[Arainach]

I do not believe this Federal Reserve study can classify such things. It either has a metric which is so incorrect as to be worthless or a biased human judging a dataset so small as to be worthless.

There are families which cram 3 generations and a dozen people into a few hundred square feet. There are people in Hong Kong living in spaces smaller than most American kitchens. By those metrics are we ALL in excessive lodging?

Is it excessive to be in a 1600 square foot house whose mortgage is lower than rent for a 500 square foot studio because you bought when interest rates were far lower?

[iepathos]

The Federal Reserve study classifies non-ordinary expenses with households by comparing against median data for a region. For example, having a massive house means the square footage is significantly above median for the region and classifies it as a non-ordinary expense. As far as I know, it doesn't look at interest rates on individual mortgages because I don't believe they have that data accessible. It is a pretty sophisticated multi-dimensional approach they look at household income levels, regional economic conditions, household composition, rural vs urban, local cost of living, etc. It accounts for whatever the team of economic phds who designed it could think of with the data they have available.

[rohansingh]

The point is that the Fed isn't classifying those things. "Ordinary" includes all primary mortgages, whether for a modest home or a luxury pad. It includes all personal car payments, whether for a shared Honda or a Maserati.