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Comment by ClumsyPilot | Hacker News Reader

> Prices are high because more people want to live there than want to leave

Or it could be super-low interest rates and banks giving mortgages to every stripper and then flogging them off to clueless investirs as AAA-rated securities like they did before 2008.

Or it could be because we allow foreign 'investors' to launder drug-money, blood-money ads tax-avoidance money by buying luxury apartments by the dozens and leaving them empty and unused.

Or it could be outright collusion and fraud by developers or market makers. Or a hubdred other things economists write papers about - beloved 'free market' is more than one equasion.

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The reality is that's not happening today, the creditworthiness of borrowers in 2021 was higher than it's ever been. Demand is completely outstripping supply right now.

Source re creditworthiness? I’ve seen headlines stating the indebtedness of Canadians relative to income has never been higher.

Both things are happening. Credit scores have improved during the pandemic. Less missed payments, less spending (maybe because people are home more), plus more government assistance.

While credit cards and credit lines are doing better, mortgages have increased, causing debt to income to be very high.

> banks giving mortgages to every stripper

Wh...what is this? Do strippers not deserve mortgages? What a weirdly specific example.

As cash-rich contractors, they were lucrative customers for expensive subprime adjustable-rate mortgages once underwriters stopped verifying steady employment income.

somewhat NSFW: https://youtu.be/MesrrYyuoa4?t=181

Not OP, but generally banks look at stability of income and I think the implication here, as in the 2008 financial crisis, is that strippers and other grey area employees don’t have as reliable income given the cash payments (and likely lack of fully reporting income to the government).

There's a famous scene in the movie "The Big Short" where a character is talking to a stripper about her investment properties. The movie is about the 2008 housing bubble.

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