Wrong -- if they were sane, they would have bought something that they could have shared or rented out and at least broken even. It's possible now, and that's as it should be. Buying should be cheaper than renting, since renting is basically a service where the landlord maintains the property.

Qualified borrower (at the time) doesn't mean they were smart or forward thinking. In short: I have no pity for 95% of the morons who are losing their houses now.

Market here in the North Country saw some marginal increases a few years back but have lost all they gained; of course the taxes still reflect the higher values.

I just picked up a good sized historic Main St building (retail/office space w/4 residential units on the second floor) for a fair price. Flip side is that I have had a really nice single family house on a treed half acre in the country, in move-in condition, freshly painted, competitively priced 10K under appraisal, on the market for 10 months without a nibble.

The last single family unit in my collection, for my money multiples are the only way to go.

Jim

__________________
2005 C240 4matic wagon (daily driver)
87 190D - 225K (on loan)
85 190D - 312K (on loan)
2011 Subaru Legacy AWD (Wife's)

Still curious about the 95% figure. Where can I find that?

OK, maybe it's 94%. Still, couldn't care less other than seeing them as a business opportunity.

Just asking how the number is over 90%, 80%, 70% . . . You must have sourced it somewhere, right?

Well the conventional thinking of the majority of north americans is to live at or too close basically to the level of their means. It is just part of the culture I suppose.

The wife and myself are not the exception totally but generally live well below our means. We tend to lose during periods of high inflation and large income gains I suppose as a penalty. On the otherhand down turns do not concern us. Other than being concerned about others.

There is supposedly still a major correction coming in the canadian real estate marketplace. This may or may not be worse than the american experience. Never in history has the average per capita debt loading of canadians even on a dollar corrected basis been higher. People just refuse to stop and think now. They feel everything is a constant I suppose.

Personally I really have no general ideal what our personal properties are worth on the market. We have and need them to live in and I doubt they could fall back to anywhere near their original cost.

It seems the danger is for those that are really stretched out financially. Or those that have employment in that senario and could lose it.

The national trend averaging loss of meaningful jobs is not over or really stabilized other than perhaps temporarily. It has been a long term trend remember rather than a knee jerk thing in the economy.

Jumping into more commitment with the current low interest rates may pay off or may not. The true poor have perhaps nothing to lose. The so called middle class lots to lose. The rich will push away from doing this if they have to post personal gaurantees.

My gut feeling is it will not really pay off either way or for anyone. Our unmanageable debt driven governments actions will see to that. The old expression dammed if you do and dammed if you do not comes to mind.

It is like playing at a casino with no fixed house rules. Stability at any level may be a better senario until or if things settle down somewhat more. Unfortunatly we currently have no real economic stability.

The problem to me is just no one really knows for sure how everything is going to play out. So it is a house of cards subject to forces from all directions both for good and bad.

Since long term thinking is so questionable and full of potential potholes right now. Dealing with today may be a better option. It might increase your flexability or response and ability to deal with rapid changes.

Real estate will increase in value again is a probable given over the long haul. The issue is what worth are those dollars in then. I have felt all along that what real estate losses where taken in the american senario in one fashion or another where gone forever.Even if their past values are eventually restored.

Unless financial policy by governments in north america do a one hundred and eighty degree turnaround. That is unlikely to impossible to occur in my opinion. The old expression that everything is relative does apply to our current times again just in my opinion.

Control what you can personally control in our own lives realising at the same time we have no control at individual levels of the overall picture. The foundations of our past times are being systematically removed is and has been obvious. As a result I expect everything to kind of float from here on relative to other floating things. In otherwords no real stability is possible.

Many economic yardsticks and other rules of the past are now dead. People still keep looking for them to judge things. Certainly they are still there but their credibility in relation to today and the current behaviours of governments makes them highly suspect. In otherwords their validity is more than questionable.

We for example have far more money and assets at the same time than ever. Concurantly there is less real security and stability than ever at the same time. I think we as a family would preffer a simpler life and official structures than we have currently.

I initially thought this was a byproduct of aging. I have decided it is more likely that things are just far less predictable than ever in our lifetimes. We all are or should be aware that governments of all stripes still need much more money. There is only one area to extract it from using direct approaches or indirect approaches to get at it. Things like massive manipulations of the currency within the countries borders.

To me it is just like the stock market is managed internally on wall street. I felt at the time of the finacial crisis that the reason wall street was bailed out was the government had to support simular institutions to it's own.

I am not sure of why I post this type of perhaps abstract thinking. On the other hand in some ways I believe certain components of it are a plausable trend already occuring.

Rather than the economy going up or down I sense more of a sideways movement. Or unintentional change that cannot be quantified properly. I hope members will not lock me up for a post like this. I just sense changes that are different from what I have experienced before. Perhaps I have just lead a sheltered life.

The inverse option is things will become pretty well as they were years ago in a few more years if I am wrong. This I cannot get my mind around with all that has changed. Yet many people if not the majority have this exact expectation. Personally I would like this as well. Reality just impacts this hope and gets in the way of it in my opinion. But then again what do I know? I am just an average guy at best living out the remainder of his life with a good wife that is as happy as I am in the boondocks of eastern Canada. Still very concerned with what we are leaving behind for the generations to follow us. Also wondering how history is going to view this period it time.