Political Posts

[Sloanes Teddy]

57 minutes ago, cubsfan said:

 

More on the demand shock caused by Illegal immigration - direct from the Federal Reserve:

 

https://thefederalist.com/2026/06/30/fed-study-illegal-immigration-caused-30-of-home-price-spikes-while-deflating-american-wages/

 

The authors discovered that for every 1 percent increase in illegal immigration “equal to 1% of a local area’s initial employment,” home prices increased by 2.2 percent, rent grew by 1.4 percent, and wages decreased by 0.87 percent, and 0.7 for the average American. This means illegal immigration is responsible for “about 30% of the total growth in house prices and 20% of total growth in rents over the boom period for the average local market.”

 

In sum native working-class renters faced decreasing wages as illegal aliens flooded into the job market, and they also took the brunt of the housing cost increase as demand for apartments and multi-family housing grew.

Every home I've purchased i found myself in a bidding war with illegal immigrants. 

[Spekulatius]

6 minutes ago, Sloanes Teddy said:

Every home I've purchased i found myself in a bidding war with illegal immigrants. 

How do you know who you bid against? Also, how do illegal immigrants buy houses when they can’t get a mortgage?  I had to show my green card to get a mortgage years ago.

 

Illegal immigrants tend to rent.

Edited 17 hours ago by Spekulatius

[DooDiligence]

alt righties tend to lie.

[cubsfan]

23 minutes ago, DooDiligence said:

alt righties tend to lie.

 

Geez Doo - just tell the truth - you can't even read.

 

Just like you to shit all over a Federal Reserve Study on home buying....

 

What a loser.

 

I mean, really , how hard is this to understand. Rent prices and housing prices have always been closely correlated.  You have a demand shock on rents (millions of immigrants) and you put upward pressure on housing.

 

 

Econ 101

Edited 16 hours ago by cubsfan

[Sloanes Teddy]

33 minutes ago, Spekulatius said:

How do you know who you bid against? Also, how do illegal immigrants buy houses when they can’t get a mortgage?  I had to show my green card to get a mortgage years ago.

 

Illegal immigrants tend to rent.

I was kidding because it's ridiculous. 

[Maverick47]

1 hour ago, Red Lion said:

 

These are great points, but on the flip side and maybe this partially explains the push to build bigger homes, it costs a lot more per square foot to build a smaller square footage home, which is one reason I don't think we are cranking out 1,200 square foot homes. 

 

I've run the numbers a few times on building ADUs in the 800-1200 square foot range to rent out, and it doesn't make a lot of sense when you can buy an existing house on a separate APN# for a similar cost. Some of this could be California specific, but no matter where you build, you're going to be sinking the most money on kitchens/bathrooms/adhering to modern building codes/utility hookups/permits, so building a home 25-50% larger doesn't increase the price by nearly 25-50%. 

 

Really interesting point about open floorplans, I hadn't considered that before. 

You’re exactly right.  Land costs where I live are enough that when an existing small home from the 1940’s came on the market down the street  it sold for $740,000.  I would never want to live in a 1300 sq ft  80 year old home for that price.  Zoning where I live would allow six units to be built on the same 5500 sq ft lot.  The developer that bought it will build 4 three story homes with enough space left on the lot so each unit will get a one car garage.  A six unit build wouldn’t have left enough space for each unit to have a garage.  I don’t think a million dollar buyer would appreciate not having a garage.

 

In any event, each of the four small skinny homes will list for over $1 million with over 2000 sq ft of living space, multiple bathrooms and a garage for each compared to the $740,000 run down home of 1300 sq ft with a carport that existed before.  

 

Housing supply will increase, but each new dwelling will be newer, nicer, larger and more expensive than the single home that existed before.

 

I can’t think of any economics that would motivate a developer to build less expensive units in such a situation.  Absent some sort of costly governmental subsidization of low cost housing, the affordability issue is a tough nut to crack.  

 

 

[Parsad]

4 hours ago, DooDiligence said:

 

No prob. It was just easier than typing 1000 words.

 

Even the pictures weren't the problem.  A fudge bar mimicking Obama's dong in Trump's mouth is low-brow humor...we're better than that and certainly more creative and funnier! 

 

You could have just put up a picture of Trump and his administration with the caption:  A turd is still a turd, even in a box of raisins!

 

Cheers!

[Parsad]

2 hours ago, cubsfan said:

 

Geez Doo - just tell the truth - you can't even read.

 

Just like you to shit all over a Federal Reserve Study on home buying....

 

What a loser.

