For anyone who purchased a house in the last 5ish years sure. Much longer than that and they are sitting on a whole lot of equity.
Yes if they sold the house they would have 1/2 - 1 million dollars in cash and be homeless. But that’s a lot of dollars better than all the other people who currently also don’t own a home and don’t have all that cash.
Which is sorta the point the article is trying to make.
Yeah; I agree with that point, but not how they couched it — those people are still middle class.
The real kicker is that all the people who currently don’t own a home and don’t have the cash… are lower class. Despite thinking of themselves as middle class.
Those house owners likely fall into upper middle class rather than middle class.
Another way to look at it. Depending on who you ask middle class roughly covers household income of about 75k-150k
If one of those home owners sold their home and made 1 million in equity, that money could be expected to make them ~50k a year. For many current home owners that hypothetical raise would push them above the middle-class bracket.
“We’re not middle and lower class, we’re all working class”
Most home owners, if they cash out their home, and either rent or downsize, will still absolutely need to work to eat, and if they don’t they will find themselves homeless before long.
For that small portion that could actually live on the equity from downsizing their housing, yeah, they are upper class, but there are a lot fewer of those than you would think. For a single person, a million in equity (50k a year) might get you by, but not luxuriously and not safely, and most houses are owned by couples though (so cut that in half), and many have dependents.
For anyone who purchased a house in the last 5ish years sure. Much longer than that and they are sitting on a whole lot of equity.
Yes if they sold the house they would have 1/2 - 1 million dollars in cash and be homeless. But that’s a lot of dollars better than all the other people who currently also don’t own a home and don’t have all that cash.
Which is sorta the point the article is trying to make.
Yeah; I agree with that point, but not how they couched it — those people are still middle class.
The real kicker is that all the people who currently don’t own a home and don’t have the cash… are lower class. Despite thinking of themselves as middle class.
I don’t agree with that take.
Those house owners likely fall into upper middle class rather than middle class.
Another way to look at it. Depending on who you ask middle class roughly covers household income of about 75k-150k
If one of those home owners sold their home and made 1 million in equity, that money could be expected to make them ~50k a year. For many current home owners that hypothetical raise would push them above the middle-class bracket.
“We’re not middle and lower class, we’re all working class”
Most home owners, if they cash out their home, and either rent or downsize, will still absolutely need to work to eat, and if they don’t they will find themselves homeless before long.
For that small portion that could actually live on the equity from downsizing their housing, yeah, they are upper class, but there are a lot fewer of those than you would think. For a single person, a million in equity (50k a year) might get you by, but not luxuriously and not safely, and most houses are owned by couples though (so cut that in half), and many have dependents.