(I originally posted a version of this on Gab.)
“Ermagerd, personal spending rose highest on recreational vehicles!”
That flapping sound you hear is Chicken Little’s wings…
If you pay attention to the entirety of what is going on around you, rather than certain select parts, you know that, in every major housing market in the country, people are being priced out of their homes. Rising prices, rising rents, rising taxes and stagnant incomes are pushing people into alternative living arrangements.
People are creating multi-household households. Multiple generations of family are moving in together. People are renting out those extra rooms. Several friends rent a place together. The tiny house thing. People are living in RVs. None of these things are new. I’m taking it as a sign of economic stress.
This isn’t the government/leftist manufactured “homeless crisis”. This is what regular folks do when they find themselves with their back to the wall – they figure out a way to keep going. Even if it means giving up that big house, taking part of the money and buying an RV and saving the rest for an even rainier day.
Watch the CheapRVLiving channel on YouTube and you’ll get a good dose of what’s really happening and how “just folks” are dealing with it. One of the presenters on the Blue Collar Logic channel lives in an RV, parked in a rented slot in the back yard of a rental house…in California. Read the local news in California and you’ll find plenty of stories about people living in RVs, parking on the streets, because that’s what they can afford now. I’m betting it’s happening in other places; it’s just not making the news.
Trust me, as a now-retired guy, even though I don’t live in a hot housing market, I’m watching this closely and making my backup plans. Even the crappiest RV beats a tent near the interstate.
The world isn’t ending, but it’s changing, and fast. Dig deeper than the surface if you’d rather not be steam-rollered.
