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Housing: The Foundations Of The Middle Class Are Crumbling
Of Two Minds ^ | 02/27/2025 | Charles Hughes Smith

Posted on 02/27/2025 8:05:50 AM PST by SeekAndFind

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To: Dilbert San Diego

yes, above certain thresholds.


21 posted on 02/27/2025 8:38:31 AM PST by TexasFreeper2009
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To: Dilbert San Diego

more specifically capital gains tax.


22 posted on 02/27/2025 8:39:35 AM PST by TexasFreeper2009
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To: Alberta's Child

Whomever owns the note is getting a low return on their money. It’s still better than a default.


23 posted on 02/27/2025 8:40:14 AM PST by MV=PY (The Magic Question: Who's paying for it?)
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To: TexasFreeper2009

OK thanks. I’ve done some “back of the envelope” calculations and discovered I would owe substantial capital gains tax if I ever sold my house. So I’ve put off any such thoughts of selling.


24 posted on 02/27/2025 8:42:57 AM PST by Dilbert San Diego
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To: SeekAndFind

I would have hoped most saw the writing on the wall when Barry the Muslim was elected. I changed my whole life around, was already debt free except 2 mortgages, but I sold one, paid off the other, then I bought another house, paid it off in 10 months and built a new house all cash(took 4 years). So here I sit with 3 paid for houses, about to retire in 6 months, will sell one then buy another for cash somewhere close to my daughter and grandchildren. It will cost me about 1/3 of what I sell one of the California houses for.

Having NO BILLS for the last 13 years has been Wonderful and I will never borrow another nickel for anything. I pay cash for new vehicles when I need one and just bought my wife a new car 6 months ago.

GET OUT OF DEBT, DON’T BORROW MONEY


25 posted on 02/27/2025 8:44:56 AM PST by eyeamok
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To: central_va

????

I thought Free Republic conservatives are against all this globalization of recent decades? Some here are in favor of that?


26 posted on 02/27/2025 8:47:21 AM PST by Dilbert San Diego
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To: Dilbert San Diego
RU kidding me? FR is 50% Free Trader, legal immigration virtue signalers and H-1B visa lovers. The other half are patriots.
27 posted on 02/27/2025 8:49:11 AM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn...)
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To: Zathras

True.

Sometimes people ask, why do so many mothers work? Why aren’t there more stay at home moms nowadays?

A key answer is that it takes two incomes to pay the mortgage on a house, which our parents and grandparents could afford on one income.


28 posted on 02/27/2025 8:50:24 AM PST by Dilbert San Diego
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To: Empire_of_Liberty
To be fair, these mortgages are sold off by the original lenders and packaged into bonds that pay very low rates but may be attractive to foreign buyers who are looking for a steady stream of income in a dollar-based asset.

If a European investor bought a U.S. mortgage bond paying 3% interest on the day I closed on my home, they would have earned a 3% annual rate of return in dollars ... but the value of the bond would have increased by 11% when measured in euros just from the weakening of the euro against the dollar.

29 posted on 02/27/2025 8:52:58 AM PST by Alberta's Child ("Well, maybe I'm a little rough around the edges; inside a little hollow.” -- Tom Petty, “Rebels”)
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To: Dilbert San Diego
My Korea War vet father never went to college but managed to own a home, raise a family of 5 with one income and my mother never had to work. We had a vacation every year and he paid for the first two years of our college educations.

I was not able to to that with college and with a working spouse.

30 posted on 02/27/2025 8:54:37 AM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn...)
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To: Dilbert San Diego
A hundred years from now, I suspect the period from 1950 through 2000 will be seen as something of a major anomaly. Yes, it seemed like it was possible for our parents and grandparents to afford a mortgage on one income. But I would point out the following important factors in this:

1. The U.S. emerged from WW2 as the only major industrial power that had not been devastated by the war. Our standard of living rose to unsustainable levels simply because we had no competitors on the world stage.

2. When I was a kid in grade school, it seemed like one out of every two or three classmates of mine had a grandparent living in their homes with them -- usually a widowed grandmother. I don't think those were cases of "one income" paying the mortgage at all; the pension and/or Social Security check was helping to pay the cost of the home.

Item #2 is critical here. One of the biggest factors in rising housing costs in the U.S. today is that our median household size is smaller than ever.

31 posted on 02/27/2025 8:59:20 AM PST by Alberta's Child ("Well, maybe I'm a little rough around the edges; inside a little hollow.” -- Tom Petty, “Rebels”)
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To: SeekAndFind

Uh, yea....interesting find.

