It'd be great if it were possible to buy a house and not have it be an "investment"
It's time we revisited this now that the country looks very different.
- For one, there is a large trend towards urbanization which changes the makeup of the country.
- The 30 year fixed-rate mortgage and mortgage interest deduction (now capped, and less impactful given higher standard deduction amounts) have been a large contributor to housing values being distorted from normal market prices.
- Throw in low interest rates, widespread speculation, financialization of real estate (ABNB, loanmls.com, etc)
you end up with a human right being divvied up by institutions, speculators, and an aging wealthy populace that has no interest in sharing the pie.
I’m not sure how much of a factor that is - here in Australia our house price : household income ratio is, if anything, even more deranged than it is in the US, and 30 year fixed rates are unheard-of here - maybe 2 year fixed rates at certain times, but usually most mortgages are variable (and usually at higher rates than in the US).
That should be easy to test. Hardly any other country has 30 year fixed rate mortgages and lots of countries have far lower mortgage interest deduction. Would be interesting to measure the distortions in those countries and compare to the US.
If they were young, I'd understand. If they are aging... what's in it for them? A hope that cryogenics will come good?
After certain age, reverse mortgages become a potential new source of income, so in short term one would be interested in rapid appreciation of underlying property.
We stop thinking about housing as something everyone needs and start thinking about making sure we get ours before others do.
Oh wait, this actually happened during the pandemic and nobody was like, "oh this is good, people's car equity is going up!" because with things that aren't houses people have a saner view of finances.
https://darrenong.sg/blog/a-complete-guide-to-buy-a-property...
And then there's no logic to prices. You will get something cheaper in your 50s because you waited so long that you can finally get a nice spacious apartment for no money at all in the city center, while a student will have to pay more than that to get a shitty corridor room in the suburbs. Real life example: a friend paying 6000kr for a room in the suburbs as a student vs a 40yo lady with a good income paying the same for a 2 bedroom appartment in the center (market rent for second hand contracts for such a flat is about 19 000kr). And then you have newly built public housing in the suburbs that has prices 2-3 times more expensive than the old ones in the center for the same size, but those you can get without waiting whereas the old ones need more than 20 years of queue to get.
It is probably the most broken system in Sweden, but it kind of seems to be by design to be honest. I would actually have liked a well functioning and supplied public housing market, compared to the annoying parts of the private market in most countries, but swedish rules have just made it a nightmare instead
The system is meant to benefit long-term residents at the cost of everyone else. It's not there to provide a general housing subsidy.
The property tax in some new areas even in the suburbs is more than or only slightly less than the total rent in the some social housing in the center of the city. Some of these areas do not even have public heating.
It has become reverse socialism, steal from the poor and subsidise the rich.