.

Here are good enough homes for desperate people in Columbus, Ohio, which is a vibrant enough town for people if all they care about is owning a home:

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1465-Lockbourne-Rd-Columbus-OH-43206/33850877_zpid/

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/8437-Nimitz-Dr-Powell-OH-43065/34124344_zpid/

There is no housing crisis. The only crisis is that peoples' expectations don't match the realities of their current situations and that maybe they should make better choices for where they can truly afford to live relative to their education, income, and status in life. No one wants to be told the cold harsh reality of their networth. I'm sorry you can't afford to live in the DMV when you work a job earning $23/hour. Why should we tear down our neighborhoods to cater to your desires simply because you don't want to live in a more affordable area of the country? There are plenty of affordable places to live, you just refuse to move there.

You know the people you're telling to move to Ohio? They're the ones who make your life possible.

Again, if it was truly so unaffordable then all of those people who make all of our lives work would move because they know their true value. Yet they don't.

Welcome to the free market. Who is holding a gun to anyone's head and forcing them to live in this area? Oh wait, that's right, literally no one. Personal choices. Don't complain about dumping $3000 per month in rent because you demand to live in DC as a secretary while there are completely affordable homes in Columbus for under $300k and plenty of companies that need your line work there as well.

A secretary cannot afford a $300k house, plus a car and gas plus child care.

If you want your nanny, housekeeper and all the service and helping professions to be there for you, you need to grow up and understand what their lives are like. Don’t complain when your housekeeper wants $60 an hour and fast food is $20 a meal. Where should teachers, social workers, police, firefighters live. If they move further out, they will not want to commute and then what.

They can afford apartments or condos then. Who said you're entitled to own a home in nanny's or barista's wage?

Once again shows that the problem isn't due to affordable housing, but more to do with peoples' insane expectations from the world relative to their income, status and situation in life. Tough crap. I'm so sorry you have to live within your means.

They cannot afford to rent. Not everyone has high paying careers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Signed, a boomer that got their housing for 3 blueberries back in 1940 from a Sears catalog. Go talk to young people, even high earners, on how difficult it is to buy a house nowadays.

Reading OP is fundamental. Young people may have to make the very tough decision to not live in Arlington or Chevy Chase. They may have to: rent; commute from Gaithersburg (via the existing mass transit because climate); transfer jobs to Omaha; buy a condo in Arlington or Chevy Chase and live like most of Europe or NYC or urban Asia already does

Or, the voters of Montgomery County might decide to elect elected officials who believe Montgomery County will be better off if Montgomery County is a place where young people want to and can afford to live, and enact housing, land use, and transportation policies accordingly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A reminder of how incredibly affordable the DC area is.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1535-Lincoln-Way-102-McLean-VA-22102/2061487338_zpid/

249k is not affordable for a one bedroom. Plus insurance, utilities and how. And what if you have kids? Hoa is $600 a month.

lol are you serious?? What do you expect home prices to be? I honestly want to know what you think you a 3 bedroom house in McLean should cost.

It's entitlement mentality. It is mental rot. Americans have been told their entire lives they deserve everything just for existing. Anyone should have the fundamental right to live wherever they want despite their incomes. Why aren't there $125,000 homes to buy in Arlington, Potomac, Bethesda, McClean, etc. Wah wah wah

You are entirely missing the point. People cannot afford rent either. Why do you think stores and restaurants are short staffed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A reminder of how incredibly affordable the DC area is.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1535-Lincoln-Way-102-McLean-VA-22102/2061487338_zpid/

249k is not affordable for a one bedroom. Plus insurance, utilities and how. And what if you have kids? Hoa is $600 a month.

lol are you serious?? What do you expect home prices to be? I honestly want to know what you think you a 3 bedroom house in McLean should cost.

It's entitlement mentality. It is mental rot. Americans have been told their entire lives they deserve everything just for existing. Anyone should have the fundamental right to live wherever they want despite their incomes. Why aren't there $125,000 homes to buy in Arlington, Potomac, Bethesda, McClean, etc. Wah wah wah

I'm totally going to start spelling it McClean from now on, and I will pronounce it that way too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A reminder of how incredibly affordable the DC area is.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1535-Lincoln-Way-102-McLean-VA-22102/2061487338_zpid/

249k is not affordable for a one bedroom. Plus insurance, utilities and how. And what if you have kids? Hoa is $600 a month.

lol are you serious?? What do you expect home prices to be? I honestly want to know what you think you a 3 bedroom house in McLean should cost.

It's entitlement mentality. It is mental rot. Americans have been told their entire lives they deserve everything just for existing. Anyone should have the fundamental right to live wherever they want despite their incomes. Why aren't there $125,000 homes to buy in Arlington, Potomac, Bethesda, McClean, etc. Wah wah wah

You are entirely missing the point. People cannot afford rent either. Why do you think stores and restaurants are short staffed.

