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[tvoivozhd <tvoivozd AT infionline.net>]

Gene GeRue wrote:

> > How many people can afford to pay a half million dollars for a house?
>
>
> Lots of people. I am continually impressed by the fact that there are 
> thousands of people here in Phoenix who not only can pay a half 
> million or more for a house but often do so for cash. My latest and 
> greatest home sale so far will close in a few days for 725,000. The 
> buyers are a fortyish couple who work hard in their own business, 
> which among other contracts provides training software for the U.S. 
> Army through a prime contractor.


tvoivozhd---If you own your own profitable business it is 
possible-----but the vast majority of the population works at a job for 
someone else .  I won't look it up, but the median family income is 
probably forty to fifty thousand dollars

> One of the motivations leading to the homestead life is the ability to 
> live on a much lower income than in cities. So some homesteaders tend 
> to forget how much money urbanites make. How about your children? I 
> bet several of them can afford homes in this price range.

Yeah, three of them could, but they aren't that wasteful of 
money---which is a major reason why they could. afford it.  The money is 
better employed in their business.'

> The typical scenario in house investment is that most young people 
> start modestly, fix up and improve, sell, and invest the profit in 
> something more expensive that they can now afford with rising wages as 
> they gain age and experience. The average cycle is now five years. 
> California is a classic example of this pattern, and where it has been 
> happening for the last thirty-five years. With the wonderful tax law 
> now allowing a single to gain 250,000 profit or a couple to gain 
> 500,000 profit tax-free after two years residency, there are many 
> people who work this system as they do any job. Serious money has been 
> and will be made.
>
> There are always business ups and downs. As for the right time to buy 
> or sell, the challenges are much the same no matter the price range. 
> They are also similar in stock investments. The unassailable fact 
> about real estate is that everyone needs it. 

tvoivozhd---around here and everywhere else I have been, a large, 
multiple-story house is for conspicuous consumption, most of the space 
unused.  Nobody, I repeat NOBODY really NEEDS that.  I have also seen 
thousands of these reduced to tax-foreclosed empty shells big mansions 
along the Outer Drive in Chicago---even owned one once---a 
twelve-bedroom on a 3/4 acre lakefront lot forty miles from Madison, 
Wisconsin.  Had two stoker-fed furnaces to heat it, and needed both.  
Impeccable shape, built entirely of beautiful oak, dining room could 
seat thirty comfortably Had a huge kitchen and pantry, cloakroom half 
the size of the average bedroom and a music room the same size..  Paid 
$4500 for it. 

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