Horror-Fisherman-575 t1_iud9vzh wrote on October 30, 2022 at 1:37 PM

Here’s my hot take, which is really a hot question, which is really embarrassing, because I dumb: but I am curious if enough people flee HCOL areas, will those areas eventually become LCOL?

Charlesinrichmond t1_iudbm43 wrote on October 30, 2022 at 1:52 PM

yes. Key is enough. But the fact no one is discussing is population growth.

US Population 1970 203million

US Population 2020 331 Million.

Over a 50% more people in the US. Are there 50% more places to live in New York? No. In Richmond? Also no.

The housing crisis is really quite simple. To house 50% more people you need 50% more housing. And we basically banned dense urban housing in 1970 through zoning

BumbleBeeVomit OP t1_iuddvd2 wrote on October 30, 2022 at 2:09 PM

Depends on the reason it's a HCOL area to begin with.

DC? No, it will always be HCOL as it's the seat of the federal government.

An oil boom town where the wells have dried up? Yes.

Ignoring those two extremes, yes I think you're right in theory, that less demand should in turn depress prices overall, but that is assuming the people fleeing aren't being replaced by people from an even higher COL area. Or even wealthy people from other countries.