If housing were affordable... [View All]

[Jed Dilligan]

I often fantasize about a world with affordable housing. No, not a grant or voucher or something that you apply for over the course of several years of proving your honest poverty--I mean affordable housing. A guy with a full-time minimum-wage job can rent an efficiency apartment and have enough money left over for groceries, gas or bus fare, and a sixpack or a movie now and then. I figure the rent on that apartment would be 50-75 dollars a month. Even if minimum wage gets doubled, the amount would still be well under market rates.

So what happens to the higher tiers of the real estate market, then? Does the value of every owned home plummet? Are there any economics wizards out there who don't have me on ignore? :)