I mentioned in a recent article that the weird thing about this recession is that it is the only one in which personal income has gone up during a recession. That, of course, is because of government assistance, which is making it so we don’t have to feel the pain of a recession that the government, itself, caused — through its massive debt, tax breaks for the 1%, reliance on the Fed to solve government’s problems, and most currently through its forced economic shutdown as a response to COVID-19 — something that even the WHO now says was failed policy that should never have happened — even though they helped make sure it did happen!
All of that is weird stuff, but another really weird thing about this recession is that the housing market took off as though we had just entered the best of times this summer. Who would have guessed: 32-million people out of work, and we have a housing market melt-up? Of all the unlikely times for a new bubble to form! I didn’t read anyone who saw that coming. Neither did I see it coming, but it added brilliance to the summer that has continued burning all the way into October.
If you are looking to buy a house, as many are, that silver ray has a dark lining because it is driving up your cost, making it harder for you to enter the market. We are seeing rampant inflation in housing prices outside of major cities. The housing market is exploding into a new balloon (far too big to call a bubble) because there is severe shortage in available housing right as demand soared and interest hit an all-time low.
Read the rest here: https://thegreatrecession.info/blog/the-upbeat-downbeat-on-housing-and-commercial-real-estate/