Attention

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not represent our advertisers

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Underwater Homeowners May Swim Freely

Prevailing wisdom has it that homeowners who owe more on their mortgages than their houses are worth -- known as being "underwater" -- are forced to stay put because the property is too difficult to sell. So people who would otherwise relocate -- say, to find a job -- are "tethered to their homes ." It's a theory touted by prominent New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, Harvard economist Lawrence Katz , and regularly makes appearances in the media.


But according to economist Sam Schulhofer-Wohl at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, they've all got it backwards: underwater homeowners are actually more likely to move.


More

No comments: