We have a serious housing shortage in America these days, and the stress it’s creating for needy families is approaching heart-attack levels.
Did you know, for example, that the inventory of million-dollar homes in Carmel, California, is down to only four properties? That’s a 76 percent drop in only one year. But the tragedy doesn’t stop there, for this is a cross-country crisis. Consider the poor people in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, where only 10 homesteads in the million-dollar range remain on the market. Yes, my friend, it’s not merely the poor and middle-class who can’t find suitable housing, but many of our wealthiest citizens are hurting, too.
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What’s happening here is a surge of multimillionaire hedge-funders, Silicon Valley high-techers, oil and gas frackers, and other super-richers who’re in a frenzy to snap-up luxury second, third, and fourth homes. More disturbing is the influx of flashy Russian, Middle Eastern, and Asian tycoons grabbing high-end homes like they’re M&Ms, shutting out our home-grown rich.
So, where the hell is Congress? Any immigration reform worthy of the name would set quotas to protect our own. And doesn’t this crunch in the ultra-wealthy housing market just cry out for a mansion-construction subsidy? If our national leaders won’t help the most privileged among us, who will they help?
The situation is so dire that many of the moneyed elites are being forced to scrounge around like commoners to find rental properties. Luckily, there are some swell homes still available out in the Hamptons,renting for about a million dollars. For the summer, that is. Yes, that’s almost $10,000 a day – not counting utilities and the pool boy’s salary. But in tough times, the rich tend to toughen up, reach for their wallets, and do what has to be done.
And, after all, isn’t that what makes America so exceptional?
“Rich are running out of mansions to buy,” www.today.com, June 13, 2013.
“Summer Rentals Hit $1 Million in the Hamptons,” www.cnbc.com, May 28, 2013.
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