Comment by jeffbee
5 days ago
Yes, it is in fact quite wrong and one of the biggest obstacles in American society is fetishization of homeownership.
5 days ago
Yes, it is in fact quite wrong and one of the biggest obstacles in American society is fetishization of homeownership.
You may object to it, but a home has been the smartest investment I've ever made.
The "fuck you got mine" attitude so many homeowners have and deliberate supply restriction to increase property values makes it a smart investment on paper, at the cost of screwing everyone else coming after you.
Due to the massive influx of wealth caused by the pandemic. Median adult wealth is made from real estate, not stocks or a golden job.
https://www.pewresearch.org/2023/12/04/the-assets-households...
In fact, I feel everyone should own and anyone with two properties should be taxed heavily.
I'm not sure why it has to be that way. Build more houses.
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The restrictions on supply are generally economical. Every day, building gets more expensive; labor and parts both cost more. That is going to cause the average home to cost more, even older ones, as you always have the option to get a new build at current rates or an older one for slightly cheaper.
Why is it wrong to want to have equity in the place you live? "Ownership" could be a house, it could be a townhome, it could be flat. But in the US, "owning" an apartment is very rare, while real estate investors buy up all the valuable land in the urban cores of cities and rent it.
If you want equity in real estate nobody is stopping you. The problem is when people get this idea that we need to discourage investors from building very greatly desired rental housing.
This is the big problem with treating your home as an investment. People who just want a place to live near where they work now have to play this game too. And it's not cheap game.
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My problem is that the wealthy get wealthier while the middle class gets subjugated to permanent renter class.
Go ahead, develop! And sell equity in the property. I've wondered if I would support my city requiring a certain percentage of dense urban lots be flats for sale vs. rental.
I'm pretty sure investors are persuaded by money and little else — if renting is profitable they'll build rentals.
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The problem isn't home ownership, it's zoning regulations being done locally so that areas full of owner-occupied single-family homes are the only ones eligible to vote on whether higher density housing can be built there, in combination with the "got mine" attitude that causes them to vote in the way that constrains supply.
It's good for people to be able to own their homes. They should be able to own their homes instead of paying a large fraction of their paycheck to landlords as rent or banks as mortgage payments. But that requires housing costs to get lower rather than higher, which in turn requires some kind of state- or national-level policy to prevent local homeowners from sustaining the opposite.
> fetishization
Yes and: As you know, encouraging home ownership is policy. Meant to reduce elderly poverty. It worked, plus all sorts of adverse effects that now hitting hard.
I'd rather we had pensions, universal healthcare, and maybe ponies.