My husband and I are getting ready to finally become homeowners (probably sometime next year) and I've been looking into where we want to live, what we want to buy...or build. I refuse to be house-broke and I want to live somewhere where we can eventually get off the grid, without living in the middle of nowhere, isolated. It's just about impossible!
I recently read Jessica Bruder’s “Nomadland,” which is about a growing population of poor RVers in the United States, often people who were hit with hard times and forced to move out of regular rented/owned housing into used vans, moving around the country to places that offer free or very cheap parking, working for poverty wages at Amazon and state parks. A lot of these people were past retirement, unable to live comfortably on their retirement savings and pensions, often due to an unexpected life event: losing a business, disability, divorce. It freaked me out, because we're all really just one unfortunate fuck-up from being in the same place. Another recession is possible.
That all got me to thinking about the future of housing. Most of my millennial friends claim they'll never buy. It's either impossible due to the cost where they live, or they don't want to commit to a mortgage and home ownership. In that case, you're stuck with perpetual rent—like paying Netflix times 100, but much harder to cancel. This while real estate investors are becoming billionaires and news sites like Forbes celebrate rising real estate values. The wealth gap is growing.
I'm not wealthy, but I do OK. I live in Canada, where, after you pay off your enormous student loans, you don't have to worry about too much. There are unemployment and disability benefits just in case, and we have affordable health care (I just hope my teeth hold out!). But the cost of living is pretty hefty in the cities, to the point where many of us aren't saving as much as we should. The problem of unaffordable housing could be exacerbated by the time we're retirement age. Where will everyone live when no one can afford to live anywhere?
So, I started dreaming about alternatives. One of my dreams is to find property I can share with other people living off-grid. But, that's not happening anytime soon (unless I get a million STEEM dollars haha). There's universal basic income, which can help people afford to live, though it's not much to live on. And there are a few other ideas, including cooperative living and property/energy systems, universal basic services, and flipping land ownership so companies lease property from groups of people instead of the other way around. None are perfect, but I have to hope that the next generation will figure this out.
Housing is a basic human right, but there are millions of homeless people. Real estate investing only works for those who can afford to invest (or were lucky enough to buy cheap and sell high). We need better solutions that provide community and healthy, safe homes for people even when they can't afford them...or we're f**ked.
I wrote a little more about this on my blog: https://www.ownupgrownup.com/when-cant-buy-cant-rent-what-do/