Well, this phenomenon is actually quite easy to explain.  As our society comes apart at the seams all around us, vast numbers of Americans are seeking greener pastures.  According to ABC News, the chaotic events of 2020 have caused “millions of Americans” to relocate.  In New York City alone, more than 300,000 former residents have permanently moved to new addresses.

We have never seen anything quite like this before, and it is anticipated that this trend will continue into 2021.  Even though most Americans don’t know exactly what is ahead, I think that on some level many of them can feel what is coming, and they are getting out of the big cities while they still can.

So even though we are literally in the midst of a horrifying economic depression, homes are selling like hotcakes right now…

Home sales rose again in October, at their highest pace in 14 years, according to the National Association of Realtors.

But a record low inventory of available homes and a greater number of luxury homes sold have pushed the median home price up to a record $313,000, almost 16% more than a year ago.

With so many interested buyers and such little inventory, it has definitely become a seller’s market…

At the current pace of sales, it would take just 2.5 months to clear the existing inventory — a record low.

If you want to sell your home, now is a really good time to do so.

But then good luck finding a new place.

This incredible surge in demand for housing has also fueled a tremendous boom in housing starts…

Single-family starts experienced continued gains in October, according to data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Census Bureau. Single-family construction is up 8.6% year-to-date, with notable gains in 2020 for the Midwest and other lower-density markets.

The pace of single-family starts in October was the highest production rate since the spring of 2007.

So even though so many other sectors of the economy are deeply hurting at the moment, those that build homes are loving life right now.

Real estate websites are also doing extremely well.  In particular, “Zillow surfing” has become a new national pastime…

Zillow usage has climbed since March, with online visitors to for-sale listings up more than 50 percent year-over-year in the early months of the pandemic.

People bond over listings on Discord servers, group chats and “Zillow Twitter,” and their obsession has made many strange and obscure listings go viral. Curbed, a website covering city life, real estate and design, recently started a column called My Week in Zillow Saves, in which people (myself included) share the homes they’ve admired on the site.

If you can believe it, “Zillow surfing” has become “especially popular among teenagers”…

Zillow surfing is especially popular among teenagers. A TikTok meme over the summer consisted of users talking about knowing where the bathrooms were in their friend’s or crush’s house before ever visiting it because they had toured all of their classmates’ homes on Zillow. Many young people have extensive lists of saved homes and discuss and share listings with friends.

When life is miserable, people like to daydream about something better, and “Zillow surfing” allows them to do that.

Personally, I have been hearing from so many people that have either recently relocated or that would like to move.  So many that I know are feeling an urgency like never before, because they sense that really dark times are fast approaching.

Interestingly, one of the most important things that people look at when they are thinking of relocating is the political orientation of an area.  In fact, one recent survey found that 42 percent of Americans “would be hesitant to move to an area where most people have political views different from their own”…

Forty-two percent of U.S. residents would be hesitant to move to an area where most people have political views different from their own, up from 32% in June, according to a new report from Redfin (redfin.com), the technology-powered real estate brokerage. That’s the highest share since 2017, when Redfin began posing this question to survey respondents.

Increasingly, Democrats are moving to “blue states” and conservatives are moving to “red states”.

Could this potentially have some very serious implications down the road?

I don’t know.  I am just asking the question.

For other Americans, leaving the country entirely seems like a promising option…

Americans are leaving the country or seeking foreign visas in record numbers, according to immigration lawyers and expatriate organizations, during an oppressive year of political violence, racial strife and an uncontrolled pandemic that has kept families locked in their homes for months – with no clear end in sight.

As the economic suffering in the U.S. intensifies, the number of people wanting to leave will almost certainly go even higher.

With each passing day, more new restrictions are being put in place to try to control the COVID pandemic, and these new restrictions are going to make our ongoing economic depression a whole lot worse.

Already, it has become clear that another huge wave of economic pain is upon us.

The Greater Los Angeles Food Bank says that demand is up 145 percent compared to last year, and the other day people waited in absolutely massive lines for up to 12 hours at a food bank in Texas just to get some food.

Other Americans are stockpiling huge quantities of toilet paper and other supplies in anticipation of a very difficult winter.

No matter what happens with the election, things are about to get really crazy in this country.

Whatever you need to do to get prepared for what is ahead, I would do it as soon as possible.