 

I mean, really , how hard is this to understand. Rent prices and housing prices have always been closely correlated.  You have a demand shock on rents (millions of immigrants) and you put upward pressure on housing.

 

 

Econ 101

 

That doesn't indicate that illegal immigrants were driving prices up.  It was just as likely legal immigrants were driving them higher.  if you have a net shortage of housing built each year, eventually the populace (domestic, international, legal, illegal) will drive rents and prices up of the existing housing stock.  It's happened nearly all over the world. 

 

Now the opposite is happening.  Reduced immigration (legal and illegal) is driving prices down, along with foreign buyers pulling back from North America due to the discomforting political stance here.  Condo prices in Vancouver and Toronto are down 20% and 30% respectively in the last two years...supply is at a 20-year high...rents for the first time in 20 years are dropping...you may get what you wished for, and that comes with a partial collapse in housing prices in NA.  Cheers!

[Sweet]

4 hours ago, Parsad said:

That doesn't indicate that illegal immigrants were driving prices up.  It was just as likely legal immigrants were driving them higher.  if you have a net shortage of housing built each year, eventually the populace (domestic, international, legal, illegal) will drive rents and prices up of the existing housing stock.  It's happened nearly all over the world.

I don’t think cubs is saying illegal immigration is driving up housing prices, but legal isn’t.  He’s saying the number renting drives demand and illegals are a large part of the surge.

 

In the U.K. we had 10 million immigrants (legal / illegal / asylum) in the last 10 or so years, bumping our population from 60 million to 70 million, and our moron politicians can’t figure out why house prices and rent are going up, or are pretending not to know.

 

Edited 10 hours ago by Sweet

[cubsfan]

 

The pain for the IRGC is going up substantially next week.  Bridges and power plants.

 

https://www.iranintl.com/en/202607156387

"Next week it gets really bad for them because next week comes the power plants," he said. "Next week comes the bridges. We're gonna knock out all their power plants. We're going to knock out all their bridges unless they get to the table and negotiate."

 

 

[Spekulatius]

10 hours ago, cubsfan said:

 

Geez Doo - just tell the truth - you can't even read.

 

Just like you to shit all over a Federal Reserve Study on home buying....

 

What a loser.

 

I mean, really , how hard is this to understand. Rent prices and housing prices have always been closely correlated.  You have a demand shock on rents (millions of immigrants) and you put upward pressure on housing.

 

 

Econ 101

Actually this chart shows a weak correlation between rents and home in the short and medium term. Since 2020 (Biden’s term), home prices have increased much more than rents. However, since illegal immigrants (which allegedly surged during Biden’s term) rent rather than buy (because they can’t buy in 95% of the cases) how can this be - it should be the other way a round?

 

The Fed study from the heavily politicized Dallas Fed is a draft paper. There are other studies that you can find showing a very weak correlation between immigration and home prices. In the US we have the situation that a lot of construction labor are immigrants and many of them illegals. What happens to the supply situation when they are gone and what is the net effect?  It doesn’t seem that straightforward than you make it to be,

[73 Reds]

12 hours ago, cubsfan said:

 

More on the demand shock caused by Illegal immigration - direct from the Federal Reserve:

 

https://thefederalist.com/2026/06/30/fed-study-illegal-immigration-caused-30-of-home-price-spikes-while-deflating-american-wages/

 

The authors discovered that for every 1 percent increase in illegal immigration “equal to 1% of a local area’s initial employment,” home prices increased by 2.2 percent, rent grew by 1.4 percent, and wages decreased by 0.87 percent, and 0.7 for the average American. This means illegal immigration is responsible for “about 30% of the total growth in house prices and 20% of total growth in rents over the boom period for the average local market.”

 

In sum native working-class renters faced decreasing wages as illegal aliens flooded into the job market, and they also took the brunt of the housing cost increase as demand for apartments and multi-family housing grew.

Yeah, this issue isn't that difficult.  We don't even need studies other than for those who can't understand that illegals absorb everything needed by those who are here legally.

[DooDiligence]

11 hours ago, Parsad said:

 

That doesn't indicate that illegal immigrants were driving prices up.  It was just as likely legal immigrants were driving them higher.  if you have a net shortage of housing built each year, eventually the populace (domestic, international, legal, illegal) will drive rents and prices up of the existing housing stock.  It's happened nearly all over the world. 

