With the nation’s current 7% mortgage rate and all the cascading effects of brutally high inflation, there’s a new hot take every day on the state of the housing market. A quick YouTube search reveals a slew of clickbait titles like “The TRUTH About the 2023 Housing Market Crash” and “What’s coming is WORSE THAN YOU THINK!!!” and all other sorts of good-faith journalism along those lines.
This year, the housing market has been characterized by ominous signs of a crisis like that of 2008. Most of us are not experts and are left anxiously wondering: Why are houses so expensive right now? Has the market already collapsed? Are we in for a 2008-level crash?
Rather than spend a few hours watching The Big Short, I opted to spend a few hours in a YouTube rabbit hole—and now, I want to take you with me. Here’s a round-up of some of the most helpful video explainers on the topic, so you can give yourself a crash course in all things housing market.
How it Happened: The 2008 Financial Crisis (Crash Course)
Let’s kick off with a history lesson. Leading up to 2008, it seemed like the U.S. housing market would go up and up. Almost like...a bubble. A very poppable bubble.
This 11-minute video is a great place to start because it includes the basics of how the housing market works. The Crash Course team goes over home mortgages, the use of mortgages as an investment instrument, and how that led to a financial crisis. Plus, this video touches on the U.S. government’s “interesting” response to the housing market crash.
The 2008 Financial Crisis (The Plain Bagel)
Don’t have 11 whole minutes for a history lesson? Then here’s a five minute explainer for you, and it’s not going to get much more efficient than that. This video is an excellent, highly focused primer on the domino effects that led to the 2008 financial crisis.
Why the housing market won’t crash...yet (Vincent Chan)
Now that you’ve refreshed yourself on our nation’s recent housing market history, you’re probably here to learn what that means for the future. YouTuber Vincent Chan’s 11 minute video is high quality and topical, with concrete numbers and breakdowns with a focus on what homebuyers should be doing right now.
Chan “left Wall Street to help Main Street” and runs a personal finance and self-improvement YouTube channel with nearly 500k subscribers with a self-proclaimed mission to make finance “fun and easy.”
This video is my favorite on this list because it comes across as the least reactionary to all the doomsday news out there lately. It’s important to understand not only the similarities between the current housing market and what happened in 2008, but also the differences between the two times.
It’s Over: The Housing Market Just Collapsed
And now, time for a counterpoint. I’ll be blunt: The real estate agent slash landlord turned YouTube personality Graham Stephan is not my cup of tea. For instance, his podcast “The Iced Coffee Hour” feeds into the myth of avocado toast being the downfall of millennials (which I challenge here). Plus, he’s a landlord. Not for me!
But given his 4.4 million YouTube subscribers, it’s worth hearing why his points of view are so popular. Ignoring the clickbait-y, inflammatory title of this video, here are the main points worth considering:
Right now, rent is increasing for a number of reasons. Fewer affordable units are on the market. There’s more demand for rentals, with even wealthy households opting to rent instead of buy. On top of this, landlord expenses are also increasing. All in all, home prices are getting more expensive too.
Despite the clickbait title of this video, Stephan ends with a good point: If you’re a tenant, educate yourself as much as possible on the market right now so you have more negotiating power with your landlord.
Everything You Should Know About the 2022 Housing Market (BiggerPockets Money)
If you have time for an hour-long podcast, it’s worth it to sit back and listen to a more in-depth conversation about the currents state of the housing market.
This episode of BiggerPockets’ “On the Market” podcast features expert guests James Dainard, Jamil Damji, and Kathy Fettke, who have all “seen up markets, down markets, and confusing markets like today.” They discuss interest rate updates, when the “inventory crisis” will end, why demand has taken a nosedive, and whether or not it’s still a good time to buy real estate. The episode also gets into the state of the economy, inflation, and how the Federal Reserve may be working to put us into another recession.
The Housing Market - If You Don’t Know, Now You Know (The Daily Show with Trevor Noah)
This 10-minute clip from The Daily Show is nearly a year old, but the housing market explanation still stands today. (The jokes and references? Debatable.)
A late-night segment is refreshing on this list because it helps cut to the most frustrating issues around housing market headlines and reports. For instance, Noah calls out reporters who base stories around questions like, “Why are millennials buying crappy old houses that no one else wants?” The answer: Because that’s their only option in this godforsaken market.