alt Hacker NewsThis isn’t “putting people first,” it’s baking in the cultural assumption that adults live separately from kin. Consider the examples:
> Housing unit 1. A couple owns their home. The woman’s parents live with them.
> Housing unit 2. A couple owns their home. Their son, a recent college graduate, lives with them.
> Housing unit 3. A man owns his home. A friend lives with him.
> Housing unit 4. A couple owns their home. Their two young children live with them.
> Housing unit 5. Three roommates rent their home. The owner lives elsewhere.
> As illustrated in Figure 1, these five housing units are home to 14 adults. Because four of these five housing units have their respective owners as residents, the owner-occupancy rate—the measure traditionally viewed as the homeownership rate—on the cul-de-sac is 80 percent. However, because only seven of the 14 adults are actually owners of the homes they live in, the HPOP is much lower, at 50 percent.
I think 1, 2, and 4 should all count as “owning their home.” The new measure is also a recipe for confounding attempts to compare the metrics over time, as demographic change brings in cultures that embrace multi-generational living. So what seems to be a drop in homeownership rate could instead reflect a growing and aging sub-population where the cultural preference is for parents to live with adult children instead of separately.
Replies
1,2,and 4 all have owners and non-owners. Are you suggesting that the parents of the adult children and the adult child should also be marked as owners?
How does the multi generational preference living theory work given the correlation to rent to income ratio? Is multi generational living preference a cause or a symptom?
It's an economic metric, not a political statement.
Also the whole thing is just weird to me. The woman's parents, the kid just out of the college and the two young children aren't going to be paying the mortgage, upkeep and property taxes.
Once those stop getting paid, none of those people are housed. This is tracking things that don't matter.
"Housing unit 3. A man owns his home. A friend lives with him."
I own my home. If I let a friend stay with me for unstated terms(friendship, charity, money, sex, whatever) then I no longer should be counted as owning my home?