First, thanks to Darth Mandarb who uploaded this art to Pixel Joint.
No matter who you are
, you have to live somewhere. The street, an apartment, a hostel, a house, etc.. I'm sure a lot of people both here in the USA and overseas have been reading about the financial crisis brought about by people not being able to pay their mortages and financial companies going under who guaranteed those mortgages.
So today I looked at house prices in Irvine. That's Orange County, California. A 3 bedroom, 2 bath house (attached, average single family size) goes minimum for $400,000. No yard to speak of but 1500 square feet. And on Realtor.com there are about 430 such houses available. Granted, Irvine has a population of around 180,000 compared to Austin's 2 million.
Now we look at Austin, Texas. Over 4,000 houses available, and an equivalent house with about the same features and a corner lot goes for $90,000. Amazing, isn't it? Sorry, but humidity and not having a beach doesn't jack up the price four and a half times, ESPECIALLY if people can't afford it.
Just what crack are people smoking in SoCal? I did take economics. I studied the basics of supply and demand. But this isn't a natural case of supply and demand. Realtors and builders are jacking up prices in California because they believe people will still pay for them. The truth is they're not anymore. They can't. Four years ago I read that only 10% of the people moving into San Diego could afford a house. How can you stay in business? Only two ways: lower housing costs, or keep the prices the same or higher and hope the few that you DO sell will keep your own bills paid. With the financial crisis that's taking place stemming from overpriced housing in the first place, you'd think that would change in California. Nope. Greed wins.
I really hope something is done about this in our country. I'm ashamed of this sort of wanton greed. All I can do to change it is not buy a house. And if prices stay like this in Cali, I never will.