Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Yes, it's a sad situation. I feel like I'm living in the Twilight Zone. We're given phony numbers about inflation, and there is no doubt in my mind they are made up in advance just to solicit certain outcomes. I agree completely with your sentiment on the Fed. They should be raising rates drastically right now. However, let's not forget the role of government spending. Then you have city and state leaders in Texas pushing for economic growth when and where it is destructive. We also have the problem of an increase in dual-income households contributing to this mess. In my day, households were only dual-income when necessary for basic living expenses, not luxury living.
Greed and gluttony have become a big problem.
Yes, the days of an average family being able to have a “middle class” standard of living on one income are long over. Most individual earners do not and will never earn $120,000, the amount now required for a married couple with one or more children to be counted as “middle class”. So now it requires two people.
Meanwhile, prices of everything have skyrocketed, including food, goods and services, cars, and housing. What many don’t realize is that these price increases, or in the case of housing, “price gains”, are not real. They are illusory, a byproduct of a currency that has lost and continues to lose significant value and buying power since 2020.
I don’t believe the official inflation numbers either, but even if they were accurate and representative of inflation’s true destructive magnitude, we are still +70% above target. January’s CPI was 3.1%, on top of the four years of already-crushing compounding inflation. The Fed is nowhere near target, are yet they have the gall to talk about “when the time comes to cut rates”. I do not understand how this unelected, unaccountable, and incompetent institution has so much power and influence over our economy and financial system. No one questions them or demands accountability for their numerous errors and screw ups. It’s absurd.
My initial assessment was that a return to a 2% CPI was impossible without a Fed-induced recession. We’ll see if that is the case, or if continued deficit spending by our reprobate government is able to stave one off this year. The Fed is unwilling to raise the Fed funds rate above 5.5%, which so far has not shown significant progress in reducing demand. The common narrative that recessions are ghastly events that should be avoided at all costs is ridiculous. We need a recession. The alternative is price instability — continued high demand creating more inflation and rising prices.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Leonard123
It's funny I don't think it was even so bad two years ago. It's like something happened right around then that didn't happen anywhere else.
If by “something happened”, you mean McKinney noticeably worsening and going downhill, don’t worry, that’s a trend happening to all Collin County cities as they become flooded with apartments. Even current Collin County darling Frisco isn’t immune. In a decade it too will be yet another faded, decaying has-been just like Plano is today, and Richardson was thirty years ago when Plano became the epicenter of suburban Dallas affluence. DFW suburbs do not have staying power.
Yes, the days of an average family being able to have a “middle class” standard of living on one income are long over. Most individual earners do not and will never earn $120,000, the amount now required for a married couple with one or more children to be counted as “middle class”. So now it requires two people.
Meanwhile, prices of everything have skyrocketed, including food, goods and services, cars, and housing. What many don’t realize is that these price increases, or in the case of housing, “price gains”, are not real. They are illusory, a byproduct of a currency that has lost and continues to lose significant value and buying power since 2020.
I don’t believe the official inflation numbers either, but even if they were accurate and representative of inflation’s true destructive magnitude, we are still +70% above target. January’s CPI was 3.1%, on top of the four years of already-crushing compounding inflation. The Fed is nowhere near target, are yet they have the gall to talk about “when the time comes to cut rates”. I do not understand how this unelected, unaccountable, and incompetent institution has so much power and influence over our economy and financial system. No one questions them or demands accountability for their numerous errors and screw ups. It’s absurd.
My initial assessment was that a return to a 2% CPI was impossible without a Fed-induced recession. We’ll see if that is the case, or if continued deficit spending by our reprobate government is able to stave one off this year. The Fed is unwilling to raise the Fed funds rate above 5.5%, which so far has not shown significant progress in reducing demand. The common narrative that recessions are ghastly events that should be avoided at all costs is ridiculous. We need a recession. The alternative is price instability — continued high demand creating more inflation and rising prices.
