There’s an element of the poor housing market that hasn’t gotten talked about very much, so I was glad to see this article about it.  It’s about people who want to move to a better job – a raise in salary, maybe, or a dream job they’ve been waiting on for many years – but who cannot move because they can’t sell their homes.  As a man who’s moved several times in the last few years, I knew that buying my first home would severely limit my mobility.  When you rent, you can get out of dodge as soon as your next employer wants you there.  When you buy, you are married to the land.

The rapid decline in housing prices is distorting the normal workings of the American labor market. Mobility opens up job opportunities, allowing workers to go where they are most needed. When housing is not an obstacle, more than five million men and women, nearly 4 percent of the nation’s work force, move annually from one place to another – to a new job after a layoff, or to higher-paying work, or to the next rung in a career, often the goal of a corporate transfer. Or people seek, as in Dr. Morgan’s case, an escape from harsh northern winters.

Now that mobility is increasingly restricted. Unable to sell their homes easily and move on, tens of thousands of people [...] are making the labor force less flexible just as a weakening economy puts pressure on workers to move to wherever companies are still hiring.

But you know, it’s a blessing, too.  I don’t want anyone to hate on me for saying this – because I’m not speaking to everyone’s situation – but maybe it’s a good thing to be married to the land in such a way.  Maybe it’s an anchor that some Americans need.  We move so much, we jump from job to job, place to place – which is simply the nature of a knowledge-driven economy – that we cease to see any benefit in being stuck to a place.  But maybe being stuck can make some of us stop looking for the next great job and start looking for ways to make our lives better where we are.