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This is both temporally and geographically myopic. Temporally: in the late 1990s, I had a mortgage with a 7.25% rate. These days, I'm one of the Haves. While I
by PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
This is both temporally and geographically myopic.
Temporally: in the late 1990s, I had a mortgage with a 7.25% rate. These days, I'm one of the Haves. While I may have done better than many of my peers due to my work history, a lot of people my age, or more precisely, people who bought houses when 7.25% was considered a deal not to be missed, are in the same position.
Geographically: billions of people around the world rent rather than own, and for the most part it does not hamper their "personal investments".
Granted, getting from a place/time where people expect owning a house for 5 years to show 50-100% gains to one where a house is unlikely to gain value at all will be challenging. But we can take it slowly and minimize the pain while maximizing the gain of backing out of this insane way of treating housing.
- voisin 3y ago> in the late 1990s, I had a mortgage with a 7.25% rate. These days, I'm one of the Haves. While I may have done better than many of my peers due to my work history, a lot of people my age, or more precisely, people who bought houses when 7.25% was considered a deal not to be missed, are in the same position. Inflation adjusted, when you last paid 7.25% in the mid 90s, house prices were far lower. Today, buyers entering the market for the first time are getting smacked with high rates & record high purchase prices in many markets thanks to two decades of ultra low interest rates.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y agoNot denying that at all. But this wasn't laid out in the GP comment, which contrasted people from the "before" time and the "have-nots" in a higher rate environment. There are many other things about the mid-2020s that differ from the 1990s, but interest rates alone are not a determinant of someone's lifetime economic trajectory.