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In the UK the idea of buying a home to me seems like basically anchoring ones' self to a lifetime of having to maintain a highly paid career (assuming it's even

In the UK the idea of buying a home to me seems like basically anchoring ones' self to a lifetime of having to maintain a highly paid career (assuming it's even possible in the first place). I look at a 300K+ apartment and think - buying that for the average person would mean they could pretty much never take a break from the 40-hour a week grind for the next 15 years or more. In a world in which we've pretty much bent nature to our will, buying a home should not be this colossal struggle in developed countries. It seems like such an enormous drag on all activity - not just economic - "everyone" is running around pretending that they're in poverty and we can't solve any of the problems because the landlord sucked all of the money away.

CalRobert 7y ago
You're right, it shouldn't. But if you take that 1) housing is a necessity, 2) housing supply is restricted by law to a value below demand, and 3) we make it possible to get mortgages that DEPEND on "anchoring ones' self to a lifetime of having to maintain a highly paid career", this means that housing will eventually be priced at the amount of debt available. If 20 people want 10 houses, all you need is for 10 of them to say "well I don't want a mortgage for 10x my income, but I guess it's what I need to do" in order to drive houses to be that price. If the bank made it 15x, then you'd see that as the price. Hell, there are places (Sweden iirc) with 100+ year mortgages and lo and behold, people take out these "mortgages" (basically renting from the bank at that point). We could allow building more homes, but that would be unpopular with people who own houses, who are often old voters, so it's a nonstarter politically. The goal is to keep housing _just barely_ affordable to people who work their asses off their entire productive life. It's an outcome of enforced artificial scarcity.

CalRobert 7y ago

You're right, it shouldn't. But if you take that 1) housing is a necessity, 2) housing supply is restricted by law to a value below demand, and 3) we make it possible to get mortgages that DEPEND on "anchoring ones' self to a lifetime of having to maintain a highly paid career", this means that housing will eventually be priced at the amount of debt available. If 20 people want 10 houses, all you need is for 10 of them to say "well I don't want a mortgage for 10x my income, but I guess it's what I need to do" in order to drive houses to be that price. If the bank made it 15x, then you'd see that as the price. Hell, there are places (Sweden iirc) with 100+ year mortgages and lo and behold, people take out these "mortgages" (basically renting from the bank at that point). We could allow building more homes, but that would be unpopular with people who own houses, who are often old voters, so it's a nonstarter politically. The goal is to keep housing _just barely_ affordable to people who work their asses off their entire productive life. It's an outcome of enforced artificial scarcity.