A home is an investment because it has value like nothing else… everyone wants to love somewhere right?
That said, the market for houses that can be homes to people is just going crazy. More houses means people can afford a place to live. It should be a market because only then can money be extracted from people’s homes to make the house better or to build new homes.
I used to rent a house to another family and all my weekends were about fixing some shit. I got tired of that. Basically I was just passing the money between the people who wanted to live there with free maintenance. I was doing the maintenance for free for the real owner, the bank complex. So fuck that. I got out of that. The market makes landlords, not the other way around. My family used to rent from a landlord and it was always a shitty day every beginning of the month. Being out of that shit equation feels much better. But I can only afford to because I have a job that pays the bills. So rent incomes must be translated into other sources of income so that others can drop the market and let the price freefall. If the price fireballs, then the big Chinese companies and other big landlords will loose money and exit the market. Those landlords that are mostly there for a monthly profit are what sucks. There will always be people who just want to rent because they can’t take care of a house themselves. That’s something no one can fix, and bless their hearts for living in bliss. Finally, though, a house is just another thing to “own”. You won’t take it past your grave. But unlike a car, you might really really want to own a house outright before you pass away because in the last few years of your useful life you will be fooled into retirement… retirement is when you are squeezed for all you still got by inflation. This happens on every generation. That’s why you retire from a rich area and move to a poor area so your money can stretch while it drops to inflation.
Yes. Everyone should be able to work for a certain amount of time and be able to afford a home. After all a cook and a construction worker spend the same amount of time at work.
America’s Magical Thinking About Housing: The city of Austin built a lot of homes. Now rent is falling, and some people seem to think that’s a bad thing ( www.theatlantic.com )