real estate

Who Really Benefited from the Pandemic Housing Boom? The housing debate often frames investors as the villains of Australia’s affordability crisis. It is easy to point to negative gearing, cheap credit and capital gains concessions and conclude that speculators drove the pandemic bubble and pocketed the windfall. But this misses the real transfer of wealth that occurred during the COVID years.

During the pandemic, investors accounted for roughly 30 per cent of housing purchases. Some did well, particularly those who bought established homes in markets that surged. But many others were caught out, not only by labour shortages, soaring material costs and stalled projects, but also by the rapid rise in interest rates that followed. As a class, investors did not profit nearly as much as is often assumed.

What really drove prices higher was a collision of extraordinary demand with constrained supply. Ultra-low interest rates, mortgage deferrals and direct stimulus programs such as JobKeeper and HomeBuilder supported household incomes and encouraged housing activity. These policies were necessary to keep the economy from collapsing during lockdowns, but we did not walk into them fully aware of the long-term consequences. Not only did they fuel demand, they also channelled activity into supply-constrained sectors like construction, where builders already faced material shortages and labour bottlenecks. Many firms simply could not deliver what was promised and went bankrupt under the strain, leaving buyers stranded.

With more buyers chasing fewer homes, and a building industry unable to expand supply, prices were pushed sharply higher.

So if both new investors chasing yield and first-home buyers entering at peak prices often ended up worse off, who actually gained? The biggest winners were long-term owner occupiers. Households that had purchased decades earlier, whether down-sizers cashing out or families simply holding, captured the largest windfall from the surge. In effect, they became accidental investors. In fact, anyone who has ever bought a home is, technically, an investor because they have put capital into an asset regardless of if they were expecting it to hold or increase in value. The fact that so many owner occupiers closely follow the value of their property shows a level of awareness that they are investors, whether they choose that label or not.

The real wealth transfer was not to the people most often blamed. It was to those who already owned, and who were best placed to benefit from extraordinary policy support and tight supply. Unless we recognise this, we will keep misdiagnosing the roots of today’s crisis and blaming the wrong people for it.

New structures for family-friends? Chatting with a friend recently and came up with this novel idea.

Historically, many people would end up married, having kids, and having responsibilities to their family and local community and groups.

These days, we have less family and civic integrity, less people are having kids. More people are creating their family of choice with friends.

I think there’s a general love and aliveness everyone wants to express and be in connection with.

But without the usual routes of kids/religion/local community, it doesn’t get routed well anymore.

We need more structures/ideas/understanding to support new kinds of families and community structures.

Examples:
How about an app that makes it easier to crowd source among trusted local friends to babysit?

Most housing is built around one nuclear family 1-4 bedrooms. But what about community homes with larger kitchens and living rooms and smaller but more bedrooms?

I’m gesturing at this general area at the idea that modern, industrial civilization is built around nuclear families but we have a lot more forms being generated now but still lagging behind in the idea/social practice/phys infrastructure to match.

I want a new archetype for libertarian well-being activist. Maybe it’s an old archetype and some German philosophers have been talking abt it for centuries…

My climbing gym is called Crux; the original location is moving because the rent is too high, and the landlord won’t work with the climbing gym…

The gym is in a part of the city that used be considered south, but now is centralish. I think all of austin loses when we lose places like this. We lose our character and our well being.

I want the landlord to be the libertarian well-being activist. My mom does this for the Relateful Studio. I didn’t ask and no one makes her; hardly anyone knows and she doesn’t get any tax benefits; we still pay her a good bit each month but it’s under market. She’s doing exactly what she wants to be doing with her money and investments: supporting her son’s vision.

The climbing gym landlord isn’t a bad guy, probably. Maybe he has loads of debt; maybe he has a wound from childhood that he’s trying to heal, but
Is the climbing gym landlord doing exactly what he wants?

I want endosymbiosis activists; where what they do is good for the whole and them, and they sacrifice neither. I want this to be a meme, that people strive to be. I want them to brag about it in their hearts, and try to remain undiscovered. I once heard that in Judaism the best mitzvahs are the ones no one knows you did.

I want a new archetype for libertarian well-being activist. Maybe it’s an old archetype and some German philosophers have been talking abt it for centuries…

My climbing gym is called Crux; the original location is moving because the rent is too high, and the landlord won’t work with the climbing gym…

The gym is in a part of the city that used be considered south, but now is centralish. I think all of austin loses when we lose places like this. We lose our character and our well being.

I want the landlord to be the libertarian well-being activist. My mom does this for the Relateful Studio. I didn’t ask and no one makes her; hardly anyone knows and she doesn’t get any tax benefits; we still pay her a good bit each month but it’s under market. She’s doing exactly what she wants to be doing with her money and investments: supporting her son’s vision.

The climbing gym landlord isn’t a bad guy, probably. Maybe he has loads of debt; maybe he has a wound from childhood that he’s trying to heal, but
Is the climbing gym landlord doing exactly what he wants?

I want endosymbiosis activists; where what they do is good for the whole and them, and they sacrifice neither. I want this to be a meme, that people strive to be. I want them to brag about it in their hearts, and try to remain undiscovered. I once heard that in Judaism the best mitzvahs are the ones no one knows you did.

I want a new archetype for libertarian well-being activist. Maybe it’s an old archetype and some German philosophers have been talking abt it for centuries…

My climbing gym is called Crux; the original location is moving because the rent is too high, and the landlord won’t work with the climbing gym…

The gym is in a part of the city that used be considered south, but now is centralish. I think all of austin loses when we lose places like this. We lose our character and our well being.

I want the landlord to be the libertarian well-being activist. My mom does this for the Relateful Studio. I didn’t ask and no one makes her; hardly anyone knows and she doesn’t get any tax benefits; we still pay her a good bit each month but it’s under market. She’s doing exactly what she wants to be doing with her money and investments: supporting her son’s vision.

The climbing gym landlord isn’t a bad guy, probably. Maybe he has loads of debt; maybe he has a wound from childhood that he’s trying to heal, but
Is the climbing gym landlord doing exactly what he wants?

I want endosymbiosis activists; where what they do is good for the whole and them, and they sacrifice neither. I want this to be a meme, that people strive to be. I want them to brag about it in their hearts, and try to remain undiscovered. I once heard that in Judaism the best mitzvahs are the ones no one knows you did.

How should I landscape my house? I am working on landscaping the home I bought in October, starting with the front yard due to a couple of issues. First, there is a big dip in the yard that floods every time it rains heavily. Second, the driveway is right in front of my bedroom window, causing headlights to shine into my room when people come and go, and limiting my ability to open the windows due to privacy concerns.

I’ve hired a permaculture landscaper who is currently working on a design. Meanwhile, I need to decide what to do about the driveway and whether to add a carport.

I could really use some opinions on the following:

• How would you deal with the flooding issue?
• What would you suggest for the driveway or adding a carport? I can move the driveway to the other side of the house or leave it as is.

I can post photos if there’s a way to do that. I have many ideas also but curious to hear what folks think with this info.