President Donald Trump said during a Cabinet meeting that he wants to 'drive housing prices up' to keep homeowners 'wealthy' rather than focusing on affordability to benefit people people who 'didn't work very hard'
Go ahead, vote MAGA in the midterms if you’re curious how fucked your life can get.
Why should I care about someone’s equity? Houses are for shelter and privacy. Why do we treat them as investment vehicles?
My car doesn’t become more valuable as it ages. Neither does my computer, or my clothing, or anything else. If they want their home to become more valuable, they should invest in improvements to it, not just depend on all houses getting more expensive for everyone else forever. It’s a ludicrous, unsustainable idea.
To strike a balance, home values should go up at the same rate as general inflation and/or wages (ideally the latter, really), or at least stay the same over time.
You really don’t want to find yourself in a situation where you need to sell and you’re underwater. At the same time, they obviously shouldn’t be the investment vehicles they are now.
Also some people use the equity from home appreciation to take out an extra mortgage for improvements. I don’t personally think it’s a great idea (as it can put you under water if the market takes a wild swing), but it’s something people can use to get a cash injection for potentially expensive home improvement work.
I’m not saying it’s a good thing, per se, but it is uniquely an “American thing”. Unlike most other places in the world, most people’s wealth is tied up in their home in the US. That’s just how it is right now and if people can’t afford them, they stay poor.
Why should I care about someone’s equity? Houses are for shelter and privacy. Why do we treat them as investment vehicles?
My car doesn’t become more valuable as it ages. Neither does my computer, or my clothing, or anything else. If they want their home to become more valuable, they should invest in improvements to it, not just depend on all houses getting more expensive for everyone else forever. It’s a ludicrous, unsustainable idea.
To strike a balance, home values should go up at the same rate as general inflation and/or wages (ideally the latter, really), or at least stay the same over time.
You really don’t want to find yourself in a situation where you need to sell and you’re underwater. At the same time, they obviously shouldn’t be the investment vehicles they are now.
Also some people use the equity from home appreciation to take out an extra mortgage for improvements. I don’t personally think it’s a great idea (as it can put you under water if the market takes a wild swing), but it’s something people can use to get a cash injection for potentially expensive home improvement work.
I’m not saying it’s a good thing, per se, but it is uniquely an “American thing”. Unlike most other places in the world, most people’s wealth is tied up in their home in the US. That’s just how it is right now and if people can’t afford them, they stay poor.