-it is likely that we will start to see a movement to adjustable rates as we move through this year and see more rate hikes. Borrowers paying 4.5% now are shocked- despite the fact that those are still historically low rates. They can easily afford those rates. But first time homebuyers typically are very sensitive to these rates and are being priced right out of the market. The gap between haves and have nots is clearly widening in the housing market- which exacerbates things- as it leads to less people willing to sell and move up.
It is hard to accurately predict where this goes since it never been anything like this before.
So based on both highlighted statements aren’t there a few broader predictabilities?
If home owning is concentrating into the fewer hands of older populations already in the door, the wealthy, and investment firms like Blackrock I don’t see how this isn’t one of a few big signs of the quickly lowering standard of American living and expectation.
If the younger generations are facing sharply decreasing prospects of homeownership, along with a rise in poverty, homelessness, and living costs, there’s plenty of areas of the world we can look to for a preview of what day to day life holds for those among the younger generations who won’t as easily get by as their parents did.
Having lived in two of Europe’s poorer Balkans nations, citizens there are destined to a life of renting. Any detached family homes are kept within family generations, all living under the same roof which never hits the public market. Corruption is widespread. Discretional income is minimal. Personal ambition is tempered. Alcoholism is high. Medical care lags behind about thirty years.
So many subtle elements of our day to day American living is only noticeable once its absence is clearly more noticeable in what I think of as Central and Eastern Europe’s “scaled back second world.” For example, there’s no landscaping companies – weeds and grass grow wild across every cemetery, school yard, playground, and along the sidewalks and commuter rails. Because there isn’t a fostered awareness to neuter your pets, surplus populations of cats roamed my neighborhood. Nobody spends $10k for a wedding. There’s no high school sports for the smaller towns to rally around. No such thing as an HOA. For carwashes, rain is your only option in many cities. Cars in general aren’t maintained – bumpers are left in disrepair after fender-benders.
And going east towards Russia the poverty and decaying infrastructure worsen. Such as live power lines exposed along ditches and roadsides so that when it rains the puddles are electrified. And it’s not uncommon to encounter wild packs of larger dogs roaming the residential streets.
What makes it all the more grim if rising poverty scales America back into “second world” living is the higher rates of 1) violent crime in American cities, 2) household debt, and 3) drug abuse – prescription and street drugs alike. I find myself get bummed by how the lack vision amongst much of the younger generation can understandably be interpretable as the prevalent lack of vision in the future America itself.
