patrick.net

Yes, 100% agree. Your house shouldn't be your 2nd, 3rd, or 4th "job".

I love the satire. How true that pic above was for our family growing up... a house bought in the 50's for $16K went to $275K before the "POP"

Pretty basic. If people aren't dumping half or more of their disposable income into housing, they have more money to spend on other stuff.

Call it Crazy says

I thought it was that people need to be able to refi or ATM their house so they have more money to spend on other stuff....

That was the BMW-Mercedes-Audi home ownership model. It was disproven sometime around 2007. The new Civic-Hyundai-Toyota model has proven to be more sustainable.

golfplan18 says

Low, stable house prices key to consistent economic growth

Someone should have mentioned this back in 2000, but local govt which often fuel rising prices will impose more taxes and programs for affordable housing agenda. Seems all Govt state and local want higher prices.

Now that the banks have effectively merged/captured the feds and the fed reserve (same monster). in order to add up how much you pay 'in taxes' you need to add the WHOLE HOUSEPAYMENT + income taxes + sales taxes which means u get like what 10% of your pay left to spend?

in LA the same houses were built in the 50's but people have a 4k a month mortgage on them. its kinda crazy the way things are. I guess its all the evils of money lending. If we lived in somalia you would have to pay cash for a house (but it would be cheap as hell!!!) but you might have security concerns instead....

House prices can not stabilize. Everyone knows house values are constantly rising.
Get me a straight jacket.

From what I hear, the good folks in India and China are experiencing massive housing bubbles. Cheap or rather easy/available credit has been made available in the last decade or two and everybody seems to be binging.

I think we have to go on tourist trips to remote places to see places that function without the western model of credit.

lostand confused says

From what I hear, the good folks in India and China are experiencing massive housing bubbles. Cheap or rather easy/available credit has been made available in the last decade or two and everybody seems to be binging.

The housing bubble is more global.. except for Japan and Germany which already had their bubble decades ago.. the only two that sobered up. We in the USA are getting there, and the rest will follow.