 

Now the opposite is happening.  Reduced immigration (legal and illegal) is driving prices down, along with foreign buyers pulling back from North America due to the discomforting political stance here.  Condo prices in Vancouver and Toronto are down 20% and 30% respectively in the last two years...supply is at a 20-year high...rents for the first time in 20 years are dropping...you may get what you wished for, and that comes with a partial collapse in housing prices in NA.  Cheers!

 

Get rid of depreciation expense and the 1031 exchange program and you'll get rid of the big parasites that are driving up prices.

[cubsfan]

2 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

Actually this chart shows a weak correlation between rents and home in the short and medium term. Since 2020 (Biden’s term), home prices have increased much more than rents. However, since illegal immigrants (which allegedly surged during Biden’s term) rent rather than buy (because they can’t buy in 95% of the cases) how can this be - it should be the other way a round?

 

The Fed study from the heavily politicized Dallas Fed is a draft paper. There are other studies that you can find showing a very weak correlation between immigration and home prices. In the US we have the situation that a lot of construction labor are immigrants and many of them illegals. What happens to the supply situation when they are gone and what is the net effect?  It doesn’t seem that straightforward than you make it to be,

 

You're hilarious - "weak correlation"??  & "heavily politicized"?    

 

When  BOTH prices rise at the same time, the obvious conclusion is STRONG correlation.

 

From a Federal Reserve that Trump has been totally frustrated with. Heavily politicized? Using ACTUAL historical data.

 

You never run out of excuses when faced with facts.

Edited 3 hours ago by cubsfan

[DooDiligence]

13 hours ago, cubsfan said:

 

Geez Doo - just tell the truth - you can't even read.

 

Just like you to shit all over a Federal Reserve Study on home buying....

 

What a loser.

 

I mean, really , how hard is this to understand. Rent prices and housing prices have always been closely correlated.  You have a demand shock on rents (millions of immigrants) and you put upward pressure on housing.

 

 

Econ 101

 

Weak ad hominem from a guy who can't tell the difference between correlation and causation.

[cubsfan]

5 minutes ago, DooDiligence said:

 

Weak ad hominem from a guy who can't tell the difference between correlation and causation.

Says the open border and Antifa lover...

[cubsfan]

3 hours ago, Sweet said:

In the U.K. we had 10 million immigrants (legal / illegal / asylum) in the last 10 or so years, bumping our population from 60 million to 70 million, and our moron politicians can’t figure out why house prices and rent are going up, or are pretending not to know.

 

"Or pretend not to know"  is a great way to put it.

 

We all know housing (renting or buy) is inelastic, and prices react violently with a demand shock, rising disproportionately with fixed supply. You can see it in the chart.  

 

 

[Spekulatius]

19 minutes ago, cubsfan said:

 

You're hilarious - "weak correlation"??  & "heavily politicized"?    

 

When  BOTH prices rise at the same time, the obvious conclusion is STRONG correlation.

 

From a Federal Reserve that Trump has been totally frustrated with. Heavily politicized? Using ACTUAL historical data.

 

You never run out of excuses when faced with facts.

The chart shows that rents increase all the time. Illegals rent - they can’t buy houses unless they come in with a stash of

cash which I think few do. So they can’t buy houses, somebody else must drive prices for homes.

 

Besides, even the Dallas Fed paper states that only 30% of the increase is due to illegal

immigration , so 70% comes from other factors.

 

This would be a stronger argument if you could show causation and rents rise more than homes prices , which is what you expect if the driving factor would be illegal immigration. But this chart shows the opposite.

 

@cubsfan you need to take chill pills, or some THC gummies - you get too riled up about stuff.

[Red Lion]

3 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

Since 2020 (Biden’s term), home prices have increased much more than rents. However, since illegal immigrants (which allegedly surged during Biden’s term) rent rather than buy (because they can’t buy in 95% of the cases) how can this be - it should be the other way a round?

This logic makes sense to me, but I think there are a lot of other factors that play a role. 

 

Couldn't it also have something to do with the fact that renters tend to have less capital so affordability weighs on rents before home sales? Seems like this could have something to do with the "K shaped" recovery everyone talks about. Renting a home is sort of like a commodity, whereas buying a home has a collectible type value layered on top (having pets, growing a garden, painting the walls whatever color you want, etc.) If I've got $10 million and want to buy a new house, I'm not going an indefinite timeframe for a bargain, whereas if I've got $8,000 a month income and I don't have anywhere to live, I'm going to pay market rent while I continue to save for a big enough downpayment to make the numbers work. 

 

I also suspect the huge build out of multi family that started around 2020/2021 may have played a role in slowing rent growth over the last 6 years. 

