Vote

Definitely. We went to pay for service trash pickup, we have to buy garbage bags to put at the curb, can't just use your own bags. I like it, we pay more attention and I'm sure a lot of other people do too. In NH we have no income tax so property tax has to pay for a lot of things, most notably schools. The bulk of the budget debate always revolves around schools, it's incredibly hard for a town to fund their schools in a way that satisfies all the requirements.

Again on your house - the lost value is on paper only unless you sell (just like any investment). Do you seriously think it won't regain it's value?

Bruce, they keep price slashing in the neighborhood, some have 2 mortgages...the price slashing and lack of competition (or 2 many homes not enough bodies) is driving the price down?????

Just wait and see what our CC's are worth when gas hits 5$ a gallon.

Dave, I take it you didnt listen to that video?

yeah, needless to say, one of those millions might buy a used car lol

Timing is everything. I bought a multi in 1985 for $130k. By 1988, it was worth $190k. My wife thought we should sell as our first kid had arrived and she thought tenants were a PIA. I wanted to keep it as I thought it would lead to early retirement. By 1991 it was worth $100k and had become a major head ache as the rental market had gotten so poor. We finally were able to unload it in 1998 for $150k after 10 years of constant headches. It went up $20k in 13 years. The guy we sold it to, sold it 3 years later for $350K.

Swatkinz wrote: Eric, I feel your pain with the real estate investment. I have an investment condo in Myrtle Beach, SC. After a few month on the market with what I figured was a pretty attractive asking price, I received an offer on Monday at 50% of what I paid for it 5 years ago and significantly less than the listing price. The offer was rescinded before I could accept because of the influx of other units some of which are foreclosures. Tough times with real estate man!

But .... someone with cash will go in and buy a bunch of those units, rent what they can, sit on the investment, and make a lot of money at some point in the next 10 years.

I'm very pessimistic about the long term future of our economy, but that doesn't mean we won't see more up and down cycles in the meantime. To think that real estate won't rebound is to simply ignore history, in the late '80's real estate was never going to recover, same in the '90's downturn, same thing is being said now. It will recover, depending on the region it may take longer. So, if you have a paper loss and can hang on, do so and you should do well in the future. The key, as Bruce illustrated with his experience, is that when you see a profit you should remember how you feel now and take it, don't try to wait for a bigger gain. Just my 2 cents

JoeinNY wrote: The housing boom was a totally foreseeable result of the federal funds rate being lowered to and kept at historically low levels. This was done by Alan Greenspan who knew better but was so invested in his support of the Bush era tax cuts as being economic stimulus that he classicaly overused what has been the only real effective economic stimulus to try and provide the economic growth he had predicted. The resulting low morgage rates (and tanking stock market) made real estate the only attractive investment.. and ultimately inflated the value of real estate to points where they would be completely unattractive and unobtainable at any reasonable morgage rates. add to that classic government deregulation of the entire morgage apparatus that was then being used by the wall street types as a place to rape and pillage in lieu of thier normal rape and pillage of our 401ks and retirement funds.. a bunch of sketchy loan officers, over eager real estate agents, and too many cable house flipping shows and if you couldn't see a bubble about to burst then you were watching too much cable news. You can choose to blame the government or not.. but what we pay them for is to manage our country to achieve our best interests... and in the case of the real estate bubble they were either criminal or completely inept. Or in Greenspan's case too much time as the most powerful man in the world had made him vane to the point where he broke the rules he himself had so carefully followed for 15 years prior.

I don't blame the government for the real estate losses i have and expect to experience in the coming months. The investments I made had risks associated and I knew that. I have made money in the past when the risks worked to my advantage. However, when banks make loans to investors like me, they are supposed to accept a certain amount of risk too. With the bailouts resulting from the real estate bubble bursting, the banks didn't lose like me the individual investor. I don't qualify for loan modification because it's investment property, refinancing isn't possible b/c of the reduction in equity/property valuation, the lender will not work with me to short sale my property without the property being in arrears for several months (I've basically been told that in order to short sale, I would need to significantly damage my credit for them to even "consider" allowing me to short sell). I wasn't brought up that way. It's taken me my whole professional life to get a stellar credit score and I'm not giving it up. Others may disagree with this and that's on them. I made the commitment to pay the note and I will do it, but it isn't right for the banks to accept a bailout for their financial mistakes and then not be willing to share in some of the losses or to at least work with people like me....I.e. modify the interest rate, something, anything

