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Well, overall amount of money made from real estate appreciation is still exceedingly tiny compared to the overall amount made in wages right? And, ownership of

Well, overall amount of money made from real estate appreciation is still exceedingly tiny compared to the overall amount made in wages right? And, ownership of residential real estate is extremely egalitarian - distributed not just more evenly than ownership of financial assets, but even more evenly than wages (for the simple reason that the richer the person is, the smaller fraction of their income they spend on housing, housing is a struggle for the poor but not for the rich).

mjburgess 5y ago
Yes, this comment is just one long series of distribution fallacies. Take, for example, the cost of university education. In 1990, c. <=10% when to "free" university, this generation, 55% do; paying c. £35k to do so (1x the median salary). What are we to conclude from this? That the "middle class" is being ripped off? Or that a massive amount of the population has entered the middle/lower-middle class via university that would have otherwise not been there. This likewise applies to basically all these points. The logic is, "I identify with a 5%er middle class person of the 80s, and I DONT GET WHAT THEY GOT!!" -- despite, now, actually being part of the 55% of the country which has /much/ of "what they had" (-- due to massive wealth increases).
- mola 5y ago
  You mean they believed the fake crap US media brainwashed them to believe on how life works, while turning them to irrational actors which are easy to take advantage of. I can understand their rage, even if it seems silly, they've been lied to their entire life, for profit. So yeah, their angry about reality, because they still they believe the lies.
pydry 5y ago
>Well, overall amount of money made from real estate appreciation is still exceedingly tiny compared to the overall amount made in wages right? And, ownership of residential real estate is extremely egalitarian No. Literally none of that is true.
- KaiserPro 5y ago
  well its more nuanced than that. If you had a right to buy house, (a house built and rented for low income workers by the local governemnt) then you would have benefited equally in the property boom: ie bought your house at a discount in the 90s/00s and now its worth 10-50x what it was before. Unlike in the US where "projects" are still worth shit all, it is quite egalitarian. Mortgages don't take into account your race in the UK, unlike the states. Once you _own_ a property, its price rises uniformly, so in that sense it is. However access to owning a property is not egalitarian. Property is ~10x the average wage, and new builds are low quality, poorly built and more expensive. There are no incentives to change any of this yet.
- anovikov 5y ago
  Well, what is the total value of all real estate in the UK now? What it was 20 years ago? What is the nominal GDP now and what it was 20 years ago? Divide these two fractions by one another and get a power of 0.05 - and multiplied by the current value of all real estate, this is what real estate owners make per year. Now divide to the current nominal GDP and get the fraction. I will be VERY surprised if it turns out over 10%. Most probably much lower. And i even forgot annual maintenance and immovable property tax, and the fact that older dwellings deprecate vs new ones. Overall, society wide, return from ALL kinds of capital - financial and non-financial - combined is dwarfed by wage income. I also wonder why people keep complaining on the rising house prices while no one ever complains on the rising stocks. Aren't these the same? Except stocks are rising faster on average, "rents" (dividend yield) on them is almost as high now as on the houses, ownership of them is not taxed, they don't need any maintenances, and are infinitely liquid. The only downside is that if they dip, they usually dip deeper than houses, but on the interval on which it makes sense owning the house (20+ years), this isn't the case already.
  - pydry 5y ago
    >I also wonder why people keep complaining on the rising house prices while no one ever complains on the rising stocks. I complain. It's symptomatic of the same thing - earned income is an ever smaller share of the economy. People who work for a living make less / GDP every year and the difference gets channeled upwards either through rent or dividends. It wont end well.

mjburgess 5y ago

Yes, this comment is just one long series of distribution fallacies. Take, for example, the cost of university education. In 1990, c. <=10% when to "free" university, this generation, 55% do; paying c. £35k to do so (1x the median salary). What are we to conclude from this? That the "middle class" is being ripped off? Or that a massive amount of the population has entered the middle/lower-middle class via university that would have otherwise not been there. This likewise applies to basically all these points. The logic is, "I identify with a 5%er middle class person of the 80s, and I DONT GET WHAT THEY GOT!!" -- despite, now, actually being part of the 55% of the country which has /much/ of "what they had" (-- due to massive wealth increases).

mola 5y ago
You mean they believed the fake crap US media brainwashed them to believe on how life works, while turning them to irrational actors which are easy to take advantage of. I can understand their rage, even if it seems silly, they've been lied to their entire life, for profit. So yeah, their angry about reality, because they still they believe the lies.

pydry 5y ago

>Well, overall amount of money made from real estate appreciation is still exceedingly tiny compared to the overall amount made in wages right? And, ownership of residential real estate is extremely egalitarian No. Literally none of that is true.

KaiserPro 5y ago
well its more nuanced than that. If you had a right to buy house, (a house built and rented for low income workers by the local governemnt) then you would have benefited equally in the property boom: ie bought your house at a discount in the 90s/00s and now its worth 10-50x what it was before. Unlike in the US where "projects" are still worth shit all, it is quite egalitarian. Mortgages don't take into account your race in the UK, unlike the states. Once you _own_ a property, its price rises uniformly, so in that sense it is. However access to owning a property is not egalitarian. Property is ~10x the average wage, and new builds are low quality, poorly built and more expensive. There are no incentives to change any of this yet.
anovikov 5y ago
Well, what is the total value of all real estate in the UK now? What it was 20 years ago? What is the nominal GDP now and what it was 20 years ago? Divide these two fractions by one another and get a power of 0.05 - and multiplied by the current value of all real estate, this is what real estate owners make per year. Now divide to the current nominal GDP and get the fraction. I will be VERY surprised if it turns out over 10%. Most probably much lower. And i even forgot annual maintenance and immovable property tax, and the fact that older dwellings deprecate vs new ones. Overall, society wide, return from ALL kinds of capital - financial and non-financial - combined is dwarfed by wage income. I also wonder why people keep complaining on the rising house prices while no one ever complains on the rising stocks. Aren't these the same? Except stocks are rising faster on average, "rents" (dividend yield) on them is almost as high now as on the houses, ownership of them is not taxed, they don't need any maintenances, and are infinitely liquid. The only downside is that if they dip, they usually dip deeper than houses, but on the interval on which it makes sense owning the house (20+ years), this isn't the case already.
- pydry 5y ago
  >I also wonder why people keep complaining on the rising house prices while no one ever complains on the rising stocks. I complain. It's symptomatic of the same thing - earned income is an ever smaller share of the economy. People who work for a living make less / GDP every year and the difference gets channeled upwards either through rent or dividends. It wont end well.