While the pandemic certainly accelerated it, the housing crisis in America has been, in large part, the result of interest rates being held at zero for years.

I'm far from an economist, but here's my attempt to explain the process:

Low interest rates encourage speculation. It's essentially Santa Claus for investors: loans become incredibly cheap, so they have more net cashflow to deploy on riskier investments in order to pursue higher returns.

They have a similar effect on the stock market: deliberate changes to interest rates, rather than any kind of natural effect, are one of the main reasons the market has risen steadily for the last few decades. Of course, this stock market performance mostly benefits wealthier people, who then have more capital to deploy on riskier investments.

Finally, it's worth mentioning that low interest rates drive higher inflation, reducing the value of the dollar and therefore the real value of the national debt.

In this environment of increased speculation, investors put more money into housing, and prices are driven up. This is great news for people who already own their own home, who also feel the Santa Claus effect. They receive enormous cash windfalls when they sell their homes, and they can get those low-interest loans using their inflated home values as collateral. But it's an absolute disaster for everyone else.

As home prices are driven up, it becomes harder and harder for people who aren't already on the ladder to buy in. This is more pronounced in some communities than others: historical racial disparities mean that people of color are much less likely to own their own home and see the benefit of this appreciation. Across ethnicities, most younger generations can't afford to buy a home, and those that do generally get help from parents already on the property ladder.

As more people rent, multi-family homes become more valuable investments, which encourages more speculation, and creates more value for people who already have wealth. And so the cycle continues.

Unfortunately, Bloomberg suggests that the interest rate may again be held at zero for five or more years. If this happens, we can expect home prices to continue to rise, and this raging inequality to deepen.

This will also have a profound (and deserved) effect on cities like San Francisco. In a world where remote working is not just accepted but required, and millennial workers can't afford to buy homes in these regions, they're going to find their way to more affordable markets very quickly. People on my team have asked me about the possibility of leaving the San Francisco area, and I'm sure this is a story that's rapidly repeating across the industry. It's impossible to drive through a residential area in San Francisco and not see multiple U-Haul trucks. The historic exodus will continue.

I've got skin in this game. I'm 41 years old and don't own my home. It's beyond time that I had a place of my own - but the Bay Area is looking like a worse and worse place to settle. I want to live in a diverse, progressive community where people across multiple industries and lifestyles can afford to live. That's going to be somewhere much cheaper.

I had hoped that we'd see some housing price depreciation, but it looks like policies will go the other way, regardless of who is the President next year. We've all got to prepare accordingly.