Personally, I think the residential real estate market became completely unhinged once homes started to be seen as means of wealth accumulation instead of what they are: HOMES.
We now have multi-trillion-dollar debt markets built on this lunacy, and governments now make idiotic policy decisions just to keep the house of cards from collapsing.
Let’s not forget that a minority of the population is comprised of nuclear families. This isn’t the 1890s-1970s anymore. Seeing homeownership as an investment opportunity above other things is not new and has been common my entire life (I was born in 1976).
“Personally, I think the residential real estate market became completely unhinged once homes started to be seen as means of wealth accumulation instead of what they are: HOMES.”
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I’ve never purchased a home for any other reason than being a convenient and comfortable place to live. I honestly didn’t buy with appreciation in mind figuring that personal enjoyment would be the ROI. That said, location was always a very important factor that I was willing to pay for because it affects the livability of the home and therefore its value. Purchasing a home as a speculative investment never made much sense to me, especially since the long term growth rate in the value of the home isn’t as great as most people think it is because there are a lot of “carrying costs” associated with home ownership. Far better to invest money in more profitable assets IMO.