Why have house prices increased so much over the last twenty years?

qwert_yuiop

[QUOTE=matthewpoll13;73684702_I_don't_see_why_any_buy_to_let_landlord_should_be_honoured,_as_they_are_doing_it_just_for_themselves,_&_make_the_property_market_worse,_not_better.[/QUOTE]

It’s called sarcasm.

GreatApe

Cakeguts wrote: »

I think you are going to find that it depends on the area you are in. In most towns in a cheaper area some 1st time buyers can afford something. However there are landlords who buy properties in the most expensive areas of any town or city. They are not competing with first time buyers.

You can't generalise. Some landlords buy in the most expensive areas and let to well off tenants. Some tenants rent from choice not necessity. They often choose to rent in expensive areas. It isn't often what it is that makes a house expensive it is where it is. Our family homes are not 1st time buyer properties mostly because of where they are. Some are not 1st time buyer homes because of what they are as well as where they are. There are other landlords like us. Not all landlords buy the cheapest properties in the least desirable areas. Some buy in the cheapest areas, some buy in family areas and some buy in expensive areas. It depends on where in the market they are operating.

The idea of the housing ladder is and has always been fake
There is a housing step not a housing ladder
People buy around age 30 and then again around age 55 and that is it

Its easy to prove looking at the transactions data. 23.5 million private homes and 1 million annual sales (excluding new builds). That means each house on average transacts once every 23.5 years.

In fact the median figure will be higher than the mean due to some people flipping homes frequently and others transferring homes for tax reasons ect but the Hines not really transacting. so just say homes transact roughly once every 25 years.

GreatApe

Malthusian wrote: »

I think by "general AI" MobileSaver is talking about the hypothesised Singularity where humanity creates an AI superior to itself. Because the AI is superior to humanity, and humanity is capable of creating an AI superior to itself, the AI is also capable of creating an AI superior to itself, and the AI it creates can create a superior AI, and so on and so on. The moment that humanity creates an AI even a fraction superior to itself, almost immediately an AI will be created which will be the closest thing in reality to omnipotent.

As it runs on computer circuits, the Singularity AI doesn't need thousands of years of biological evolution or trial and error to improve itself like we did.

This near-infinitely-intelligent AI will invent everything there is to be invented and will use self-replicating machines to fulfil everything that humanity could possibly desire. Or it will wipe us out. Either way the price of all assets will drop to zero. (Which is not the same thing as all assets being worthless.)

Exactly.

When general AI arrives all savings and capital become worthless
Should the financial markets be pricing this in?
Do they know how to price such an event?

Shorting the markets is also worthless. If you short say apple at $1 trillion and AI arrives and apple goes towards $0 a few months later well you make a huge profit but your dollar profits are also worthless. There is no way to profit from it. The only solution is for savers to stop saving and just spend much more of their incomes.

The unknown is how far out general AI is.
Are we talking 10 years or 100 years?
Already computer chips are getting close to the Human brain
10 billion transistors in a modern CPU vs 100 billion neurons in the human mind
Sure each neuron is worth more than 1 transistor but each transistor runs 10 million x the speed.
Also human mind has a lot of redundancy as fact by some people who have had nearly half their brains removed as children and are still mentally capable humans.

matthewpoll13

triathlon wrote: »

Here is another simple equation that he bitter and twisted HPC doom mongers just will not fathom.. right now myself and nearly everyone I know and I am sure millions of other live in big lovely homes because we have the funds to do so through hard work and application. Guess why you lot are sitting in empty bedsits glued to HPC. Com on your outdated laptop and only possession
How prices are not expensive to us

What a pleasant person you sound.

Malthusian

GreatApe wrote: »

Exactly.

When general AI arrives all savings and capital become worthless
Should the financial markets be pricing this in?
Do they know how to price such an event?

What's to price in? If I buy 10 shares in Acme Co at $100, and tomorrow what you call "general AI" happens, I may have lost $1,000, but I don't care as I don't need $1,000 anymore. Either the AI will give me everything I want for the rest of my life or it will kill me or plug me into the Matrix.

