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Half of Americans have < $1,000 in their savings account - yes, that is true. However, around 64% of Americans own their home [1]. How many of them are taking
by planteen 9y ago
Half of Americans have < $1,000 in their savings account - yes, that is true.
However, around 64% of Americans own their home [1]. How many of them are taking out HELOCs against their homes to buy lottery tickets? Once concern is people are taking out HELOCs for crypto speculation.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home-ownership_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home-ownership_in_the_United_S...
- abcdefghijklm 9y agoI think that stat means 64% of Americans don't rent. Homeowner is not the right term for most of that 64%, because most have a mortgage balance, which when subtracted from their < $1,000 in savings, makes the picture even uglier, and makes most of their future financial well-being dependent and correlated with their local real estate market. Edit: The stat actually means 64% of homes are occupied by their owner. But "owner" is still misleading, as the article linked to above says: "However, homeowner equity has fallen steadily since World War II and is now less than 50% of the value of homes on average."
- planteen 9y agoI'm not saying that is a good situation or the picture is rosy. The real question here is one of semantics - do you include home equity in "life savings"? I would say yes. And using a HELOC for a crypto or lottery tickets are both bad things IMO.
- abcdefghijklm 9y agoI totally agree, just wanted to clarify that "homeowner" is a generous term in the US intended to make people feel like they own an entire home on the day they close the sale, instead of the reality that they usually own a mortgage balance along with a small chunk of that home.