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At a macro level and over the long term, even if prices fall and this means that slightly less rich people can buy them instead, big houses are more expensive a
by tomatocracy 7y ago
At a macro level and over the long term, even if prices fall and this means that slightly less rich people can buy them instead, big houses are more expensive and more work to look after and maintain and there is a limit to the number of people willing and able to do that. The ultimate end result could be that some of these houses become derelict, which isn’t really good for anyone.
This is what happened to a good number of the large country houses in England after food prices fell in the late 19th and early 20th century.
- 0xDEFC0DE 7y agoKnock $10-20k off the price and put that towards hiring people to clean it. Bundle the house sale with cleaning services for a few years or something. The amount of people willing to deal with it will grow as the price falls, but that's not newsworthy. That's the uncomfortable truth for people wanting to sell.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y agoThere's still energy costs wasted on heating and cooling 4x more space than you need.
- tomatocracy 7y agoNot just energy costs - replacements for kitchen/bathroom fittings as they fail, painting/decorating, cleaning, basic maintenance to ensure the place doesn’t fall down, keeping gardens from becoming overgrown, the list goes on.
- Dumblydorr 7y agoExactly, these are brick and mortar resources and skilled labor being poured into personal assets, not into infrastructure or affordable housing or charitable causes. If all these mega homes or mega expenditures of any kind were instead more usefully applied, capitalism would feel a much friendlier and just system.