Not even a 0% mortgage rate would make buying a house affordable in these 6 U.S. cities

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1. But even if mortgage rates dropped to 0%, Prakash said, an average home would remain unaffordable in some major metro areas, according to Zillow.

   Those include:

   * New York
   * Los Angeles
   * Miami
   * San Francisco
   * San Diego
   * San Jose

   That’s because high home prices “are the bigger hurdle,” Michelle Griffith, a luxury real-estate broker with Douglas Elliman based in New York City, told Fortune.

   “The reality is that buying into the market especially in Manhattan or prime Brooklyn still requires a significant amount of cash upfront,” Griffith said. “Inventory is tight and competition is high, so the cost of the property itself is what keeps most buyers on the sidelines.”

2. Not being able to buy a house in the top 6 most expensive cities in the country isn’t a problem. Location is the most significant factor in housing costs. Just don’t live there

3. 0% interest would certainly work for me and any other speculators wanting to make a fortune with nearly zero skin in the game. Can you imagine how many of these deals would get snapped up by the likes of Blackrock.

4. Ny is outta control right now

5. The article doesn’t factor in that very low interest rates may actually unlock significant inventory from “locked in” owners with ~3% rates who cannot currently afford to sell in order to downsize, upgrade, or move to a different area. That is a big reason there is such low inventory which is keeping prices pegged so high.

   This is not traditionally how the market works, usually lower rates means prices go up, but the Fed fucked the housing market up so badly with low interest rates that now we have the opposite happening, higher interest rates = higher prices because lock-in causing extremely low inventory on market.

6. So price correction coming?

7. The only way to make housing truly affordable is to make it so that it’s no longer an asset class.

   That’s easier said than done, but taxing wealth, specifically taxing land value would do it, and balancing that with universal basic income so that people who own only one home and live in it aren’t hurt by the change.

8. Avoiding/keeping to the sidelines whether housing is utility or **financial asset**?

9. Desirable locations will always be expensive.

   It’s not a housing issue, everyone simply can’t live in waterfront property.

10. Outlaw foreign investors.

    2 properties max per person.

    Vacancy taxes.

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