In our current national housing crisis, there are occasionally lotteries to select tenants for new or renovated affordable multifamily buildings. For example, last year, nearly 94,000 people applied to rent 104 moderately priced units in an apartment house on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. You figure the odds on that one.
In a way, many of us have won—or lost—a kind of housing lottery. Did you inherit your house? Did you buy at the low end of the market a while back so your mortgage has remained a reasonable, fixed cost—and you’ve been deducting the interest from your income tax? Has your home gained significant value so you can borrow against it to renovate your kitchen or help send your child to college? Do you live in an apartment you don’t own, but in a city with regulations that keep your monthly rent fairly stable?
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