[mulmen]

I don’t disagree with you. But I was replying to this question:

> So how does one buy a house without being dependent on cash flow?

The answer to which is “you don’t”.

Most people can’t afford to buy a house and never will. Even many homeowners.

I will spell it out if it isn’t already clear.

Live within your means and save as much as you can, investing that savings in a diversified portfolio. Buy a home only when your savings allow for it.

[johnnyanmac]

>Live within your means and save as much as you can

It's expensive being poor and the job market isn't getting better to compensate this economy. If you rent forever you spend more than someone paying off a mortgage (only amortized by needing to upkeep the house youself). If you're wokrking your back out everyday you're more likely to pay more insurance and medical bills than the cushy white collar job with proggresion options.

Most people don't even have the $1000 rainy day fund. They are 3 steps removed from the thought of a "diversified portfolio".

[mulmen]

They can’t afford a rainy day fund so they should buy a house?

I have a “cushy white collar job” and I can’t afford a house. Prices are absurd. I can make mortgage payments but it would destroy any other savings. Buying a house when poor isn’t a smart financial move.

I wish everyone could afford a house but that’s not the world we live in. Nothing will change until people wake up and stop killing themselves to inflate home prices.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Most people can’t afford to buy a house and never will

Most homes in America are owned by the person who lives there.

[mulmen]

Just because you buy something doesn’t mean you can afford it.

If you can’t retire or pay medical expenses or maintain your physical and emotional wellbeing because you spent money on a house then you couldn’t afford it. Owning a house doesn’t mean you can pay the property taxes or maintenance costs.

My point is that people are making financially unsound home buying purchases.

Another way to say this is that Bugatti doesn’t sell Veyrons to people with $1,000,000.00. Bugatti sells Veyrons to people with an extra $1,000,000.00.

[kasey_junk]

And it’s not particularly close. ~65% of households own their home.

That rate is higher now than in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s or 90s. It rofl stomps the pre-war era.

[mulmen]

Do you have a full dataset on this? All I could find is https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N which only goes back to 1965.

[kasey_junk]

The datasets and collection methodologies have changed overtime, the Fred one is the best if you want continuous definitions.

The census also collects data on the subject https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/dec/coh-owner....

[mulmen]

Now I’m curious how this happened. This is the portion of homes owned by their residents, not the number of owned homes as a portion of total population. I’m also curious what the income and wealth to home ratios are. Looks like I have a weekend project.

[kasey_junk]

The pre-war/post war duality is easy to understand. The US made it official policy to increase homeownership. The government subsidizes housing for all income levels and there was tons of housing built.

The post-war era has seen only minor changes in homeownership rates. And those tend to be around macro economic events like 2008 and Covid (and the Reagan era mortgage rates woof).

[johnnyanmac]

My bet is simple: Boomers are all at retirement age if we use the cap of 1954, they were basically given land during the post-war boom. Many had a lifetime career so there was no need to constantly hustle and move about to get a comfortable life. Home ownership is likely very top heavy for Boomers and older Gen X as a result.

If that's even in the ballpark we're going to see a lot of assets aquired by insurance and hospitals to pay off the final years and this residential ownershio will torpeo.