"That discontent comes even as a strong labor market, appreciating home values and a stock market rebound has made some positive about their financial situation."
A strong labor market doesn't help you unless you're looking for a job.
Appreciating home values = increased rent for renters. Meanwhile, existing home owners can't sell because of high interest rates on loans.
Stock market rebound doesn't help people not in the stock market.
Property value has zero direct and real world connection to the cost of rent, rent is mostly about value and what the market can stand. Plenty of buildings, houses, etc have been owned long enough by whatever company/person/group that the operating expenses are way lower than you may expect. Where I am landlords are raising rent just because, unless they took out insane loans with hard money lenders, their operating costs have most definitely not increased at the same rate they are increasing rent.
As for selling. Again. You have no idea what you are talking about. Sellers don't have to deal with interest rates unless they are looking to use a mortgage to pay for a new place to live. If you are downsizing and/or moving to a lower cost of living area, you should be able to own outright without a loan. We are planning similar. We will not be surprised if sometime in the next few years we are offered 500k+ for our property and if/when that happens we will move further out of civilization and be setup for an easy and comfortable retirement.
A strong labor market helps everyone even those of us who already have a job. You need to educate yourself on how economies work. A rising tide lifts all boats.
You need to delete this comment and go seek help, take a hit from a joint/vape/etc or just take a nap.q
Says the person who clearly huffed paint first thing this morning. I didn't say anything about it making sense but it's clear who here understands this stuff and who doesn't.
As for the accusation of being tone deaf and out of touch. You have no idea what my situation is. For the record, we bought a small house and 3+ acres of land just before the pandemic, listing price was just shy of 100k in an country'ish outskirt of a midsized major city. There is enough development going on around us that we are fully expecting a developer to offer to buy our property at some point in the future, in which case we will downsize, sort of and either buy further out of civilization or invest the proceeds and move into an apt somewhere closer to places we want to be.
Everyone I know who's sold their house has done it within a week or two of putting it on the market and they got more than they were asking for. Other than that I agree with you.
And that extra money covers the original down payment, interest that was paid on the mortgage, closing costs, realtor fees, costs to repair, stage, and prep the house for sale, and down payment on the next mortgage. It's a never-ending cycle of spending for more debt. AKA the American Dream.
That's all fine and dandy if you downsize or go to a different area with a lower COL, but if you buy in the same market, you also pay more for the new house.