>...the bifurcation of the American dream. It used to be that working-class folks could reasonably aspire to buy a house. ...So unemployment is going to be bad

>...the bifurcation of the American dream. It used to be that working-class folks could reasonably aspire to buy a house. ...So unemployment is going to be bad for one part of America... Housing as institutional investment and institutional land speculation is a condensed example of why stocks can rise during an economic catastrophe, why housing will become yet more unaffordable and what drives increasing inequality between wage earners and asset owners. Redfin's stock has been part of the record breaking rally during the pandemic because the drop in housing prices that would have kept them somewhat in sync with a drop in income will instead be at least partially absorbed by Redfin and other speculators and so make housing even more unaffordable. As we know, the model is to offer a desperate seller a low price then keep the unit empty until a new higher price is met. So a unit stays empty longer than necessary, prices are kept high by a seller that can afford to do so (ie Redfin) and profit is made from widespread economic hardship. In particular the housing crisis is not due to bifurcation between wage earners, it's a simple perpetual shift upward in housing prices that affects everyone who works for a living. Portraying it as bifurcation obfuscates the cause of the problem by creating a conflict between wage earners with different incomes while portraying the speculator's actions a inevitable, natural and harmless. But housing is not expensive because some people earn what they are worth, it is expensive because housing is used as investment.