renter's manifesto
2007-03-18 06:46:25.471102+00 by Dan Lyke 2 comments
2007-03-18 06:46:25.471102+00 by Dan Lyke 2 comments
[ related topics: Real Estate ]
comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):
#Comment Re: made: 2007-03-19 12:39:03.948753+00 by: meuon
Laughing... While I am sure it's a meaningful statistic and relationship, I don't think it's cause and effect. They bought houses 'cause they had decent jobs that enabled them to buy the houses. The jobs vaporized fpr one reason or another, but not because the employees bought houses, except that, the jobs might have paid well, and people bought houses with the money.
Then, they are either stuck with mortgages that they are upside down in, ie: the house in the current economy is worth less than they owe, so they grind it out, hoping property values changes and/or jobs become available. Or they might have a home that is paid off or nearly so, so it's cheaper to stay there.
Add in generations of family, good friends.. It's hard to leave those things and start over.
When I was young, the biggest asset I had was that I was mobile. I'm not so mobile anymore, but I have other assets. Nancy and I have discussed it before, we like Chattanooga, we -could- move, but it'd have to be for -lots- of right reasons (including warm sunny beaches). Still, if we were unable to make a decent living here, we'd move to where we could.
#Comment Re: made: 2007-03-19 14:51:06.891858+00 by: Dan Lyke
Yeah, I think the point of the article is about the upside down issue: They have booming local economy, buy houses, local economy tanks, house isn't as worth as much as they paid for it, they're afraid to give it up.
The counter-side of that is that there's a number of other numbers that claim that jobs go to population centers, not necessarily vice-versa. I think what killed Detroit was a culture of Union encouraged entitlement: No other industry wants to take advantage of that population base because the auto workers got used to so much money for so little work that there's no way to build a sustainable business on their labor.