Although September housing sales were 20.5 percent more than those a year earlier and U.S. median home prices are at record levels, the housing boom may disappear as COVID cases diminish, the Wall Street Journal reported in a 23 October analysis.
The boom is the result of three factors.
First, as we had forecast when the COVID War began in February, people with the means to do so fled crowded cities to escape the virus and fears of rising crime.
Second, hundreds of companies sent their office employees home to work, enabling those workers to seek cheaper, more spacious digs outside of urban jungles.
Third, the U.S. Federal Reserve’s near-zero interest rates have made home ownership possible for far more people than otherwise.
As families age and have children, they tend to want to have more space for less money. The Fed’s low interest rates have made it possible for many households to make that move now rather than later.
However, the three factors are not creating more demand for outlying homes and those in cities that were in decline before the COVID War was launched. And, with winter setting in and the “Greatest Depression” worsening, fewer people will have the means to secure mortgages.
TRENDPOST: Millennials, who have seen their career prospects and earning potential limited by two catastrophic financial crises in the last 14 years, will not have the means to purchase a home.
Again, the long-term economic damage done by the lockdowns, which have destroyed millions of business and tens of millions of lives and livelihoods, will sharply lower housing demand.
