If anything, I think this understates the problem.
I've thought for years that in much of the developed world housing is the economic problem. The economic problem, singular. This is particularly true for the young, who are the future of the economy. The inability of young people to build wealth and find stability is almost entirely attributable to housing. If you look at cost and wages minus housing young people are doing as well or even better than their parents.
If you are talking about young peoples' struggles with the economy and housing prices are not the very first thing you mention, you are wrong. If you're talking about declining birth rates and family formation and you're not at least mentioning housing prices, you are wrong.
Health care and college tuition are problems too, but housing is the most ubiquitous, unavoidable, and directly disruptive to peoples' lives. It prevents people from "launching."
Edit: you know... if Donald Trump wanted to go down in history as the greatest president in the last 50 years, he could use all the power he has to reform zoning and open development and smash housing prices. Use the same funds withholding tactics against states and localities to pressure them to sideline NIMBYs and streamline permitting. Tax corporate and private equity purchases of residences, tax foreign purchases, and tax unoccupied properties. He'd be a hero even if his record was complete garbage on literally everything else, because he would have solved the economic problem.
Of course he'd never do that. He's a real estate mogul for f's sake.
I've thought for years that in much of the developed world housing is the economic problem. The economic problem, singular. This is particularly true for the young, who are the future of the economy. The inability of young people to build wealth and find stability is almost entirely attributable to housing. If you look at cost and wages minus housing young people are doing as well or even better than their parents.
If you are talking about young peoples' struggles with the economy and housing prices are not the very first thing you mention, you are wrong. If you're talking about declining birth rates and family formation and you're not at least mentioning housing prices, you are wrong.
Health care and college tuition are problems too, but housing is the most ubiquitous, unavoidable, and directly disruptive to peoples' lives. It prevents people from "launching."
Edit: you know... if Donald Trump wanted to go down in history as the greatest president in the last 50 years, he could use all the power he has to reform zoning and open development and smash housing prices. Use the same funds withholding tactics against states and localities to pressure them to sideline NIMBYs and streamline permitting. Tax corporate and private equity purchases of residences, tax foreign purchases, and tax unoccupied properties. He'd be a hero even if his record was complete garbage on literally everything else, because he would have solved the economic problem.
Of course he'd never do that. He's a real estate mogul for f's sake.