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A comment on Housing is at the root of many of the rich world’s problems (2020). Parent comment

Re:Housing is at the root of many of the rich world’s proble... by smcl on Thursday August 18, 2022 @05:39AM (#32507264)
The link supports the statement "housing tracked inflation for 400 years". I think the confusion here is the word "investment" is overloaded and could refer to a number of different things regarding property:

- you buy the property that you personally will live in

- you buy some other property and let it out to tenants or businesses

- you are a pension fund, mutual fund, hedge fund, day trader, bank, HFT etc which trades in derivatives based on mortgages

The first two have been going on for centuries at some level. The third only really got going at the point house prices completely disconnected from inflation.

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Re:Housing is at the root of many of the rich world’s proble... by kgwgk on Thursday August 18, 2022 @09:23AM (#32509223)
I agree. That's why the original statement "Housing was never an investment before recent decades" doesn't make a lot of sense and the justification "Housing tracked inflation for 400 years" doesn't support it even it's correct.

(Btw, not sure if it was implied but the "you" in "you buy some other property and let it out to tenants or businesses" is often a pension fund or mutual fund.)

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