The lack of affordable housing is all part of the plan.

The elites realized that home ownership by middle class people lead to “family” formation, that is, parents having kids. As far as the WEF leadership is concerned, that’s bad.

So unaffordable housing is all part of the population reduction program.

WEF “Fewer Forward into a Bleaker and lonely Future”.


32 posted on 02/27/2025 9:05:21 AM PST by Rich21IE
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To: SeekAndFind

I’ve owned my own home since I was 18. Paid off my mortgage at 45... 30 years ago. After the Almeda fire and getting screwed by Biden, my income is $800 a month less and housing is 2 1/2 times as much. I can no longer afford a home or to even get back to my community. I’ll die in a strange place in a cold scary old trailer.


33 posted on 02/27/2025 9:07:06 AM PST by AuntB (Trump is our Ben Franklin - Brilliant, Boisterous, Brave and ALL AMERICAN!)
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To: Dilbert San Diego

the first $250,000 of gains are excluded if you are single and $500,000 if you are married filing jointly.


34 posted on 02/27/2025 9:08:16 AM PST by TexasFreeper2009
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To: Nifster

That’s what I think. My kids own their home, but have trouble making payments on it. However, they have a cleaning service, eat out frequently, and take lavish vacations at least twice a year. Yes, they both work hard, but they spend more money than they should be. It’s going to bite them in the butt hard sometime. They live pretty high on the hog. They don’t see it though, because everyone around them lives this same way. It’s extravagant.


35 posted on 02/27/2025 9:16:31 AM PST by FamiliarFace (I got my own way of livin' But everything gets done With a southern accent Where I come from. TPetty)
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To: Magnum44
I agree with all these points, but would add a fourth: Asinine regulations/govt mandates have put homebuilders in a pinch. Homebuilders can only turn a profit if they build upscale/large units.

When my grandparents bought their first house in 1960, a 1,500SF ranch was the prototypical model of a newly constructed home even here in Massachusetts.

Us millennials would love to see more homes here that are modest in size, but homebuilders have consistently built luxury 55+ communities and 3,500SF+ mcmansions. only so many first-time homebuyers can afford these homes.
36 posted on 02/27/2025 9:20:56 AM PST by millenial4freedom (Government was supposed to preserve freedom, not serve as a jobs program for delinquents and misfits)
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To: SeekAndFind

I find it bizarre how these corrupt SOBs in government ever pushed through these punitive property taxes.

Pay taxes all your life, finally after decades of paying taxes and mortgages on your home they finally pay it off, Yet those in government still demands they pay them to live in their now paid off homes?

All their doing is renting from the corrupt government as those in government keep charging them more and more just to live in their paid off homes!

And the old folk on fixed incomes? They’re f*****! They just loot the sh*t out of those folks hoping they can seize their homes!


37 posted on 02/27/2025 9:30:38 AM PST by dragnet2 (Diversion and evasion are tools of deceit)
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To: SeekAndFind

I find it bizarre how these corrupt SOBs in government ever pushed through these punitive property taxes.

Pay taxes all your life, finally after decades of paying taxes and mortgages on your home they finally pay it off, Yet those in government still demands they pay them to live in their now paid off homes?

All their doing is renting from the corrupt government as those in government keep charging them more and more just to live in their paid off homes!

And the old folk on fixed incomes? They’re f*****! They just loot the sh*t out of those folks hoping they can seize their homes!


38 posted on 02/27/2025 9:30:38 AM PST by dragnet2 (Diversion and evasion are tools of deceit)
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To: SeekAndFind

I’m to the point in life where I will never be able to afford to purchase a home. I’ll be a renter until I pass from this mortal coil.


39 posted on 02/27/2025 9:38:45 AM PST by ducttape45 (Jeremiah 17:9, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?")
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To: SeekAndFind

“I just looked up the annual property tax on a friend’s house in California: north of $18,000 a year. And no, it’s not a mansion in Malibu, and he bought it 20 years ago.”

Complete BS. Prop 13 limits property taxes to 1% of the value when the property is purchased and limits yearly increases to 2-3%.

That would mean he brought the property 20 years ago for ~ 1.5 million.

Not sure about the rest of the article but if he is that sloppy about this item, I wonder how accurate the rest of the article is.


40 posted on 02/27/2025 9:52:06 AM PST by desertfreedom765
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