Correlation of home ownership and higher unemployment?

[Lainey]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/10/business/homeownership-may-actually-cause-unemployment.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Interesting study about how higher rates of home ownership may correlate to higher rates of unemployment. Certainly goes against accepted wisdom that home ownership is to be encouraged.

[reader99]

Correlation does not equal causation.

[reader99]

Though I can see that owning a home might make a family slower to move to another city to take a job. Selling a house is more complicated than giving notice to a landlord.

[kib]

Though I can see that owning a home might make a family slower to move to another city to take a job. Selling a house is more complicated than giving notice to a landlord.

Absolutely. For so many years, especially the first half of the 2000's, there was a widespread assumption / reality that you could flip your house and move whenever you wanted. We were a much more mobile nation. Then all of a sudden people were stuck in one place for months or even years, waiting for a house buyer to come along, or in a position in which selling the house and moving to a new job would mean being upside down on the house and possibly having to declare bankruptcy. Rock and a hard place kind of choice.

[iris lilies]

Absolutely. For so many years, especially the first half of the 2000's, there was a widespread assumption / reality that you could flip your house and move whenever you wanted. We were a much more mobile nation. Then all of a sudden people were stuck in one place for months or even years, waiting for a house buyer to come along, or in a position in which selling the house and moving to a new job would mean being upside down on the house and possibly having to declare bankruptcy. Rock and a hard place kind of choice.

I know plenty of situations where Dad moves to another place when his factory closes down because the family house can't be sold due to the market being in the toilet. And besides, they've got kids settled in schools and they've got lots of equity. He rents a simple place, usually with a roommate or two. He comes home weekends. There are actually a LOT of people who do this after the age of 55 because they only have to eeeek it out for a few years. That seems very practical to me.

[puglogic]

I know plenty of situations where Dad moves to another place when his factory closes down because the family house can't be sold due to the market being in the toilet. And besides, they've got kids settled in schools and they've got lots of equity. He rents a simple place, usually with a roommate or two. He comes home weekends. There are actually a LOT of people who do this after the age of 55 because they only have to eeeek it out for a few years. That seems very practical to me.

Sounds perfectly dreadful (says this 51-year-old). Not a sociopolitical commentary -- things are what they are -- just doesn't sound practical at all to me in reality. How would YOU do with two roommates? And who pays the mortgage at home if it was procured with two incomes in mind? Who pays two sets of utilities, the travel, other expenses built into two complete dwelling setups? The factory workers in your world must make a lot more money than the factory workers in mine if they can afford that option; more power to them if they can make that work.

[Alan]

Sounds perfectly dreadful (says this 51-year-old). Not a sociopolitical commentary -- things are what they are -- just doesn't sound practical at all to me in reality. How would YOU do with two roommates? And who pays the mortgage at home if it was procured with two incomes in mind? Who pays two sets of utilities, the travel, other expenses built into two complete dwelling setups? The factory workers in your world must make a lot more money than the factory workers in mine if they can afford that option; more power to them if they can make that work.
I did it in 2006. Spent a year in a crappy little apartment in Pascagoula, MS., while my wife stayed in our home in Ohio. Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.

[Lainey]

Also I'm perturbed that this trend means we'll have to accept being a nation of gypsies - dragging kids and pets and belongings all over because it will be expected.

[puglogic]

I did it in 2006. Spent a year in a crappy little apartment in Pascagoula, MS., while my wife stayed in our home in Ohio. Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.

For sure. You were hardly a factory worker though. But I still offer my condolences. I've been to Pascagoula.

[iris lilies]

Sounds perfectly dreadful (says this 51-year-old). Not a sociopolitical commentary -- things are what they are -- just doesn't sound practical at all to me in reality. How would YOU do with two roommates? And who pays the mortgage at home if it was procured with two incomes in mind? Who pays two sets of utilities, the travel, other expenses built into two complete dwelling setups? The factory workers in your world must make a lot more money than the factory workers in mine if they can afford that option; more power to them if they can make that work.

