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A comment on The Shock of Sweden's Housing Market Is Hitting the Country's Currency. Parent comment

Re:The Shock of Sweden's Housing Market Is Hitting the Count... by romwell on Wednesday November 15, 2017 @11:14PM (#15710218)
Because of the expenses (moving, taxes, fees, etc) amount to $400K, you've just spent a lot of effort to replace a more expensive property with cheaper and smaller one for no gain.

Real-life numbers will differ, but that's roughly the point.

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Re:The Shock of Sweden's Housing Market Is Hitting the Count... by mbesto on Thursday November 16, 2017 @10:50AM (#15713616)
Right. See my point here about asset transfer fees and the idea of "gain" or "loss" to wealth: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15708206

But there is a gain, you just turned an illiquid asset into a liquid asset. The fact that this exchange is even possible is why you are even able to say "its worth $2M" in the first place. If you couldn't turn an illiquid asset into a liquid asset it would be worth nothing, so you neither "gain" nor "lose". Would you rather have that scenario?

Lastly - if you see personal value in purchasing a smaller house, wouldn't you expect service providers (agents, movers, etc) to charge you for that value?

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