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by DoubleDerper 1507 days ago
Relative to which assets?

Stocks? Cars? Forex? IP? Crypto?

Genuinely curious because everything is more expensive than it was before.

If everything is overvalued, then nothing is overvalued [relatively]

5 comments

I remember a family member saying almost exactly the same thing to me in a conversation about the real estate market that took place in early 2008.
> If everything is overvalued, then nothing is overvalued [relatively]

Could it be that maybe peoples work is under valued relative to the value they help create?

Yes. This is why we're seeing a bunch of whining about a labor shortage, because people can now choose to be paid a little more fairly.
Stocks would be an obvious point of comparison. They’re down but real estate prices remain up.

The argument for overvalued housing is that everyone got antsy during the pandemic and wanted to change houses and change neighborhoods, but that will settle down now that the pandemic is waning.

Tech stocks seem to be falling because the pandemic-driven surge of screen time is fading now that the pandemic is waning.

So: is real estate entirely different from stocks? Or will it see a similar post-pandemic slump but just has more lag?

Stocks are still massively up even today (S&P 500, Dow, Nasdaq) since early 2000, the "before times" for much of this current real estate spree.

S&P 3400 in Jan 2020, 4146 today.

Dow 28,600 to almost 33,000 today.

Nasdaq 9000 to 12,300 today.

Tech stocks falling won't necessarily lower home prices. The number of tech employees is growing rapidly, but the number of houses for sale isn't, so if ten years ago it was enough to win the bidding war against the top 10%, now you compete with the top 5% and their finances, even with lower stocks, are a lot better. By 2050 it will be a competition among the top 1%.
According to the article, they’re mostly comparing it to income.

I agree with the sentiment though, in which case maybe the currency in which the assets are denominated is overvalued.

A lot of things are overvalued relative to the income they can generate. Credit has been cheap and easy so speculation has been rife. That will end.