Hacker News Reader

I'd say in the UK the majority of rich people are so through owning real estate. It's kind of a time honoured thing. Not sure it's a good thing - probably it's one of the reasons for slow economic growth here that people sit on property rather than making stuff.

View on HN

There’s also a survivor bias in real estate.

I know people that invested in property and they either didn’t consider the risks they are taking (not servicing boilers) or the time managing tenants. If you end up with a court case, you are going to shorten your life through stress.

I get it that mortgage money is cheap leverage, but I think the good times on that have run out.

Yeah it has good times and bad times depending on the property market and the government laws of the day and also on the individual. Still over the long term there tends to be a transfer of wealth from the young and hard working to property owners as a class.

Also the monied class totally lost its appetite for manufacturing anything due to the unions that went with it, and the solution to the problem of socialism was to destroy the idea of society, as per Thatcherism.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com