Then they can move elsewhere. Go move to Pittsburgh where there are plenty of places to rent for $1500 and below per mo:

https://www.trulia.com/for_rent/Pittsburgh,PA/

I don't care about staffing at restaurants. They can pay more if they want staff. See how the free economy works?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a middle class person with a family who actually does live in an apartment (gasp) in NE DC (shocked silence), I just want to point out that actually there are thousands and thousands of homeless or under housed people in the area. I know because they hang out in my neighborhood.

I have zero issues living in an apartment but it seems obvious to me that we don't have enough low- and middle-income housing that is either close to commercial corridors or accessible to reliable transit. My spouse and I have also done the math on moving further out and commuting so that we could afford a SFH with a yard. For starters, everything further out is also more expensive than it used to be. And second, this would necessitate owning two cars, a major expense. And third it would require additional childcare to cover the hours we'd both spend commuting, at least three days a week. So it doesn't really work out even assuming we could find a SFH for 500k or less.

We are presently looking for jobs in another city where yes, pay is lower overall, but also where housing is much cheaper. I don't think we're the only middle-income family I'm this situation.

My spouse is a civil engineer and I am a preschool teacher.

Exactly. Personal decisions. You've now made the wise decision to move to another area with a lower COL so that you can buy. Literally proves my point. There is no crisis. There's only bloated expectations and entitlement.

Good luck when you can't find experienced teachers or civil engineers in the DMV because they all moved to Columbus and St. Louis and Philly where they can afford to own a SFH with okay schools close in.

It will be great when the city is just wealthy people, poor people, and a bunch of young professionals passing through on their way to other things. Have fun with that.

If we couldn't find teachers and civil engineers, etc., yes that would be a problem. But the fact is we don't have this problem at all. All service needs are met! There is literally no problem at all.

Do you read the educational forum? Teaching needs are not adequately met, at least in Fairfax County. As a former teacher, I couldn’t afford a tent in the town where I taught, so we moved. When I return to education, my expertise, gained from Fairfax County training, will benefit students that compete against DMV kids for college spots.

Look on the county websites. Lots of vacancies that 15 years ago would not have been there. As a woman, with a masters I stopped working as my entire county salary would have gone to child care and that was 15 years ago for one child. These jobs are not easily filled.

+1, it's genuinely hard to fill a lot of these roles. Another thing that happens is that you can hire freshly minted professionals into these jobs, but then they leave 5-10 years later because they have, or want to have, kids and they can't share a condo with a roommate anymore to save money. It is genuinely becoming critical because 10 years ago these folks had a decent number of options -- Wheaton, Rockville, parts of Alexandria, PG County. Now a 2 bedroom, one bathroom bungalow in Wheaton runs 500-600k, which at current interest rates is not affordable for a family of 3 with an HHI of 160k, especially when factoring in the cost of both commuting and childcare. When educated professionals can't afford 1200 square foot unrenovated homes outside the beltway, where the schools are so-so anyway, what do you expect them to do? Commute in from Howard County? At that point they will just get jobs in HoCo or Baltimore.

People in this thread keep saying "the market will correct" by raising wages, but that's not always what happens. Another option is to lower standards, and for cash strapped organizations (which includes most state and municipal government, including most school districts), they will often opt to go the other direction and lower entry standards. That means hiring less qualified, less educated, and less experienced people to perform the same jobs. So congrats! Your teachers and bridge inspectors won't be as good anymore. Surely that won't have any impact on your quality of life. Same thing with the people who manage the bureaucracy of government. You want to complain about your tax assessment? Good luck, because the assessor's office is understaffed with a 3 year backlog, and the people in charge can barely string three sentences together.

But you know, good luck with that. DC is going to be great when it's a few thousand very wealthy people and then millions of people living in poverty, with no middle class to speak of. What could go wrong?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A reminder of how incredibly affordable the DC area is.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1535-Lincoln-Way-102-McLean-VA-22102/2061487338_zpid/

249k is not affordable for a one bedroom. Plus insurance, utilities and how. And what if you have kids? Hoa is $600 a month.

lol are you serious?? What do you expect home prices to be? I honestly want to know what you think you a 3 bedroom house in McLean should cost.

It's entitlement mentality. It is mental rot. Americans have been told their entire lives they deserve everything just for existing. Anyone should have the fundamental right to live wherever they want despite their incomes. Why aren't there $125,000 homes to buy in Arlington, Potomac, Bethesda, McClean, etc. Wah wah wah

You are entirely missing the point. People cannot afford rent either. Why do you think stores and restaurants are short staffed.

Then they can move elsewhere. Go move to Pittsburgh where there are plenty of places to rent for $1500 and below per mo:

https://www.trulia.com/for_rent/Pittsburgh,PA/

I don't care about staffing at restaurants. They can pay more if they want staff. See how the free economy works?

Ok, bye babe.