Eh, I bought a house in 2020 just before the pandemic hit, and by the time I sold it late last year it had appreciated in value enough to completely offset the money I’d put into the mortgage. Essentially I’d lived there for 3.5 years for free.
Yes it sounds like everything worked out great for you. Good job on timing your investment! But this is a perfect example of the type of financialization of the housing market that I’m against. You used leverage to buy an expensive, risky asset and sold it for a profit just a few years later. This doesn’t always work out so well (ask anyone who bought a house in 2007) and I don’t want to put essentially all my savings into a wallstreetbets style gamble just so I can have somewhere to sleep at night.
I certainly don’t think that the housing market is a wallstreetbets style gamble. If you’re getting a loan that you can afford on a house that’s not falling apart, it’ll generally rise in value over time. The only reason my house didn’t appreciate even more in value is because it was a cheap house in a bad neighborhood, and I did nothing to improve it while I was there. My sister’s house doubled in value in a little over twice as long as I had mine, and she already paid off her mortgage in just 10 years, albeit due to near-fanatical saving and planning. Even through 2008 people’s values usually went up if they managed to hold onto the house for a few years - it was a rocky time to be getting into or out of the market, but if you just stayed put, you made it out on top in the end.
I agree that it shouldn’t be necessary to finance a purchase that’s worth several times more than your annual salary, hoping that nothing too bad happens in the meantime before you can cash it out, but it’s still the best investment your average low/middle class person has access to, and it’s a hell of a lot better than spending a comparable amount of money on an apartment that you’ve got nothing to show for in the end.
Eh, I bought a house in 2020 just before the pandemic hit, and by the time I sold it late last year it had appreciated in value enough to completely offset the money I’d put into the mortgage. Essentially I’d lived there for 3.5 years for free.
Yes it sounds like everything worked out great for you. Good job on timing your investment! But this is a perfect example of the type of financialization of the housing market that I’m against. You used leverage to buy an expensive, risky asset and sold it for a profit just a few years later. This doesn’t always work out so well (ask anyone who bought a house in 2007) and I don’t want to put essentially all my savings into a wallstreetbets style gamble just so I can have somewhere to sleep at night.
I certainly don’t think that the housing market is a wallstreetbets style gamble. If you’re getting a loan that you can afford on a house that’s not falling apart, it’ll generally rise in value over time. The only reason my house didn’t appreciate even more in value is because it was a cheap house in a bad neighborhood, and I did nothing to improve it while I was there. My sister’s house doubled in value in a little over twice as long as I had mine, and she already paid off her mortgage in just 10 years, albeit due to near-fanatical saving and planning. Even through 2008 people’s values usually went up if they managed to hold onto the house for a few years - it was a rocky time to be getting into or out of the market, but if you just stayed put, you made it out on top in the end.
I agree that it shouldn’t be necessary to finance a purchase that’s worth several times more than your annual salary, hoping that nothing too bad happens in the meantime before you can cash it out, but it’s still the best investment your average low/middle class person has access to, and it’s a hell of a lot better than spending a comparable amount of money on an apartment that you’ve got nothing to show for in the end.