[photonthug]

Buyers might want an asset like that because they could afford it and because they don’t have to gamble about whether the smoke and mirrors keep going for the 30 year duration of their mortgage.

Congrats on your fantastic investment and other high octane adulting, but even if you’re winning, look around, a huge chunk of the “wealth” of nations is tied up in real estate nonsense that represents a vast and willful collective kind of madness. This should freak everyone out in aggregate even if they like the idea of their own position.

But more concretely.. everyone pays the “investment vehicle” premium even if they aren’t trying to invest, and even if the home or area definitely can’t deliver a ROI. After pricing lots of the more thoughtful and plan oriented people out of the ability to have children, we are probably well on our way towards pricing single people out of the ability to have a home, even after some market crash that cuts those prices drastically. And yet western society in the northern hemisphere is too individualistic to dwell together collectively in larger family clans or even friend groups long term. To put it mildly, housing as “investment” is a really bad idea, and we’d be better off if people that are interested in that just stay busy with stocks instead. Less mild, we’ve moved past the point where it’s merely unsustainable.. it’s actively destabilizing judging from the rise in populism everywhere.

[krisoft]

> Buyers might want an asset like that because they could afford it

Sure! As a buyer i’m happy to buy your house for tenth or twentieth of its value. I can afford that! You can add any silly stipulations to the contract for that price. When are we signing?