I still wonder why US houses are so expensive? I mean they are basically just a couple plywood planks slapped together, what can be so expensive about that?
this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2026
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me_irl
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Well, when 5 people own all the houses and all the land they can jack up the price and leave the houses empty.
Supply and demand. The 2008 financial crises crushed perspective home home owners and rightfully made it harder to purchase homes for people with low credit. The demand for construction slowed/stopped driving many construction businesses out of business. Now we don't have enough supply or enough construction to meet the supply. Somewhat ironically rents and prices are so high that it is economically viable to start building again. Many new apartments are being built now and for the first time in a very long time rents actually flatlined.
Beyond this there were also issues that made the problem even worse. Land lords started using the same tools to determine rent and even though they weren't directly colluding, in effect they were through the tools. Also Blackstone started buying up as much property as it could during the low interest rates during covid.
Also nimbyism blocks a shit ton of new development.
Yes, that's not a new problem though. The biggest issue there is it tends to block medium density stuff like apartments. It's one reason the US has the "missing middle" problem.
Those numbers are so not reality. $2K/month is nowhere near the payment for the first one.
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Both are heavily overpriced.
Hey, they touched up the images for the second posting with AI. So, that's an improvement. /s
Let's break this down. Plugging these numbers into a mortgage calculator, yes a $600,000 home with a 3% interest rate would be a payment of ~$2024/month. However, this assumes a 20% down payment, $0 property taxes, $0 insurance, $0 HOA etc.
However, an 850k house at an 8.5% interest rate with those same numbers would "only" be $5228/month. Additionally, as other commenters have pointed out, interest rates are not that high.
OP is straight up lying to you at worst, or just cherry picking numbers in a very deceiving way at best.
Not that I'm trying to argue housing is affordable. Just that people will go on the Internet and tell lies to spin a narrative and drive engagement.
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Can Also be titled why birth rates are low or why no one has spending money and sooo much more
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Here in Australia, they just changed a lot of the tax laws. Every shonky house investor out there is freaking out telling everyone how important they are and we'll fail without them lol
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