The correct way to price in an event that has a non-zero chance of happening and where the potential loss is zero is as follows: you adjust the market price by [weighted probability of General AI happening in our lifetime] * [other thingies] * zero = zero.

In reality talking about General AI in the context of a financial decision is like talking about nuclear war or the sun exploding, it's completely irrelevant. You could spend all your money on the basis that there's no point keeping it after the Singularity will happen, but you're in the same category as people who spend all their money because they think they'll win the lottery or give all their money away and join a cult.

10 billion transistors in a modern CPU vs 100 billion neurons in the human mind

Now we are moving from the realms of a philosophical discussion into total claptrap. A transistor is not a neuron. You do not create a transhuman AI by plugging 100 billion transistors into each other.

Comments like this give me the impression you don't understand the yawning gulf that exists between the world's most advanced computer and self-aware intelligence.

People have been working on the problem of artificial intelligence since the dawn of humanity and we are probably little closer than we were when we were writing Hebrew words on pieces of paper and shoving them into the mouths of clay golems. All of our tinkering with computer programs that can repeat broken English back to you or form weird pictures of dogs may turn out to be no better at creating intelligence as the efforts of the golem creators.

It's as likely to happen over 1,000 years from now as in ten years.

GreatApe

Malthusian wrote: »

What's to price in? If I buy 10 shares in Acme Co at $100, and tomorrow what you call "general AI" happens, I may have lost $1,000, but I don't care as I don't need $1,000 anymore. Either the AI will give me everything I want for the rest of my life or it will kill me or plug me into the Matrix.

The correct way to price in an event that has a non-zero chance of happening and where the potential loss is zero is as follows: you adjust the market price by [weighted probability of General AI happening in our lifetime] * [other thingies] * zero = zero.

In reality talking about General AI in the context of a financial decision is like talking about nuclear war or the sun exploding, it's completely irrelevant. You could spend all your money on the basis that there's no point keeping it after the Singularity will happen, but you're in the same category as people who spend all their money because they think they'll win the lottery or give all their money away and join a cult.

If the sun was to explode in 20 years time and we knew this as a certainty do you think humanity would change its savings and spending habits? What would happen to the return on capital if that news came out and was proven beyond doubt to happen? Clearly almost everything would fall in value. Homes stocks bonds.

To say its completely irrelevant is misguided

Oh and I am not out spending all my money. I am still saving but I do some times tell myself that this is probably pointless

Now we are moving from the realms of a philosophical discussion into total claptrap. A transistor is not a neuron. You do not create a transhuman AI by plugging 100 billion transistors into each other.

Comments like this give me the impression you don't understand the yawning gulf that exists between the world's most advanced computer and self-aware intelligence.

People have been working on the problem of artificial intelligence since the dawn of humanity and we are probably little closer than we were when we were writing Hebrew words on pieces of paper and shoving them into the mouths of clay golems. All of our tinkering with computer programs that can repeat broken English back to you or form weird pictures of dogs may turn out to be no better at creating intelligence as the efforts of the golem creators.

It's as likely to happen over 1,000 years from now as in ten years.

Information technology is young and is an exponential. Suggesting that the Jews were trying to create AI with clay golums 3000 years ago and we are no closer so its going to take another 3000 years to also get nowhere is IMO stupid.

The Human mind is an information processor.
Even if it is more powerful than we can imagine humans will create information tech 1,000 x more capable every 20 years. Even if the mind is a billion times more powerful than our best computers that could be achieved in 60 years.

economic

GreatApe wrote: »

I think you are confusing a few things.
Innovations don't mean more demand for capital. Almost always it means less demand for capital
To give you an example if in the past you wanted to expand a railway you might have had to spend £10 billion to build a new line. Today you might just upgrade analog signaling to digital signalling for £10 million and get double the capacity that way. The demand for capital has gone from £10 billion to £10 million in that example

For 30 years gilts and binds have been falling.
Today UK index linked 20 year gilts have a yield of negative 1.5%
The demand for capital fell and the supply increased so the returns on debt fell
I see this continuing. Government paper (one of the huge asset classes worth tens of trillions) will yield zero or sub zero real returns.

