My salary didn’t change at all, but homes went up 82%. The money I saved for a down payment and my salary no longer are good enough for this home and many others. This ain’t even a “good” home either. It was a 200k meh average ok home before. Now it’s simply unaffordable
Right but you then control the appreciation on a much larger asset. In terms of pure net worth and net present value, trading up is a huge gain even if it doesn’t generate more short term liquidity.
You can also rent out the smaller place and get both cash flow and NPV upgrade.