this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2026
135 points (98.6% liked)

World News

57219 readers
1082 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world -1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

No it does not cancel out, because when you lose money on your old house, you are left with that debt.
And having that debt makes it impossible to take a loan for a new house.

I've seen this work out in practice up to 10 years after the housing bubble burst in 2008. Where we visited many foreclosures people couldn't afford to keep, and couldn't afford to move away from. It's a very bad debt trap that I think maybe USA has regulation to get out of, but IDK if other countries have that, we for sure don't have it here.

[–] timochka@lemmy.zip 0 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Most people in China are buying with savings, not debt. Something like 80% of homes there are owned outright with no debt hanging over them.

The problem you are describing is a problem of consumer indebtedness, not house prices per se.

[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world -1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

They still lose their savings, so not that much better.

[–] timochka@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Well no, not really. If they've turned their savings into a house, and they still have a house, and they could still move house if they wanted, they've lost nothing if the notional value of that house goes down.

(Just as most people don't actually get any richer when the notional value of their house goes up - once you have a house you tend to always need a house; selling up to move into rented accomodation is something you do in distress, not a sign the housing market has played you a blinder. That means the only way anyone tends to realise that supposed value is - you guessed it - by getting into debt by borrowing against it.

Speculators and landlords of course - they benefit. But "won't someone think of the parasites" is not a desperately compelling point of view.)

The value of housing is something to obsess over in countries where everybody is up to the eyeballs in debt secured on it. Where that is not the case, it's far less important (and as it is essentially just the entry fee for independence, ideally it's low, not high.) A fear of house prices ever actually going down, because of what that would mean to mortgage holders, is the reason the UK has a major housing crisis that it can't do anything about (for example.)

[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

OK good point.