This comment is great and I will reply to this later once not at work. Deserves a fuller response .
That gets discussed a ton in the context of UK politics and the sale of council housing under Thatcher.
interesting and probably with a large amount of truth to it
telling that the research they cite is from the university of sydney, a city which according to some sources ive seen, has the highest ratio of home price to income of anywhere in the world except for hong kong. real estate property absolutely dominates thought in sydney - nobody ever fucking shuts up about it ever, everyone is desperate to get their "foot on the ladder" even if it leaves them mortgaged up to the eyeballs. its telling that its considered an absolute truth that youre buying "freedom" and "stability" when you buy a house/apartment, even though you're now shackled to a staggering amount of debt for an asset that you only "own" in a fairly superficial sense, and which can be stripped away from you if you ever falter for a moment in paying off those debts. its also considered absolute truth that interest payments on the mortgage are fundamentally different to rent payments even if youre paying out the same amount of wasted money per week, and that payments towards the principal are fundamentally different to putting that same amount of money into a savings account. if youre on the ladder youre a better class of person, and certainly smarter and more savvy. any attempt to argue otherwise to any of this is met with utter bemusement
people are now shackled to this asset with an almost incalculably-large debt that is expected to follow them most of the rest of their lives, and whose value is all-important but entirely outside of their control. the subtext thats clear under many of these discussions, but which nobody ever really admits, is how utterly fucking terrifying that is. you cant ever take a job with lower pay because think of the mortgage, you cant ever support a policy that might hurt the economy because think of the mortgage, and you certainly cant canvas a radical change to the system because THINK OF THE MORTGAGE. almost nobody in their late 20s to 40s has any engagement with politics or economics beyond a fanatical obsession with the real estate market - either getting on the ladder, or ensuring that you dont drown under the debt, or holding an asset thats worth less than the debt hanging over you. infinite growth in prices is essentially assumed because the alternative is too scary to even canvas. even if it wasnt before, their sphere is by necessity narrowed entirely to self-interest. how the fuck do you get these people to support anything positive? how do you even get them to support any sort of climate action, if its action that might hurt the economy and therefore their housing prospects? conventional wisdom is that the labor party lost the last unloseable election in substantial part because there was a threat they might remove the ridiculous negative gearing rules and thereby hurt the housing market, and people turned in droves to the most transparently incompetent, corrupt, and hateful conservatives out of fear. they would 1000% turn fash in an absolute fucking instant if anything ever really threatened the stability of their housing market
i realise none of this is a sydney exclusive phenomenon but its just so fucking visible and all-encompassing here, and i think its a huge thing that western leftists have to reckon with, in major cities particularly
idk of it's a "duh" thing. residential property ownership being more important than income or ownership of capital in the form of a business as a determinant of class relations a take that's not hot, but leaves something to chew on, and may have degrees of truth depending on locale.
Potentially controversial take: unless we achieve full communism id argue people owning the place they live is a good thing. Actually having control over your living situation and not being beholden to a landlord or a bank is a good thing, and it provides familial stability since kin know they have a domicile when their parents pass away.
Socialist countries actually tend to have higher rates of homeownership, Cuba is #4 globally.
Yes, but there are millions more homes than people and most people don't own one. That's the "asset ownership" being discussed. A home isn't an asset if you live in it.
Edit: should clarify, a mortgage is not homeownership.