Posted on 04/26/2012 6:44:30 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
If there’s one asset the world has little use for, it’s an American single family home priced above 250K, reachable only by car.
The great, post-war buildout of America’s suburbs relied upon the continuance of a favorable arbitrage between rising wages, and low transportation costs. Now that this profitable scheme has come to an end, it should be no surprise that Robert Shiller remarked this week that housing “may not recover in our lifetime.”
While some stabilization has been seen since the start of the US housing bust, Case-Shiller data showed this week that many cities hit new price lows. Interestingly, Robert Shiller is now himself noting the energy and transport cost pressure on US housing, and used the phrase “walkable cities.”
To illustrate how I see the future price path of homes in non-walkable cities, I made up the following graphic:
Walkable cities are very nice indeed, and I’ve been fortunate to live in several of them: Boston, New York, San Francisco and now my present city, Portland.
But the majority of American homes, in order to capture any future increase in value, will need to benefit again from rising wages and flat to falling energy costs. At the current juncture, those are two trends unlikely to appear any time soon.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Yes, because packing us all into Soviet-style apartments is so much better. /s
Walkable = CCW
Inaccessible to flash mobs is going to add value, very soon.
That fact is no accident.
Mike
Some people were just not meant to live like 'rats.
Get to the point Gregor.
All you are predicting here is a continuance of the crippling and destructive environmental fascism that current dominates energy issues in the USSA.
There is PLENTY of energy to be harvested in the USA alone for INTELLIGENT people to drive 400 HP SUVS at will for the next 500 years.
exactly. The reason people wanted a home in the ‘burbs was to have a yard and some peace and quite. If they wanted to live in stacked boxes there are plenty of places they could have chosen
Also, the author neglects to mention the increasing viability of working from home due to technology that would negate any rising transportation costs for many Americans.
I am on a project where I worked strictly from home. I was on the same project 5 years ago, and traveled back and forth to NYC from Pittsburgh.
“Agenda 21”
If I wanted America to fail...
Yes it is easier to control masses of people when they are packed in city type compounds. No Thanks I live in the sticks and will stay there.
Our small scenic valley holding about 100 homes, each on at least one acre, mostly retirees, 45 mins from the nearest big town, is suddenly having a crime wave. Many older residents have been forced to move closer to town because of the price of gas and as a result there have been foreclosures, and homeowners who can’t sell are renting to undesirables who are keeping these rental homes and outside areas in deplorable condition. Three burglaries, two within the last week. One the homeowner interrupted while burglary was in progress, and was beaten, shot, and hospitalized. The local sheriff has too big an area to cover to come here in a timely fashion when incidents occur. I foresee self policing, vigilante style, if things keep happening, which could be as alarming as the crime.
Bingo!
It is! It makes it so much easier for the block captains to spy on the tenants and report their activities to the commissar.
>> Walkable cities are very nice indeed, and I’ve been fortunate to live in several of them: Boston, New York, San Francisco and now my present city, Portland.
That, plus his asinine pedantic graphic, is all I needed to add this fool to my “ignore forever” list.
Anybody whos says...”Walkable cities are very nice indeed, and I’ve been fortunate to live in several of them: Boston, New York, San Francisco and now my present city, Portland.” is a flaming lib.
How many homes are reachable by air, doofus? Sounds like an ad for the futuristic but laughably incapable Terrafugia, which most recently flew for eight entire minutes and reached an altitude of 1400 feet.
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