My lender hasn't lost one dime on my property. Where is their risk? I realize that this is a specific situation, but it ain't right and there are many others like me. When I sell, I'll be coming up with significant coin to pay the difference b/w what I owe and what I'll sell it for. In fact, I participated in bailing them out by sending my tax money. It aint right...i say again it aint right

Steve, what got me this time around was small investors like I was back in the 90's were bailed out, too. I would have never thought to go into the bank and renegotiate my terms because values had declined and I was underwater on an investment property. In the 90's, the banks would have wanted to wrap your equity in a non leveraged proerty that you owned if your investment property was failing. This time around, they didn't look at that, just the underwater property and if it was less costly to lower the principal and rate or foreclose.

What I've learned from the last 2 real estate bubbles is that when the major players start believing and buying into their own hype and BS, the end is near.

63 Skier wrote: Swatkinz wrote: Eric, I feel your pain with the real estate investment. I have an investment condo in Myrtle Beach, SC. After a few month on the market with what I figured was a pretty attractive asking price, I received an offer on Monday at 50% of what I paid for it 5 years ago and significantly less than the listing price. The offer was rescinded before I could accept because of the influx of other units some of which are foreclosures. Tough times with real estate man! But .... someone with cash will go in and buy a bunch of those units, rent what they can, sit on the investment, and make a lot of money at some point in the next 10 years. I'm very pessimistic about the long term future of our economy, but that doesn't mean we won't see more up and down cycles in the meantime. To think that real estate won't rebound is to simply ignore history, in the late '80's real estate was never going to recover, same in the '90's downturn, same thing is being said now. It will recover, depending on the region it may take longer. So, if you have a paper loss and can hang on, do so and you should do well in the future. The key, as Bruce illustrated with his experience, is that when you see a profit you should remember how you feel now and take it, don't try to wait for a bigger gain. Just my 2 cents

Waiting on a rebound from a 5-10% drop in value is one thing...waiting on that property to rebound from 50% or more is something else. How long will it take a property valued at $90K today to be worth even $150K....how about $190 or $200K? Yes, it's only a paper loss until you sell, but continuing to hold it to avoid a paper loss is sometimes like spending $2 to save $1. I've been holding it for 5 years and the outlook is unchanged in my opinion.

I do remember the profit and it did feel good. I'm bothered by the loss that I'm expecting, but i'm bothered more by the fact that uncle sam bails out these lenders at my expense and then those lenders don't reciprocate for people like me, that's all. I'm not asking for a give me or a handout. It would just be nice to have some consideration for other options.   To add insult to injury, I was at a sales meeting last month in Arizona. At the same hotel we were meeting at, a bank was putting on a banquet for employees. Lavishly decorated. They even had a freakin ice sculpture. I asked the event planner just out of curiousity how much an ice sculpture like that costs and was told $4500. Made me question whether or not banks really needed that bailout, i gotta tell ya. They could afford the ice sculpture but can't afford nor will they even have a justified conversation with an honest customer unless that customer is late on their payments. That should be BS in anybody's book.

I too am pessimistic with the long term economic outlook. This may sound selfish, but I'm focusing on Steve's Economic Recovery for 2011 and beyond. I'm doing and have done my part to give this country what it needs. My recovery involves dumping the loser investments so that I can make it some other way. My .02, of course.

Andy, I hate when someone uses the term "lost"....it was stolen.
trends show when gas hikes the economy tanks, 4.50 by summer?, im pushing 50 and i really dont foresee any good returns on investments, its to risky, I switched my mindset to day by day,
the 40% stolen is a good indicator that no money is safe and if it happened once it surely could happen again, and what can you do about it? not a damn thing, sit back and say oh fcn well.
really, who out there, ie China, Japan, wants to invest in our countries future when its this shakey? would you invest into a failing economy.....probably not.
Our government is talking about defaulting on loans WTF!!!!!!!what signal does that send? oh well just dont pay them...very sad

The change will not be overnight, confidence will erode slowly and as people jump ship things will pick up speed till we are all sitting around saying what happened?

Listening to you guys I've come to the conclusion that I need a lot more bullets.

Cheaper solution!

Cheap Kraut in charge of MY money sounds a lot better than Queen Polosie, If he is out for his own profit why did he give back the jet and ask for a pay cut?