There was also boosted unemployment. In some states people were taking in over $4000 per month in unemployment. That's a lot of money to not work.

It's still not enough to dispute the parent's comment.

There isn't anyone poor getting rich off unemployment. It's not the reason for the housing boom.

You could buy houses in cash in half the cities in Ohio for 6 months unemployment + 3 stimulus checks. There are plenty of places like this in the US - Alabama, Mississippi, etc.

Sure - that is not the reason house prices in Marin are up 30%.

That's probably got more to do with central banks pushing up equities >30%. And probably because when you cut mortgage interest rates by 1 percentage point (which they did), you can afford ~15% more house.

In real terms - monthly payments for new housing purchases are down.

Sure, you could buy a house in the extremely small cities of Ohio with little to no jobs or economic future. I doubt many are. Almost all the population growth in the US is in major metro areas. If those cities are close to commute to Cleveland, Columbus, or Cincinnati, sure.

You could literally buy houses in Cleveland for less than $30k. 6 months of unemployment plus stimulus in Ohio was >$25k.

This is even more true for Detroit.

I live in the rust belt. No one is buying those 30k homes. Why? They're unmaintained, falling apart, need completely rewired, completely new plumbing. The housing stock in the rust belt is OLD. This is what makes prices "so cheap" to you lot looking in from the coasts.

But the reality is no one is buying the discount properties that need major work. They're in run down neighborhoods with vacancies everywhere and sit on the market for months. They're almost unsellable - many are held onto with the hope that a neighborhood will get gentrified. Cities like Detroit and Cleveland see Pittsburgh's resurgence and think that will happen there. But for every expensive Pittsburgh neighborhood there's a Clairton and McKeesport.

I don’t know how but my sister and my brother in law bought a brand new Harley in the middle of the pandemic, while they were both unemployed and collecting benefits.

Pretty discouraging to me, I feel like a sap that I kept working. Why do they get twice as much assistance when my wife doesn’t work because we decided to have her be a stay at home mom?

Even $20,000 is not $500,000.

The obvious answer to your last question is not that your sister and BIL should not get assistance, but that your wife should also get more assistance. We don't do enough to support people across the country. 2020 showed some rare aid to people in a reasonable fashion (at least for a couple of months). We can do more of that.

We have fiat currency after all, let's take advantage of it!

You think that's the only money that got issued? The loans that went to companies was absurdly abused and had almost no oversight. Trillions of dollars went into the economy in a matter of months...