Factory workers and meat packers with decades of seniority DO earn a lot relative to their education, responsibility, and the rate of pay for other jobs in the area. That's why the smart ones toughed it out for a few years in a new town when their factory closed. The dad continued to pay the mortgage, his was the big salary in the family, and maybe the only one, and that's why these guys hung onto it. The satellite apartment is bare bones.

[ApatheticNoMore]

Sounds perfectly dreadful (says this 51-year-old). Not a sociopolitical commentary -- things are what they are -- just doesn't sound practical at all to me in reality.

Neither renting nor moving sound as bad as the moving out of the house thing.

What sounds especially dreadful to me that a father is doing this. I mean if the kids are all grown up and moved out then whatever (though it can't be great for the marriage!). But that anyone who actually has kids at home would do this sounds perfectly dreadful to me. I mean I think many people, me included, grew up barely able to know our fathers who were too busy working even just with regular jobs, but really it's all so pointless in the end. Though it's true that moving can also be rough on kids.

[jp1]

A lot of the oil workers in ND are doing the same thing. I agree, it doesn't sound like much fun, but then would it really be that much fun to uproot and move your family to ND when you have no idea how long the oil boom will last? The guy in this article is at least lucky that his employer is paying the rent on the crappy house that he lives in in ND.

http://www.startribune.com/local/229264211.html

[Gregg]

I'd be curious to see some kind of comparison between certain lifestyle choices and the remote worker trend. We know that people got stuck with houses or didn't want to uproot the kids for just a couple years or whatever. What might be interesting, and potentially educational, is to see what size house those folks are working to hang on to, what kind of car, public vs. private schools for the kids, etc. I would expect to see a trend where frugal choices early on provided more options when the stuff hit the fan, but I can't say for certain that is the case.

[ToomuchStuff]

Correlation does not equal causation.


I was happy this was the first reply. Did I miss the full list of questions that they asked the respondents? There are enough people who believe something is good or bad for them, based on what they have been told for so long, without sitting down and going through it logically. (home ownership isn't for everyone, the same goes for renting)

[reader99]

At first I thought they were implying that a high rate of home ownership caused fewer jobs. Now that I think it over, what it may do is cause people to stay where the jobs no longer are instead of moving to where the jobs are, thus increasing the number of unemployed people in that particular area.

[puglogic]

It seems like you have to time things just right, doesn't it? (she muses) If you live in a town where there's one dominant employer, and you're one of the last hangers-on to your job, it might not be a good thing. By the time you get let go, the real estate market may well be in the tank (if it wasn't already) and then you're stuck with this house on your back. I like to think I'd be able to rent mine out if the worst happened, but who can be sure?

It has never been a very kind world for people with "nesting" personalities, the ones who prefer to settle in and live safely & comfortably in one spot. My brother is like that -- the ideal life for him is being in the same place, same friends, same job, same bowling alley his whole life. It's heaven for him. But his life hasn't gone that way.

[Gardenarian]

Also I'm perturbed that this trend means we'll have to accept being a nation of gypsies - dragging kids and pets and belongings all over because it will be expected.

Lainey - I find that aspect disturbing too. I like my roots. DH would like to relocate somewhere less costly.

[Spartana]

Also I'm perturbed that this trend means we'll have to accept being a nation of gypsies - dragging kids and pets and belongings all over because it will be expected.

I think we've always been a nation (and a world) of gypsies. Thru out history people have moved to new places to improve their lives or take advantage of better opportunities. Sometimes those were by choice (European and westward expansion), sometimes due to an economic or environmental disaster (think of the stock market crash, the Great Depression, the dust bowl, etc...). Often times choosing to stay in one place rooted to that spot can be the worst thing to happen to someone in the long run even if they don't want to move.

[Lainey]

I think there has to be a middle ground between needing to move every few years and staying in one place for generations.

Otherwise this trend will give a whole new meaning to the term "migrant worker."

[iris lilies]

I appreciate my Scottish ggg grandfather who got up and out of the aulde country. While I'm not so sure that life here was kind to him, his progeny thrived. Thanks, gramps!
When we visited his approximate gravesite I gave him a silent thanks, he who had died in the poorhouse and whose grave was unmarked. But boy did his children do just fine.And their kids. and etc.