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Comment by turdprincess | Hacker News Reader

Curious - which individuals benefit from housing values rising? It seems like if you own a home, and it gets more expensive, you have more money on paper, but how do you benefit from that? If you sell your house and buy another, you wont make more money - your profit theoretically wouldn't change. Same with selling and renting if rents are going up as well.

Is it primarily then people who invest in real estate outside of their primary home?

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People who are downsizing later in life benefit while alive.

People who move from an expensive area to a lower cost area benefit while alive.

People who intend to leave an inheritance benefit after death (and therefore psychologically while alive).

People who borrow against the property (via a cash-out refinance or HELOC) benefit while alive.

People who sell their individual condos and move in together might benefit from price appreciation (depending on how much more expensive the shared place is).

People who do none of those things but who realize they could downsize or move to a cheaper area if things went sideways benefit from the psychological security aspect.

The current size of the heloc (home equity line of credit) market is around 336 billion dollars.

I’m not sure I buy this - who is looking to max out their HELOC? Of course one good reason to do that is to buy another property, but of course, this again is a chicken or egg problem where no actual gain being made.

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