If by “something happened”, you mean McKinney noticeably worsening and going downhill, don’t worry, that’s a trend happening to all Collin County cities as they become flooded with apartments. Even current Collin County darling Frisco isn’t immune. In a decade it too will be yet another faded, decaying has-been just like Plano is today, and Richardson was thirty years ago when Plano became the epicenter of suburban Dallas affluence. DFW suburbs do not have staying power.
That's 77,552 units planned for just the northern suburbs, and that doesn't include a plethora of recently rubber-stamped requests the past few months. In terms of number of complexes, I counted over 30 for Celina, which is quite astonishing for a city with so much open land and little else, while Frisco and McKinney have just over 40 each. Plano has close to 60 in the pipeline. How do they cram those into a city that doesn't even have a postage stamp size of land left?!
Wylie and Highland Village are the only northern suburbs to have none planned. Ironically, I was noting elsewhere, these are two cities that have no roller coasters. That does seem to be an advantage in the metro area, and there seems to a correlation there.
Yes, the days of an average family being able to have a “middle class” standard of living on one income are long over. Most individual earners do not and will never earn $120,000, the amount now required for a married couple with one or more children to be counted as “middle class”. So now it requires two people.
Meanwhile, prices of everything have skyrocketed, including food, goods and services, cars, and housing. What many don’t realize is that these price increases, or in the case of housing, “price gains”, are not real. They are illusory, a byproduct of a currency that has lost and continues to lose significant value and buying power since 2020.
I don’t believe the official inflation numbers either, but even if they were accurate and representative of inflation’s true destructive magnitude, we are still +70% above target. January’s CPI was 3.1%, on top of the four years of already-crushing compounding inflation. The Fed is nowhere near target, are yet they have the gall to talk about “when the time comes to cut rates”. I do not understand how this unelected, unaccountable, and incompetent institution has so much power and influence over our economy and financial system. No one questions them or demands accountability for their numerous errors and screw ups. It’s absurd.
My initial assessment was that a return to a 2% CPI was impossible without a Fed-induced recession. We’ll see if that is the case, or if continued deficit spending by our reprobate government is able to stave one off this year. The Fed is unwilling to raise the Fed funds rate above 5.5%, which so far has not shown significant progress in reducing demand. The common narrative that recessions are ghastly events that should be avoided at all costs is ridiculous. We need a recession. The alternative is price instability — continued high demand creating more inflation and rising prices.
If by “something happened”, you mean McKinney noticeably worsening and going downhill, don’t worry, that’s a trend happening to all Collin County cities as they become flooded with apartments. Even current Collin County darling Frisco isn’t immune. In a decade it too will be yet another faded, decaying has-been just like Plano is today, and Richardson was thirty years ago when Plano became the epicenter of suburban Dallas affluence. DFW suburbs do not have staying power.
More baseless anti-renter sentiment common to suburbs everywhere. Give it a rest.
Crazy to look back at this thread and how much changed so fast. Of those 4 houses I originally listed.
The 450k house was torn down, 6500sq ft house was built, and now it's appraised for over 2 million. 334k house was flipped for almost 600k 1.5 years later. 340k house was resold the next summer in a bidding war and highest bid was $475k. $320k house if sold today even with interest rates would realistically get at least 450k-470k.
More baseless anti-renter sentiment common to suburbs everywhere. Give it a rest.
Baseless?
Have you lived next to a bunch of apartments? Have you lived next to rent houses?
In my neighborhood, down at the end of the streets there's a commuter rail track and then a wide power line easement and then a whole bunch of newly constructed expensive apartments. Five stories high. Clear up on our streets, we can hear their noise every Friday and Saturday night. And these are NICE apartments. The people aren't having wild raucous parties; they're hanging out on their balconies and talking. But you put a thousand people all crammed together and it's noisy.
So all of us who've worked our tails off and saved and scrimped and finally get to have a house, with a yard, and SOME peace and quiet, should now be forced to listen to everyone else's noise, have to deal with everyone else's cars clogging our streets, not to mention the inevitable petty crime that always comes along with the seas of apartments, just because you think we should?