The clock is ticking, and it appears that our day of reckoning is nearly here.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook, Twitter and Parler, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

The post The Great Relocation: Americans Are Relocating By The Millions Because They Can Feel What Is Coming appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

Of course this homeownership collapse began well before Barack Obama entered the White House.  Our economic problems are the result of decades of incredibly bad decisions.  But anyone that believes that things have “turned around” for the middle class under Barack Obama is just being delusional.

If the U.S. economy truly was in “good shape”, the percentage of Americans that own homes would not be at a 20 year low…

The U.S. homeownership rate fell to the lowest in more than two decades in the fourth quarter as many would-be buyers stayed on the sidelines, giving the rental market a boost.

The share of Americans who own their homes was 64 percent in the fourth quarter, down from 64.4 percent in the previous three months, the Census Bureau said in a report. The rate was at the lowest since the second quarter of 1994, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Rising prices and a tight supply of lower-end listings have put homes out of reach for some entry-level buyers, who also face strict mortgage standards. The share of U.S. homebuyers making their first purchase dropped in 2014 to the lowest level in almost three decades, the National Association of Realtors reported last week.

And it appears that this trend is actually accelerating.  During 2014, the rate of homeownership plummeted by a total of 1.2 percentage points for the year.  That was the largest one year decline that has ever been measured.

So why is this happening?

Well, in order to buy a home you have got to have a good job, and good jobs are in very short supply these days.

Over the past decade, the quality of the jobs in our economy has steadily declined as good jobs have been replaced by low paying jobs.  In addition, government policies are absolutely murdering small business.  At this point, small business ownership in the U.S. is hovering near record lows.

This has resulted in millions of people falling out of the middle class, and it has contributed to the growing divide between the wealthy and the rest of the country.

If our economy was working the way that it should, the middle class would be thriving.

But instead, it is being systematically destroyed.  If you doubt this, I have some statistics that I would like to share with you.  The following facts come from my previous article entitled “The Death Of The American Dream In 22 Numbers“…

#1 The Obama administration tells us that 8.69 million Americans are “officially unemployed” and that 92.90 million Americans are considered to be “not in the labor force”.  That means that more than 101 million U.S. adults do not have a job right now.

#2 One recent survey discovered that 55 percent of Americans believe that the American Dream either never existed or that it no longer exists.

#3 Considering the fact that Obama is in the White House, it is somewhat surprising that 55 percent of all Republicans still believe in the American Dream, but only 33 percent of all Democrats do.

#4 After adjusting for inflation, median household income has fallen by nearly $5,000 since 2007.

#5 After adjusting for inflation, “the median wealth figure for middle-income families” fell from $78,000 in 1983 to $63,800 in 2013.

#6 At this point, 59 percent of Americans believe that “the American dream has become impossible for most people to achieve”.

You can read the rest of that article right here.

The group that has been hit the hardest by all of this has been young adults.

Back in 2005, the homeownership rate for households headed up by someone under the age of 35 was approximately 43 percent.

Today, it has declined to about 35 percent.

From a very early age, we push our young people to go to college, and today more of them are getting secondary education than ever before.

But when they leave school, the “good jobs” that we promised them are often not there, and most of them end up entering the “real world” already loaded down with massive amounts of debt.

According to the Pew Research Center, close to four out of every ten households that are led by someone under the age of 40 are currently paying off student loan debt.

It is hard to believe, but total student loan debt in this country is now actually higher than total credit card debt.  At this point, student loan debt has reached a grand total of 1.2 trillion dollars, and that number has grown by an astounding 84 percent just since 2008.

If you are already burdened with tens of thousands (or in some cases hundreds of thousands) of dollars of debt when you get out of school and you can’t find a decent job, there is no way that you are going to be able to afford to buy a house.

So we have millions upon millions of young people that should be buying homes and starting families that are living with their parents instead.

Back in 1968, well over 50 percent of all Americans in the 18 to 31-year-old age bracket were already married and living on their own.

But today, that number is actually below 25 percent.  Instead, approximately 31 percent of all U.S. adults in the 18 to 34-year-old age bracket are currently living with their parents.

Something has fundamentally gone wrong.

Our economy is broken, and anyone that cannot see this is just being foolish.

So what is the solution?

Please feel free to share what you think by posting a comment below…

The post This Housing Chart Destroys The Arguments Of The Economic Optimists appeared first on The Economic Collapse.