During COVID, a lot of techies who could suddenly work from home ended up flooding smaller rural towns, and shot up the price of housing like 2-3x. It's a bit late now, between the increased prices and the increased interest rates, and many devs can't afford to buy anymore... especially after the layoffs.<p>Like everything else in America, homeownership is increasingly a privilege reserved for the rich, and everyone else just rents if they're lucky or lives outta their car/van if they can't.<p>Best case, you work for a FAANG on a 6 or 7 figure salary and buy a house somewhere cheap. But that's pretty rare.
It’s now cheaper to rent in the top 50 metros in the U.S. than it is to buy. Inventory is low right now and people who have a home at a 3% rate are not going to sell unless they have to. That said, don’t wait for rates to drop if you really want to buy.<p><a href="https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/2024032617/renting-is-now-cheaper-than-owning-in-all-of-americas-50-biggest-metro-areas" rel="nofollow">https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/2024032617/rent...</a>
It's harder right now since interest rates went back up. But when they were low a few years ago, a 30-year mortgage didn't have such a huge monthly payment.<p>Anyway some of the most expensive cities are building more housing, and prices are coming down on average. Remember, you can put in a bid below the asking price.
I'm a bit confused by this question because it seems like the only people in my area who can afford to buy houses are software engineers, or at least work in tech.
Most of the non-remote devs I know who bought places in recent years had to move to the outskirts of a big city if they didn’t want a tiny 1br apartment<p>Usually like ~1 hour outside the city center
We couldn't for the longest time but there was a dip in the market around 2012 (which was just about the bottom of the dip) and a house came up for sale by a couple brothers that inherited it and were looking to cash out I guess. We put in an offer for 2% over asking which was accepted. It was all rather serendipitous really.
The answer 100% depends on if you can work remotely<p>If so, I honestly think the answer is to leave overpriced metros that won’t build housing and move somewhere building a lot of housing and priced better.