Posted on 12/29/2006 6:45:01 AM PST by Labyrinthos
The housing slump has been painful for millions of people who work in real estate or recently bought a house.
For Patrick Killelea, however, this year has been one long victory lap. Mr. Killelea, a 41-year-old software engineer, has long preached that it makes more economic sense to rent than buy homes. He recalls shouting "Wow!" when he heard about September's 9.7% drop in prices of new homes.
"I didn't want to gloat," he says. "But then again, maybe I did."
For years, Americans who refused to buy real estate at what they considered excessive prices were ribbed for failing to profit from one of the greatest booms in history. "Are You Missing the Real Estate Boom?" needled the title of a 2005 book by David Lereah, chief economist of the National Association of Realtors.
Now, with the housing market in a slump, renters who sat out the boom are finally getting some satisfaction...
(Excerpt) Read more at biz.yahoo.com ...
LOL, can you tell me what the 'true value' of a house that appraises for $300K is? Oh yeah, by your warped accounting it is a liability. Of course there really is no accounting term 'true value', so I suppose it can be whatever you wish it is.
Absolutely, in a few months if they keep rising, foreclosures may get back to their historic average from their alltime lows.
>>LOL, can you tell me what the 'true value' of a house that appraises for $300K is? Oh yeah, by your warped accounting it is a liability. Of course there really is no accounting term 'true value', so I suppose it can be whatever you wish it is.<<
I was responding to someone else using the phrase "true value". That is why I put it in quotes. ;)
By the way, the value of a house is what it sells for.
A house has value whether or not it has been sold. By your obtuse definition, owning a house has no value. It is a ridiculous position to take. Every asset changes value at all times. Dollar changes, gold changes, everything is constantly changing in value. Just because an asset changes in value doesn't mean it is not an asset and have value.
Sorry, it was poster 100-Fold_Return who was having a hard time grasping that a house has value. He was contending that the value of a house was a myth unless you actually sold it and that in owning a home all you had was a liability.
Nice lifestyle thing.
Thanks. Honestly, I was mainly just joking around with my original posts.
I think you are one of the people that is quite aware that I have said that in April I will either say "I told you so" or I will catch and eat a crow. In the meantime, It's just something to follow.
I will say this: Whenever I come across someone who currently rents that is thinking of buying a house I vehemently recommend to them to wait. There are times when renting makes sense and times when buying makes sense. Never have so many tea leaves pointed to renting as they do now - at least not in my lifetime. That is simply because never have we had such a huge runnup.
Yup. Home ownership, although it has lots of advantages, really is a little bit of a ball and chain. I definitely "feel" freer renting. It helps that in my mind taxes are so high that, really, everyone rents.
"To a point I agree, but his timing isn't as poor as the guy that actually buys it at $400,000."
Agreed. These poor buyers can only spend their money on higher property taxes rather than home improvements. That's why I'm not going anywhere.
Usually rent controlled aptts. are passed down within a family. They're tough to get especially nowadays
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