Several Filter^ editors assembled over the weekend, and one area of debate was home ownership. It can be hard to discuss this subject because we all have vested interests in favour of our personal conditions. No one struggling to pay a mortgage likes to hear glib renters prophesise about a house price "correction", and no one struggling to pay rent likes to hear about "dead money". Fortunately though we're capable of mature conversation.
And as ever human diversity shines through, so it's wrong to assume that there's a "correct" strategy absent of individual circumstance. Half the Filter^ editors own, and half rent, but looking at a case by case basis I think everyone's doing the right thing.
Still, as a rentor it's always nice to see confirmation, and according to Tim Harford's recent FT column:
high levels of home ownership are correlated with high levels of unemployment
In other words, find a job then buy a house, rather than vice versa. I've long held the view that Liverpool's industrial decline was a result of over-specialisation that stemmed from state-directed division of labour, I hadn't known that Jane Jacobs spoke on this subject:
Birmingham was thought highly inefficient compared with the specialised mills of Manchester, but when the downturn came Manchester was devastated and Birmingham kept on chugging along.
Ever since Steve pointed out the absurdity, I've struggled to understand why couples typically look for houses based on the husband's job search. I imagine it's common that husbands have the most marketable job skills, and command higher salaries. So surely the joint optimal strategy is to focus on the wife? Perhaps it isn't merely labour mobility that's cultural, but also job search. Faith is a million times more employable than myself, so our combined search focuses on my job. Ordinarily though the roles would be reversed. Perhaps former libertarian Evertonian Mac-users are just odd though...
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