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Re:Unemployment Is So 2009: Labor Shortage Gives Workers an ... by taurath on Wednesday September 20, 2017 @02:59PM (#15297098)
I think real estate in hong kong costs 18x the gross annual median income, compared for 9x in SF, or SJ (Vancouver is 11.8).

If I had to guess, the property investment train just can't keep going on forever - eventually I'd imagine it has to top out as nobody can afford to live anywhere anymore. The younger generation is locked out of housing markets completely, and only through family inheritance is owning any property affordable unless you are lucky enough to be in a boom area at the right time.

I could just see any major region having a housing crisis cause the dominos to fall - if the Taipei market takes a 30% dive, all those investors need to park their money somewhere else, which will over-inflate other markets even quicker. That or some pillar holding up one of the markets failing (Ad economy stops returning fat multiples as saturation sinks in). It may be my perspective as a younger person but the economy has always been extremely fragile as long as I've been alive, and it seems like while investments have gone up over time the bar to getting in is higher than its been in a century.

Re:Unemployment Is So 2009: Labor Shortage Gives Workers an ... by roymurdock on Wednesday September 20, 2017 @03:22PM (#15297294)
I'm 24 so you're preaching to the choir :)

The thing is - the world is currently awash in liquidity. Some small-ish defaults are happening in the auto loan and student loan markets, but nothing on the scale of 2007-8 mortgage defaults. Unless there are just huge, shadow banking markets for derivatives on these debts that nobody has brought to light yet, and all the major banks are involved.

I'm not seeing how my generation (aside from the professional/engineering class) being locked out of the housing market in large urban areas triggers a recession though.

Re:Unemployment Is So 2009: Labor Shortage Gives Workers an ... by taurath on Wednesday September 20, 2017 @03:32PM (#15297402)
I'm not saying it would trigger it, just that it is a symptom of a system thats gone way out of bounds. I don't even think it will be a mortgage default crisis per say (though when the values go down everyone who's currently stretched to get into their place will be screwed for a while). People parking their money on real estate could all try to get out of a given market at once, making a run on housing values. Strange thing is, thats the only case in which I am personally able to buy a house, so there's a large part of me that wishes it would happen so there would be more units on the market and affordability.