 

The replacement cost for homes (not just the price) also went up enormously since 2020, and since those multi family units have all hit the market by now, and the economics don't really make sense to build a lot more multi-family (what with much higher construction costs and carrying costs), I suspect the next 5 years see rent prices increase a lot faster than home prices. 

[cubsfan]

2 minutes ago, Spekulatius said:

The chart shows that rents increase all the time. Illegals rent - they can’t buy houses unless they come in with a stash of

cash which I think few do. So they can’t buy houses, somebody else must drive prices for homes.

 

Besides, even the Dallas Fed paper states that only 30% of the increase is due to illegal

immigration , so 70% comes from other factors.

 

This would be a stronger argument if you could show causation and rents rise more than homes prices , which is what you expect if the driving factor would be illegal immigration. But this chart shows the opposite.

 

@cubsfan you need to take chill pills, or some THC gummies - you get too riled up about stuff.

 

Spek - you need to stop acting like Baghdad Bob - where you deny reality in the face of facts.  Housing, whether renting or buying, is an inelastic item - which most sensible individuals, let alone a PHD, easily understands:   One must have housing - and faced with fixed supply - you either rent or buy. When renting is high - you move to buying. Either way, PRICES rise for BOTH substitutes. 

 

If I need a car - and a Mercedes is deemed too expensive, I move to a Lexus, which gets more expensive due to increased demand.

 

Renting is a "substitute" for buying. Increase demand for one substitute and you increase the demand and prices for the other "substitute". As my economic expert @John Hjorth would say - that's econ 101.

 

Pouring millions of illegal immigrants into your country drives UP prices for an inelastic item.

 

Why don't you just stop making up stuff when faced with non-partisan data.

 

I suppose next thing you will tell me is that the prices in Florida and Tennessee have NOTHING to do with the historic and massive migration to those states.

[flesh]

Can't believe Cubs is still here despite 95% opposition from the other posters. No one 

is changing any minds.... for some reason investors prefer parties that want to increase the debt, expand the scope of govt, start more govt programs, because that works, raise taxes and have less control over their lives over time. This surprised me a decade ago but no more. Some survivorship bias going on here. They are from or made money in largely cities/which tend left, they are more social/therefore on a forum, they are from socialist Europe, they are educated into left wing, all their profs were left, idk. 

 

On another note, how about those trump accounts? Pretty sweet. Now if we could get the wealthy to leave their money in a private workers citizens fund (no govt) that invests in etf's and gives half the gains to anyone working full time forever, who's a citizen, in equal amounts regardless of wage, we could double down on capitalism again and get everyone involved. 

[Red Lion]

1 hour ago, DooDiligence said:

 

Get rid of depreciation expense and the 1031 exchange program and you'll get rid of the big parasites that are driving up prices.

 

These rules are a huge incentive to build new rental housing (or rehab housing that will otherwise eventually get torn down), and they also encourage more inventory of existing housing stock available for sale. 

 

For 1031, if an individual investor can't 1031 they're just going to hold the house until death when the basis steps up. For an institutional investor, they're going to hold the property until they can sell it for 25% higher to meet the same IRR after tax.

 

For bonus depreciation, an investor will need to rent a house for much more in order to meet their IRR hurdle. 

 

Maybe there's a better system without 1031/bonus depreciation, but if you just end those two provisions in the tax code the housing crisis will be exacerbated if anything. 

[cubsfan]

42 minutes ago, flesh said:

Can't believe Cubs is still here despite 95% opposition from the other posters.

 

I did not realize that getting to the truth is now by majority rule.  Indeed at one time, the earth was deemed flat and heretics were executed.

 

Rather than put up a coherent argument to me - I suggest you write your detailed thesis and send it off to the Federal Reserve telling them why they are  wholly incorrect and that their data is incorrect.

Edited 1 hour ago by cubsfan

[73 Reds]

54 minutes ago, Red Lion said:

 

These rules are a huge incentive to build new rental housing (or rehab housing that will otherwise eventually get torn down), and they also encourage more inventory of existing housing stock available for sale. 

 

For 1031, if an individual investor can't 1031 they're just going to hold the house until death when the basis steps up. For an institutional investor, they're going to hold the property until they can sell it for 25% higher to meet the same IRR after tax.

 

For bonus depreciation, an investor will need to rent a house for much more in order to meet their IRR hurdle. 

 

Maybe there's a better system without 1031/bonus depreciation, but if you just end those two provisions in the tax code the housing crisis will be exacerbated if anything. 

Right.  Getting rid of the capital gains tax altogether would be a fine solution.