Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/07/09/in-an-ominous-sign-for-economy.html
…
2 Likes
A couple comments: ~4000 respondents, self selecting to respond to a Survey Monkey request, done by apartmentlist.com.
I suspect this is pretty skewed based on the setup of the survey. It’s still a BAD SITUATION, but it may overrepresent the problem.
9 Likes
The survey takers are selected to match geographic, age, and gender distributions. While there is obvious error in any such survey, there is no obvious bias (seems equally likely to be under or over estimating). If nothing else it should be internally consistent; there is no reason to doubt the reported increases from April to May or June to July.
6 Likes
When Trump was elected, we panicked and cashed out a big chunk to pay off our house, fearing the damage to the economy would render us unable to pay our mortgage at some point. For three years, I was kicking myself, watching the market skyrocket. But now, not so much.
18 Likes
Shut the economy down. People still need housing and food but don’t have jobs. And the lucky ones that do still have jobs (disclaimer: me and my wife) now they have to act as teachers, psychologists and camp counselors for their kids.
WTF did you think was going to happen? And when evictions start, do you really think that the landlords are going to be able to recoup the cost of eviction by finding someone else? At least rent prices will finally be going down.
Don’t bail out the banks or the cruise industry. Bail out the people who need it.
18 Likes
Less an “ominous sign” than “window through the wall of lies”.
10 Likes
We have poured almost everything I make except for food, utilities and property taxes into paying off the mortgage for at least the last 3 years. The mortgage was finally cleared off 3 months ago. Life is almost stress free now with the big draw on our budget gone.
9 Likes
But the stock market is nearly back up to December’s high! That means the economy must be OK, right?
/s
4 Likes
I’m pretty sure “they” didn’t think longer term. In NC we still don’t know if or how our kids will be able to go back to school. If my son is forced to do distance learning that means my wife or I quits a job. If you are able to support a family on a single income I consider you part of a small privileged group.
Enjoy it now, because this doesn’t get better.
8 Likes
I do SW development, so I can WFH. I’m super lucky and I take that into account when I talk to others who can’t. My wife does retail and she’s pulling 10 hr shifts at a garden store which is still open because it’s an “agriculture resource”. Basically people stuck at home decided they wanted to pick up gardening.
Fun, fun times.
3 Likes
I hope we all keep thinking the economy is great. The lies do keep money moving. The alternative is a depression, with capital frozen up in safer investments. A depression with real market effects would force the federal government to respond to the economic crisis, in its typical bungling way. In a way it’s better to let the fire smolder out on its own instead of sending the worst possible idiots in to make it worse.
P.S. please hold the economy up while I sell off my stocks.
I’m not actually sure this is as bad as it seems.
The always awesome Calculated Risk blog suggests overall rent payments are off about 3% from the same time last year. Still worrying (that’s a LOT of people) but certainly not the falling-off-a-cliff suggested in this survey:
However, a lot of support programs are about to end, so…
2 Likes
Seems more like housing is just always in crisis. Probably should expand our view of a healthy economy away from the market alone.
8 Likes
Yes, absolutely true - it says a lot that the baseline is nearly 1:5 people have difficulty paying rent when the economy was supposedly at the strongest it’s been in an age.
4 Likes
Not sure about residential property, but for the one business I know that lost its lease during covid, the landlord tried to raise their rent. Presumably they’d rather have fewer tenants for now than lock in low rents for an extended lease.
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
