• afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    The price to build a house is nothing compared to what it will sell for. The selling price is mostly speculation. Housing used to be something you just owned, like a car, we as a society decided it had to be an investment and everything has gone to hell since.

      • deaf_fish@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        Oh sure, it will be hard. But we have done lots of hard things. Maintaining a road system is very expensive. The government has built aircraft carriers. We went to the moon.

        Being hard and expensive has never stopped the government before. It’s just a matter of whether or not we want to do it.

          • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            I fail to see what is confusing. Insurance is a scam. You have it because the government makes you have it. So of course a grifter is going to grift.

            • ghterve@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              I’m confused because I’m unfamiliar with any governments in the US that require homeowners or renters insurance. The closest I can think of is that FNMA or FMAC backed mortgages would surely require insurance to cover their collateral, but the government doesn’t require that you have a mortgage backed by either of those.

              So… what are you talking about with “the government makes you have it”?

              Also, how is it a scam? If you want to insure against a risk, you can choose to purchase an insurance policy against that risk. Sure, the insurer wants to make some profit off of that, but government insurance regulations and competition both help to keep that profit in check a bit…

            • GreenTacklebox@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              Housing insurance how it is is a scam you’re right but the insurance itself is not. If they could operate ethically (they cannot) then everything would be fine.

    • aidan@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Well, why do you think the price of houses goes up while most other commodities go down. Except for… education, healthcare, and cars in the past 20 years. It feels a little like to me the government backed lending(among other things) has something to do with it. Something something- taking a low interest loan means you’re less concerned about a 20% higher price, and so is everyone else- or something.

        • AutistoMephisto@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Cars, new ones at least, depreciate in value the second you drive off the lot in one. This depreciation will slow down after about five years, and stop after 10, after which the car is essentially worthless. At that point the value of the vehicle is dependent upon your care and maintenance of it, the equity you put into keeping it pristine, until eventually the vehicle reaches “classic” status and is worth more as a museum piece. Of course that won’t be until long after you’ve died and left the vehicle to your children, who leave it to theirs, who leave it to theirs, and so on. So, you will never get to enjoy the money of the sale your once-new car after about 50 years of appreciating in value after it becomes a “classic” car.

          • thisorthatorwhatever@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            Maybe, mabye not. If you buy the worst car that is for sale today…and keep it in good running condition by do frequent maintenance, in 30 years you’ll have a very interesting classic.

            For example if you bought a Dodge Omni in 1990, or a Chevrolet Citation in 1985, you’d have a very interesting and unique car today.

      • aidan@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Where this type of lending is less frequent, like mobile homes, prices haven’t risen as much. But as that lending has gotten more common, they’re starting to.

      • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Education went up in cost because nothing was stopping it from going up and everything else is so broken it took the place for it. Kids need therapy and they can’t get it, so schools hire therapists. Kids come into higher ed unready so schools has to hire tutors and offer basic classes. No walkability so here comes a campus bus system. Systematic racism so here comes 8 offices of diversity. A nasty combo of unlimited money and mission creep. Want to stop it? Limit the salary of all uni employees to no more than say 110k a year, stop subsidizing the NFL, and fix all the shit that isn’t working around the ages of 18-23.

        Healthcare went up because insurance companies. They are a useless middlemen.

        Cars really haven’t gone up that much.

        • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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          7 months ago

          You left out the parallel police and court systems that can only inflict academic punishments but have greatly reduced due process rights and rights of the accused in general. To the point that they had to lose lawsuits over things like the accused being allowed to know what evidence will be brought against them or what the procedure is supposed to look like or what training those involved in conducting the procedure had on it.

          Biden’s changes to the policy actually rolled back the idea that maybe the people whose roles are analogous to prosecutor, judge and defense in a “real” court should not all be the same person, but then he basically rolled back to the Obama-era version of the policy, except where the changes were just spelling out something from a court judgement.

        • aidan@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Education went up in cost because nothing was stopping it from going up and everything else is so broken it took the place for it.

          Well yeah, that’s my point? Why do you think their customers are able to pay any amount? Because they’re taking government loans.

          Healthcare went up because insurance companies. They are a useless middlemen.

          How did insurance companies increase the cost of healthcare when their goal is to decrease it so they can profit more?

          Cars really haven’t gone up that much.

          New and used cars definitely haven’t gone down in price despite increased mechanization, improved shipping, etc. But yeah out of these things they have the lowest infinite free money behind them.

          • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            Well yeah, that’s my point? Why do you think their customers are able to pay any amount? Because they’re taking government loans.

            No it is because stuff around it was broken.

            How did insurance companies increase the cost of healthcare when their goal is to decrease it so they can profit more?

            Expensive for us not for them. Given that insurance doesn’t actually payout the cost doesn’t matter to them.