After reading this news story that half of Americans are skipping meals because of affordability and a bad economy, I have to ask how are you all doing out there?
I heard from a real estate agent friend of mine that REOs, i.e. bank foreclosures on home mortgages, are going up like crazy, which is a sign of bad times, like the recession of 2007-08.
I have heard from others about rents not being paid, lack of jobs, etc.
Every day, there’s more news of corporate layoffs, moreso than usual.
I live in the economic bubble of the SF Bay Area, where tech wealth more-or-less insulates me and mine from the most serious consequences of a bad economy, but how are things elsewhere?
I have a cell provider with a pretty small data limit, but I almost never use it. They no longer even take new customers. ~2400/mo. My internet is with NTT and fiber to the home at 5500 a month + servicer fee -> about 6500 a month after price increases in 2027 they announced.
When I lived in a sharehouse in 2013, it was over double what you were paying and about 12 minutes from a station in suburban tokyo. My first apartment about 8 minutes away was 115,000 ish plus all utils just inside the 23ku and was 33sqm IIRC.
Cost of living including groceries and such have gone up like crazy since corona. Everything is undergoing shrinkflation and raises aren’t keeping up unless you’re at a really good company.
Even living in the countryside now, costs are still way over what they were for Tohoku. My prices here are more than even Tokyo when I moved here for a lot of groceries and such.
My mortgage on its own is over 85,000 in the deep countryside almost an hour walk to a station. I’m sure apartments are cheaper, but this is on a used house built in '96 IIRC (though with some rennovation and a new roof not long before I bought it).