Have you lived next to a bunch of apartments? Have you lived next to rent houses?
In my neighborhood, down at the end of the streets there's a commuter rail track and then a wide power line easement and then a whole bunch of newly constructed expensive apartments. Five stories high. Clear up on our streets, we can hear their noise every Friday and Saturday night. And these are NICE apartments. The people aren't having wild raucous parties; they're hanging out on their balconies and talking. But you put a thousand people all crammed together and it's noisy.
So all of us who've worked our tails off and saved and scrimped and finally get to have a house, with a yard, and SOME peace and quiet, should now be forced to listen to everyone else's noise, have to deal with everyone else's cars clogging our streets, not to mention the inevitable petty crime that always comes along with the seas of apartments, just because you think we should?
It is a falsehood that owner-occupied single family homes deserve special, preferential "protection" by government from multifamily, renters, etc. If someone wants to satisfy a market need by building rental housing or buying a home and renting it out, government should be completely neutral about it. This isn't up for debate.
So all of us who've worked our tails off and saved and scrimped and finally get to have a house, with a yard, and SOME peace and quiet, should now be forced to listen to everyone else's noise, have to deal with everyone else's cars clogging our streets, not to mention the inevitable petty crime that always comes along with the seas of apartments, just because you think we should?
Do you have children? If not, most everyone else has. People gotta live somewhere.
Nobody's an island (unless you have enough money to buy an actual island away from the herd).
It is a falsehood that owner-occupied single family homes deserve special, preferential "protection" by government from multifamily, renters, etc. If someone wants to satisfy a market need by building rental housing or buying a home and renting it out, government should be completely neutral about it. This isn't up for debate.
It comes down to the city zoning. When people buy houses, they can view the city's zoning map to know what may pop up around them. In most cases, the surrounding land will already be developed, so people already know what's around them. When people insist on buying newer housing close to jobs and highways, they have to expect things like this. There are ways to avoid it when buying a house.
I think investors have drastically overestimated the "market need" for rentals, and they are going to regret it. Rents are going to plummet in the years to come. I don't object to apartments, but I think they need to be added at a reasonable pace in proportion with the surrounding development types, and the city and region need to have the resources to sustain the added people.
We do not have enough electricity, natural gas, water, road space, and other resources needed to sustain such a large number of people and businesses at such a high rate of speed. It's not there. The city, I believe, has a right to say so. In that case, though, they need to be limiting building permits altogether.
It is a falsehood that owner-occupied single family homes deserve special, preferential "protection" by government from multifamily, renters, etc. If someone wants to satisfy a market need by building rental housing or buying a home and renting it out, government should be completely neutral about it. This isn't up for debate.
Well, yes, actually it IS up for debate. In pretty much every city in the nation.
And saying "it is a falsehood" doesn't make it so.
Do you have children? If not, most everyone else has. People gotta live somewhere.
Nobody's an island (unless you have enough money to buy an actual island away from the herd).
That has nothing to do with the demonstrable fact that in middle class neighborhoods, rent houses are more poorly kept than owner-occupied; that where large apartment complexes come in, petty crime; traffic; parking problems; noise; and overcrowding follow.
I know someone's going to bring up $12,000/month rentals on the Upper East Side, or Tokyo, or something equally irrelevant, but I'm talking about average cities in the United States.
Single family houses are the most expensive form of housing in the US and the most sought after. It should be surprising to anyone that people who have worked and saved and spent most of their life's savings and contracted for 30 years of payments, to get into a SFH, should then wish to protect their investment and their lifestyle. Take a subdivision of SFH mostly owner-occupied; tear half down and make fourplex rentals; and you will have a COMPLETELY different, and inferior, standard of living.
It's also not surprising that single family homeowners tend to be more likely to have the resources and will to participate in city planning and zoning meetings to protect their investment and lifestyle, compared to apartment dwellers who tend to be far more temporary and transient and to have minimal stake whether financial or emotional in their neighborhoods.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
