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["Lynda" <lurine AT softcom.net>]

Well, we took a whole bunch into consideration when we bought here 4 years 
ago.  Our timing was perfect!  Within a week of the prior owner accepting 
our offer, prices around here literally doubled, tripled and quadrupled. 
She and her realtor tried like crazy to get out of the deal.  Oh well, her 
loose.

Now with the bottom falling out, the value of our place has plummeted to a 
whole double what we paid for it! <g>

Our criteria was a place that could easily go off the grid, water that 
wasn't dependant on anyone else's needs and plenty of free heating fuel. 
Got all that.

Now, if I could find some canning jars on Freecycle and an AA canner that I 
didn't have to hock the kidlet for to afford, we'd be set!

However, with all those empty houses, you'd think if nothing else that banks 
would rent them out.  Maybe make a deal with HUD like the Carpenters Union 
used to do.  All those houses and a ton of homeless makes no sense at all!

Lynda
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Clansgian AT wmconnect.com>
> The scuttlebutt is this isn't just another cycle.
>
> First there are the superlatives in the data.  Todays stat was that equity 
> in
> homes is lower now than it has been since 1945.  The country returning 
> from
> war and with GI bill money suddenly there were millions more in houses and 
> as
> you'd expect,. the bank had most of the equity.  Now with the smarmy loans 
> that
> enabled the bubble, 100% and more, equity is at historic lows.  The stat
> homeowners hold less than 50% equity in their houses on average for the 
> first time
> ever.
>
> That was 'ever'.  It's one of those words that carries some headiness like
> 'never'.  That's taking all homeowners including those of us who have 100%
> equity and averaging them together and the average, for the first time, 
> EVER is
> less than 50%.
>
> Looking at the cold, hard stats one comes across 'ever' and 'never' many
> times.  Most and largest percentage of houses in foreclosure ever, 
> greatest and
> fastest drop in home values ever, biggest number of houses and largest
> percentage of houses with negative equity ever, largest number of 
> unoccupied houses,
> largest number of abandoned houses ... ever ... list goes on and on.
>
> Moreover, with transportation costs rising rapidly, heating costs rising
> rapidly, and water in dubious supply, many see the end of suburbia upon 
> us.
>
> People like to point out that stocks can't be compared to real estate 
> since
> with real estate you have something, well, 'real' and with stocks they can
> evaporate entirely.  This of course, isn't true, many if not most 
> comapnies have
> some real assets as real as house and property.  That's why in bubble of 
> tech
> stocks, they lost  more than half their value but did not got to zero. 
> The
> NASDAQ at it's highest was over 5000.  People who saw their investments 
> evaporate
> said, "It's always cycled, this is just another cycle."  But here eight 
> years
> later, it's still less than half the value it was then.  The loss was
> permanent.
>
> Because of the extent of the problem and the superlatives involved and the
> world energy situation, many see the devaluation of real estate as being a 
> cycle
> from which it will not recover in our lifetimes.
>
> James   </HTML>
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