Quote:
Originally Posted by Oil Stain
But home ownership is actually up from 60% to 69% since the 1970's.
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Again, don't mistake access to credit with actual wealth. The US was at 69% ownership when the floor fell out.
The number of mortgages in arrears right now is 0.46% of all mortgages. The earliest comparable data I could find is from 1990 when it was 0.18% of mortgages that were in arrears. Household debt to income in Canada is about 164% now (up 40% from 10 years ago), and keep in mind that it was about 170% in the U.S. when their housing bubble burst.
Not to mention that a lot of "homes" today are in fact single dwelling apartments not suitable for a family. You certainly don't get the same value nowadays (the average price of a home is now 5 times the average salary as compared to 3 times in the 1980s).