Housing Costs and Income(A Think)

The New York Times is running an article today entitled Across Nation, Housing Costs Rise as Burden. According to the article, Christopher Jones, vice president of research at the Regional Plan Association in New York City said,
“Housing prices have gone up much more than incomes have...Clearly, you can’t sustain that sort of imbalance over the long run. There’s only so long that housing prices can go up without sustained increases in income to support them.”

I live in the southeastern section of Michigan, the home of the "'Big' 3 Automakers." Rather than rising, housing cots in this region continuously lower. Michigan's economy is doing very poorly and the Big 3 are suffering tremendously, as a result of competition from abroad. This lowers the value of real estate. But, I'm not sure what percentage of their salaries homeowners are paying for their homes. Students could certainly research this question. What effect might housing costs in Detroit have on housing costs in the rest of the country? the rest of the world?

Lesson Ideas:
1. Many young students don't understand the concept of ownership. Compare owning a house to owning a pen or pencil. Just as children own their pens/pencils their parents might own their homes. The school owns the carpet or floor between the students desks/tables. The government owns the streets that run between houses. Help students understand this concept of ownership.
2. In small groups you might consider having students develop a list of goods and services that they will have to pay for on a regular basis when they are adults. Using this list as a starting point, ask them to consider what percentage of their income they should spend on their home. Push them to explain their rationales for their decisions.
3. In a math class, this current event lends itself to the consideration of percentages. Ask students to write story problems in which classmates will have to determine how much of somebody's income he/she spends on their home. After students have written these story problems have other students solve them. You might consider having students write their story problems on blogs.
4. The "American Dream" is to own your own home. Ask students to write an essay/ develop a comic strip/create a skit in which they explain people want to own their own homes. What does this dream say about the American people? If you don't teach in the United States (or maybe even if you do teach in the United States) ask your students how important it is to own a home. Encourage them to explain why. You might have students interview other people to determine their opinions on the importance of owning their own home and podcast these interviews.
5. Tell your students that a think tank has hired them to consider the affect that people are spending more of their income on homes, than they had previously spent on homes, might have on the rest of the American economy. Encourage students to explain their positions. Tell them to develop concrete examples to support their positions.

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