Another Article on Housing Enserfdom

There have been multiple articles about how housing price declines impede labor mobility, and here's another one:

Experts said this historic slowdown in migration can hurt the economy because job seekers have less ability or willingness to move to a spot or region where jobs may be more plentiful.

The problem is that right now no one really knows if this is a big problem or a small problem. I think it could be a big problem, but that is just an unsubstantiated hunch on my part.

But going forward, to the extent that we reasonably expect to see less job security in the future, this would mean a corresponding increase in the risk of buying a house as opposed to renting. Even without a housing price decline of historical proportions, buying a house means that it is harder for you to take a job in another city because you've committed to stay in that place. This does not mean you should never buy a house- for many the benefits will still outweigh the cost, but what that does mean is that when you are doing a rent v own calculation, in addition to weighing your opportunity cost and cash flow, it is probably a good idea to explicitly take this into your account in a cost/benefit framework.