Stop Buying Real Estate in SF

Re:Stop Buying Real Estate in SF by johnrob on Thursday January 14, 2016 @03:06PM (#10904043)

There may be another link between QE and housing: I suspect a large motivator of QE was to avoid deflation, which could have caused a large number of foreclosures. So the notion of QE propping up home prices might have been the intended effect.

Edit: this also seems in accord with your notion of housing as a currency. If dollar inflation is tied to home prices, then to allow prices to drop is to deflate the dollar - something our government won't allow. So home prices have to be protected as a form of anti-deflationary measures.

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Re:Stop Buying Real Estate in SF by treebeard901 on Thursday January 14, 2016 @04:52PM (#10904842)

I agree that one intended effect of QE was to reinflate the housing market. One problem was homes being way overvalued. After prices somewhat balanced out, the problem was a lack of credit available for most people wanting to buy into the market. So many changes have happened over the past few years to the U.S. and global economies that I seriously question the understanding behind modern inflation and deflation. We have been fighting a deflationary spiral since 2008 and it seems like we have almost run out of ammo.

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