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While suffering through the Great Depression, my grandparents never faced the challenge of making a fixed mortgage payment. Instead, they rented and moved every year. Their circumstances dictated whether it would be a move to a larger or smaller apartment. But mostly, in that era of deflation that lowered wages and prices, they were driven by the need to move because it was not easy to bargain for lower rent from their current landlord.
The government of the 1930s had no programs to promote home ownership for Americans through the expansion of the mortgage market. Had they been saddled with a fixed-payment mortgage, my grandparents would have been squeezed as their incomes fell and might have ended up on the street with their sons. As renters, they were able to adjust more easily to economic decline and even save some money for education and retirement.
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