But any Realtor(tm) will tell you it's still a Great Time to Buy!

Why throw my money away on rent when I can throw even more away on interest and depreciation while still not actually owning anything?

According to zillow's estimate, I have 51% equity in my home. 4 years ago when I bought it, I had 49% equity.

According to zillow, my house is down 7% in value. Not worried about it. Of course, if I had started with a 5% or 2% downpayment, I might be underwater now.

Can we get any articles with real economists instead of the Zillow hacks?

Yet I still don't see where this is a problem if you don't plan on selling anytime soon.

Guilty. But I only bought 3 years ago, threw a lot of money at things that needed done, had some poorly timed appliance failures, and don't plan on going anywhere.

It's an "investment" in that I'll actually pay it off some day. Until then, I get to be a handyman homeowner and enjoy the process of making it "mine."

Krieghund: Old enough to know better: Yet I still don't see where this is a problem if you don't plan on selling anytime soon.

This.

I bought a house recently and pay a mortgage that's almost exactly the same as the rent at my last place. I might still be throwing my money away, but at least I can do what I want with the yard, don't have to worry about having too many pets, etc etc.

I'm happy. I'm glad you folks that rent are happy too.

I'm glad you're glad I'm happy I rent. Here's a post I made in a different thread as to why I rent:

I'm guessing the majority of new Irvine home builds are occurring in the Woodbury area, so let's take the 92620 zip code for the basis of my analysis. If someone bought a $500,000.00 home/condo there last year then their home has lost an average of $6,750.00 per month in equity. Each and every month. Throw in roughly $9,800.00 they paid in taxes and another $4,200.00 in HOA fees for the past year. Let's then say they put down 20% on a 4.00% mortgage (very low rate for a year ago) so that adds up to $22,920.00 in mortgage payments for the year.

So, without taking insurance $$ and the mortgage deduction into account, it's costing the average John Q. Public roughly $9,826.67 per month to live where your neighbors are three feet from your bedroom window.

Want a great way to gain equity? Pay the mortgage faster.

We just refinanced into a 3.875 30 year. Saved $160 a month. Instead of taking it, we are sending it in as principal. Also grazed through all of our bills, cutting waste, and found another $115 to add to it. Next August, my car is paid off, and another $370 a month goes to the mortgage. Once I get to 80 percent loan to value, the PMI of 80 bucks goes away and gets added to the principle, too.

My 30 year note just became a 12 year note.

Reducing people's principal balances would only work if the economy were to get fixed; currently many (if not most) of the people that receive loan modifications (basically the same thing except without the principal reduction) default after a few months (despite their new 'affordable' payments). This I think is because they don't see prices increasing so they decide not to keep making payments into something that is not appreciating or continues to depreciate. The modifications are good for sometimes over 10 years so if it was affordability it would not be an issue, the problem is that people find very little use in owning real estate unless they think there will be future appreciation. If the economy does not fix then the same people that get this principal reductions will default again or try and get a new reduction if prices keep dropping, as they will in many areas. Especially if interest rates go up any from the currently very low levels (aiding to maintain artificially higher prices much like the tax incentives of 2010).

Personally I think one of the most interesting stories in this is counties and cities that became very used to the new and increased tax revenue in property and transfer taxes and completely over spent their budgets making predictions to have a continuously growing real estate market to feed their spending. Will they cut taxes to reflect the new prices, not in most cases; they will rework the formula to keep the tax levels as close to when the market was booming as before. What will happen if prices ever come back? You bet they will just have more money to play with and mismanage again...

I think people like myself that make every payment on time should receive a deduction in our loan balances...

we already demonstrated the ability to manage our money. We will spend our loan rebate around town and that money will "trickle down" through the local economy!

Bought a ruined two family. Two hands lots of new tools and a steep learning curve later I still have it and a place to live.
Hate the building - love having a place to live without fear.
Advice? Don't buy a two family - go for a three family and get to domicile scot free, except for tools and parts.

Not interested in selling not worried about current ROI. Apparently these don't join the regular housing market and go through spikes or like currently, serious downturns. It's worth a bit more than it was worth in '07.
Odd how it's worked out. Pure accident, I'm not that smart or anywhere near that lucky.

when does it go from "my 2¢" to CSB? *shrug- dunno*