You should meet my carpenter and plumber and ask them about their nice houses with big yards and new cars.
Building more housing should lower the effective price of it, and allow many new home buyers or renters to enter the market.
[1]: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/09/04/a-majority-...
It'll be interesting to see how things play out. I think the shift of older millennials out of cities combined with the relatively smaller generation replacing them will likely cause a reversal of a lot of the urban price growth in the past decade in places like New York. Rents are already reflecting that, but sales prices have more hysteresis.
source: 15 year professional Urban Planner in California
So, well, indeed, a good plumber should not see extremely lean years.
(Anecdotally, my son works as a building systems maintenance engineer, without a college diploma. Of course the market for such jobs ebbs and flows, but seems to never dry up: city buildings still need their elevators, HVAC, fire alarm, access control, etc systems working, no matter what.)
My friend works for a home security company. They bill $150/hr for labor and he makes $26/hr.
And yeah, my carpenter got his HVAC, electrician, and plumbing licenses in prison and now runs his own business with family members and makes a lot more than I do, but it wasn't by luck or fortune. Anyone could have done what he did (skipping the prison part), if they didn't mind working hard.
Most people making money in trades make most of it working more than 40 hours a week, or, like you said, runs his own business (which is completely different. That is no longer a "carpenter" plying his trade.)
> Anyone could have done what he did (skipping the prison part), if they didn't mind working hard.
This is just not true and stated as fact. There is no evidence of this. We have no idea how capable this man really is. I know lots of dumb tradesmen and lots of brilliant ones. He should be proud of what he's done because it isn't as easy as you say.
http://reactionwheel.net/2019/01/schumpeter-on-strategy.html
Did you meet up at their respective houses to discuss the work being done on your house?
Worked both those trades and you 100% drive a wrapped mobile advert trade van/truck.
Neither pays well, especially in the residential field.
I call BS.
In the US:
Carpenters 2020 Median Pay: $49,520 per year / $23.81 per hour
Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters 2020 Median Pay: $56,330 per year / $27.08 per hour
source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics bls.gov
strange description for democracy.
Edit: Thank you, Americans, for your perspective! I understand now that you have fixed rate mortgages there. That's, for better or worse, not the case in Canada!
One would think that would cause US real estate to appreciate much faster than Canada when rates are low, but the opposite is the case. Strange days indeed.
* In Canada you technically can get a 25 year fixed mortgage, but the interest rate is 8.75%. That's a massive premium and I've never heard of anyone doing that.