The upper middle class were decidedly not elite at that time and very much "working class plus"
They did have a lot of privileges, especially when employed in the colonies.
This is... a mass elite or more of one that may have ever existed before including the small merchant class of the late 1800s
Those luxury apartments are going up everywhere, at least in the United States. $2200 a month with amenities for a one bedroom studio.
What? Do you not live in your house?
Consider a farm that grows wheat on 15 acres of fields. Are those fields an income-producing asset? If so, your house is also an income-producing asset.
Depends on what you consider a reverse mortgage/equity loan they plan to die before paying.
Sweden is pretty hard on mortgages/loans to people who are retired, know problem for some actually.
I don't understand, is it paid for or not?
"Assuming that the house is paid for, of course; if your net worth is really only $300K, odds are you don't have the house paid for either"
Person A has a paid off house. If their net worth is 300k that implies a low cost of living area, and a small house. They likely are used to living a modest life (most people when given more money will spend it on a better house). They won't need much money, and better yet, since their house is paid for, they don't have to pay rent with their income. Of course it is entirely possible they are "party animals" who never are home and only need a tiny house for an address, and they spent every penny they earn on alcohol for their 'friends' - but this seems unlikely.
Person B doesn't have their house paid off (living in an apartment counts!), and their net worth is 300k. The question then becomes how much are they paying for housing every month, since this reduces their spending ability.
Neither person will have a great life (assuming they live in the US - 300k net worth in a poor country is considerable wealth), but a paid off house allows for a nice life, while paying for the house means scrapping by.
Those times are gone, but the theoretical justification that makes homes income-producting assets remains.
When your renter informs you of the boiler breaking, or a roof needs replacing, that's going to get thorny - "It was fine when I was using it/living in it, did you break it?"
Perhaps the latest round of updates to property law for renters come along and suddenly as a landlord you have to above and beyond what you need to as an owner; you both have to do X, Y or Z to your properties because they're rental and not a basic owner situation.
I have contemplated this, especially in terms of universal suffrage, where we've progressed from a male landowner with voting rights, to anyone over 18. And I've also come to find out that there are many, many homeowners today who flout zoning, insurance, and business licensing to run "cottage industries" in SFH-zoned areas, and these are often sources of clash with the HOA.
It's been mentioned on HN before how the "front lawn" and ornamental gardens are implicitly conspicuous consumption. They boast, "I own land and I can waste all this space on non-farmland! I am wealthy enough to feed my family without growing my own!" Because in feudal days, in the manor house, your estate and your land were really expected to produce revenue! The lord of a manor was duty-bound to hire a cadre of servants to care for the home and family, and hire or sublet to farmers and shepherds and others who would exploit the land. The estates, the convents and monasteries, the farmlands, the Southern plantations, these were all implicitly revenue-producing, not merely where someone lived, and then rode a horse to their office somewhere else in a different "zone". That would've been absurdly wasteful...
So today, there are people secretly painting sneakers, or selling firearms, or running a family farm to sell raw milk and mutton, or doing mani-pedis, or selling tee shirts, from their residential-zoned McMansions or even apartments. But typically a SFH, where in 2026, we've decided that if we're investing a cool million in property, it would indeed be wasteful not to exploit that, even if we need to do it on the D.L., and fight endlessly with the HOA and code inspectors, who are gonna say we need to rent office space.
That page has a telephone hotline that people can call to get advice, including help to find a reliable broker. Probably the biggest problem with (honest) reverse mortgages is that they can run out of money before you die. You can continue to stay in your house, but you probably immediately fall into extreme poverty.
> the largest fraction of which is probably their house (so not income-producing)
Roughly 1/3 of Boomers also have private pensions (remember those from before the 2000s?). Social Security is about 25K USD per year. It is expected to only cover 40% of living costs. It is scary how many retired Americans live only from Social Security in their retirement.
Tell them that, not me. We live in a descriptivist universe.
Wild random insults don't change the definition
.... with the 30 crossed out and repalced by 40, which is crossed out and replaced by 50, which is..... you get the idea.
The young calling anybody over 28 'boomer' is the modern equivalent of this :-)