I think you are arguing about innovations making companies more profitable.
That might be possible in some sectors where there are monopolies natural or cartels but why would it be true for competitive markets?
For instance let's say a shelf stacking robot is invented cheap reliable and works. If all the supermarkets have access to this technology their profits won't go up nor will their margins. It is a competitive market so it will result in lower prices.


With regards to computer hardware. Almost all the hardware needed for self drive can be found in a $100 smartphone. GPS Accelerometers Multiple HD cameras Microphones Ultrasound IR Proximity sensors GPUs CPUs ASICs Cellular Wifi Storage etc. The hardware side is cheap. Its all the software side. Maybe an expensive processor is needed for now but I dont think that will last. Application specific integrated circuits will be built to power the software as they are much faster and much much more energy efficient than general purpose CPUs or GPUs. Even Tesla seems to be getting into the game saying their have taken in an in-house team to build ASICs for their self drive efforts. Expects performance energy and price improvements.

With regards to AI there is of course a massive difference between application specific AI and general purpose AI. The latter is a human only one that gets smarter by the second and will exceed the sum of all human knowledge within days of creation

Yes i think i was not looking at the net effect and only low level startups and companies adding wealth. I realise now that more wealth gets destroyed then created hence return on capital has to be zero or negative as we develop technology.

triathlon

Just little signs that even the doomsayers can spot. Have you not noticed every car park in the UK that allows free parking now has a limit. They are doing this because of the huge rise in van and even car living. My gym has also stamped down hard on shower room abuse where Eastern Europeans and even British are using the wash facilities daily after roughing it. There is a mass shortage of property in the UK and rather than prices falling I see them doubling in 5 years

Ker ching

economic

GreatApe wrote: »

Ultimately general AI will come and at that stage the value of almost all assets fall to zero.
What's the point saving and deferring consumption for 30 years if in 30 years general AI arrives and everything becomes free. It would be putting money in stock markets that keep going up until a few months before general AI is deployed then all the markets go to zero. Even if you cash out a few years before this happens you only have those few years to spend the money before AI makes that worthless too.

Very few if any things will hold any value in a general AI world.
This shouldn't be a negative story it means people will be immensely rich in 30 years time but that will be true for people who didn't save a dime as much as it will be true for people who saved every single penny they could. People who saved would find they had a -100% return

I think the chances of this happening are very high. The only problem is timing
It could come as early as 10 years from now or as late as 100 years from now.
My best guess is sometime around 2030-2050

The speed of the change post say 1 could also be amazing
The machine could exceed the sum of all human knowledge within days
It would take a little longer for the machine to build out the capital and infrastructure to take humanity towards a type 2 civilisation. That could happen within a few years.

Yeh i agree. Whilst its important to hedge yourself by keeping some savings, its important to realise things can change fast. Just spend money to enjoy yourself and dont worry about a few quid here or there.

economic

GreatApe wrote: »

If the sun was to explode in 20 years time and we knew this as a certainty do you think humanity would change its savings and spending habits? What would happen to the return on capital if that news came out and was proven beyond doubt to happen? Clearly almost everything would fall in value. Homes stocks bonds.

To say its completely irrelevant is misguided

Oh and I am not out spending all my money. I am still saving but I do some times tell myself that this is probably pointless




Information technology is young and is an exponential. Suggesting that the Jews were trying to create AI with clay golums 3000 years ago and we are no closer so its going to take another 3000 years to also get nowhere is IMO stupid.

The Human mind is an information processor.
Even if it is more powerful than we can imagine humans will create information tech 1,000 x more capable every 20 years. Even if the mind is a billion times more powerful than our best computers that could be achieved in 60 years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x4O9H66LPE

Im glad i own nvidia stock.