Re:How I Think About Debt
by geraldwhen on Monday May 06, 2024 @07:05PM
(#40280502)
Yes, you do live in a bubble. 65% of US families own a home.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/184902/homeownership-rat...
Most cities aren’t San Francisco and New York City. Even in both California and New York, there are many areas with affordable homes for single income families.
I did mostly mean it in that weasly-way. My main point is that if you can afford the mortgage, you can afford the house, you don't need to be able to make a cash payment for it to afford it. Housing is for sure becoming very difficult to afford even by that definition in a lot of places (and it's not particularly reasonable that even if you can, that housing should take up such a large fraction of your lifetime earnings).
What? Technically this is true because “many” people already own homes and can use that wealth towards another. However, when talking about the unafordability of homes the target market being discussed should be first-time home buyers (unless you have an investment podcast or something).
In my HCoL bubble the only people I know that can afford their first house are high-income DINKs, or living 30mins outside of the city, or have a high-paying remote job and can relocate to a LCoL area with its own drawbacks.