I recently saw an article which stated that for homeowners “their houses are like piggy banks.” But if you own your house, an increase in its value doesn’t seem to help you in any real way, since to realize that gain you’d have to sell it. But then you’d have to buy or rent another place to live, which would also cost more. It seems like the only concrete effect of a rising housing market for most homeowners is an increase in their insurance costs. Am I missing something?
In: 1833
>I recently saw an article which stated that for homeowners “their houses are like piggy banks.” But if you own your house, an increase in its value doesn’t seem to help you in any real way, since to realize that gain you’d have to sell it. But then you’d have to buy or rent another place to live, which would also cost more. It seems like the only concrete effect of a rising housing market for most homeowners is an increase in their insurance costs. Am I missing something?
It’s a gain. An unrealized gain is a significant improvement over an unrealized *nothing* because it gives you **options**. Having options (like the option to exchange your real estate for cash) is desirable. Not having the option (because it’s not worth anything) is undesirable – whether you actually want to sell or not.
Having a passport that allows you to travel to 100 countries without a visa is objectively better than having a passport that allows you to travel to only 20 countries without a visa – whether you actually travel or not.
Having 5 job offers is better than having 1 job offer.
Having… you probably get the idea.
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