Why are Used Homes So Expensive?

Part 2: Home Prices

First off, I’d like to welcome all of you who have subscribed to Build the Next Right Thing in the last week. I have to give a big thank you to Chuck Marohn, the founder of Strong Towns, who kindly gave me a shout out in his weekly roundup. I’ve been part of the Strong Towns movement and an infrequent contributor since the early days. The Strong Towns community has been one of the most influential on my own thinking about cities and society–if you’re not already a member, I urge you to check it out and get involved.  

If you’re new I recommend starting with the following posts to give you a sense of what I’m trying to do here: 

• Build the Next Right Thing, and

• My Housing Story

Now, this week I’m continuing my look under the hood at “Why is Housing So Expensive.” You can find Part 1, here. 

Shutterstock

Today, I’d like to explore how home prices come about, (as distinct from costs, described in Part 1), and in particular, prices of non-income generating, owner-occupied housing–typically a single family house or a condo. (We’ll look at income-generating residential properties in a future installment). 

Rising home prices are a hot topic in many cities, and not just super-star expensive coastal metros. Here in Rhode Island, the median sale price for a home increased about 30% in a couple years. Median incomes did not.

So what is driving this change? Where do housing prices come from?

Fundamentally, home prices are the result of a whole bunch of  negotiations between sellers and buyers. Sellers generally want the highest price they can get and certainty that sale will go through with a minimum of headaches. A seller (and their agent) will look around at what other properties have been selling for recently, and whether recent sales prices seem to be going up or down, when considering the price they will accept. 

In contrast, the buyer is looking to buy a house and has some preferences about the house they plan to buy and live in: size, quality, location, and other features. And the buyer would like to get those preferences for as little as possible up to some maximum amount they can afford to pay. The maximum amount that a buyer can afford to pay depends on a combination of their available cash, access to debt, income, interest rates, property taxes, and insurance rates–all coming together to a monthly mortgage payment. Generally, the higher their income and the higher their savings, and the lower the mortgage interest rates, the higher the maximum price a buyer can afford to pay. 

The main factor that determines whether the seller or the buyer has more leverage in this negotiation is the ratio between homes for sale and potential buyers. 

If there are more homes available than potential buyers the buyers have the advantage (a buyer’s market). They will be able to view many properties and take their time making considered offers. They are less likely to engage in bidding wars and may even generally offer under asking price. Sales prices will be set by what sellers will accept. 

Conversely, when there are many more potential buyers than homes available, sellers have the advantage (a seller’s market). In a sellers’ market you will get bidding wars for properties, sometimes with a dozen or more offers. Properties may stay on the market for just a few days. Buyers may waive inspections & other contingencies. Here the price is set by the top few bidders (the ones that the highest bidder had to beat to win the sale). 

So why do housing prices tend to go up in a sellers’ market? 

First, the bidding competition to buy each of the limited number of homes will tend to drive up the price as people compete for something (a home) they really want. If the only way to get it is to stretch budgets, work more hours, borrow money from family and friends, etc. then at least some buyers will do that. 

Second, the composition of buyers could be changing. For example there could be an increasing number of households with larger budgets looking to live in a city or neighborhood. Their resources (maybe from higher incomes or significant savings) can allow them to outbid other potential buyers. If housing is scarce, it only takes a relatively small number of these higher income households to drive up the prices in a whole housing market. 

Imagine: you add a dozen new high wealth households to a sellers’ housing market. They will likely compete with each other to be the highest bidders for houses that meet their preferences. Because these households have larger budgets, they are able to bid up the price of each sale. Other sellers watching this dynamic will begin listing their houses for more and more money chasing these new buyers who are willing to pay so much more. 

In that way, even a fairly small number of higher income households competing for a limited pool of desirable housing can increase housing prices across a region or market. The Sightline Institute calls this dynamic a game of Cruel Musical Chairs

This triple-decker down the street from me in Providence, just sold for $700,000 (11% over asking, with over a dozen offers). Five years ago it might have sold for around $400,000. No one who qualifies for subsidized low-income housing was bidding on that house. And no one who was bidding on that house would qualify for subsidized affordable housing. 

Zillow

Market rate housing prices are increasing because we’re not building enough new homes to meet the demand at the upper-income side of the market that is increasingly interested in this neighborhood and Providence in general. And their bidding for a limited pool of existing homes is resetting the market dynamic for everyone. 

State leaders in RI are reacting to the crisis¹ of rising home prices and increasing homelessness and proposing a “once in a generation investment.” Their proposed solutions are mainly focused on building more subsidized affordable housing for low income households, along with some down payment assistance, and other programs. These are important steps toward providing a housing safety net, but they won’t do much, if anything, to address affordability to everyone else. 

To stabilize the housing market you need to build a lot of middle and upper-middle market housing and keep those households out of bidding wars for existing homes for the sake of your whole housing market. 

1. Crisis is the word that most advocates are using. I think it’s important to note though that it’s likely the case that right now more households are benefiting from rising housing prices than are suffering because of them because every home owning household is benefiting from rising asset values. In the short run, it’s bad, however, because rising homelessness and increasing economic precariousness out way the asset appreciation to wealthy households. In the long run, rising real-housing prices still aren’t a great outcome for your overall housing ecosystem, but that’s a topic for a future post.