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by apwell23 804 days ago
US middle class cleaved into two groups post pandemic: homeowners at 2% interest rates and everyone else.

Its the new middleclass have and have nots. You have it pretty good right now if you are a homeowner.

4 comments

In theory, those homes should start going down in value once people start selling because you can buy less home for a $2,000 per month mortgage payment. The market's weird right now because a lot of people with low interest rates can't afford to sell and buy something comparable.
I agree: but given that, it's hard to imagine what would bend the market towards selling.
Depending on the region of the country, a lot of people with low interest rates might be handcuffed by skyrocketing insurance from finding buyers
Yup. Homeowners in the first world need to start to feel some serious tax pain, which should go directly to building as much housing as fast as humanly possible. And screw crying about home devaluation. You making a handy profit when you switch houses in a decade does not trump the basic need for people to have housing.
The US middle class has always been divided into homeowners and non-homeowners.
This is short sighted.

People have been saying similar about the cars purchased in 2021 because they sell for well above asking. As 36-month leases start coming due the prices of those cars is normalizing back to where it should be.

All of the boomers that refuse to downsize and plan to die in their homes are going to do the same with the housing market, but in a more spectacular fashion that causes the market to crash.

On the boomer front, it's hard to say because it'll play out over 20 years, and there's a genuine supply shortage. There's also a chance a lot of their kids take the house over and sell something less desirable.