Lots can change. One thing for the better would be since so many Americans leave the U.S. to live elsewhere like Thailand and Belize etc. the foreign countries can see the light of adding better security to better accomodate Americans who want to enjoy their American lifestyle but still are solvent enough to build up the foreign economies. American lifestyle is the key here. The smart guys are gonna see that they could attract millions and millions of Americans to their shores if they accomodated us. Low prices but quality service. With Satellite tv and advanced communication systems all that'd be left is commercial products like YooHoo and Marlboror cigs and you'ld have customers up the yin yang.

Although it costs $70k a year to live somewhat comfy here in the states, that same $70k is non taxable in foreign countries but is like having $500k here.

Security means money. Not the other way around. If foreign countries made it happy for Americans to live there real estate here would fall off like a rock.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/11/29/D8E6C6M83.html

New home sales up 13% in October! Looks like it's turning into a buyer's market.

If you had shorted the housing stocks when he posted this you would have hauled in about 33% by now.

I am certain we have seen the Peak !

bump bump

LOL nice bump.

Wow, this is an old thread...

Remember this... NOW IS THE TIME TO BUY!!! If you want to build wealth, just have at least 1 rental (min) and you'll do well :winkwink:

thx the sites !

hehe...old thread but we did wait and just got something at a good price

Lars you are taking out 1 key factor.

Almost 3 years now.

Lars is a smart fellow. How much longer should I wait to buy Lars? I live in the midwest where shit never did double in the first place so "people" think it will turn around faster here.

Lars was right on the money!

There is a reason some folks sell their businesses for 500 mils while most do NOT!
;)

The guy who bought the house next door in May 2005 for $1.35M is probably losing $5k-$10k a month in equity.

The best investment advice you'll ever receive: Buy Low, Sell High.

He was right on, the Vegas market is shit right now. Definitely a buyers market.

Looks like I will not be getting an answer on my "when should I buy" question. He hasnt posted here in 7.5 months.

Glad to see I did not post anything stupid in this thread. I hate when I see old threads and I am "nope, now is the time to buy!" or something dumb like that.

whats with people bumping these 3yr old threads?

Post #141. I said I'd bump this thread in 3 years. Just for kicks, want me to bump it again in 2011?

Ahhhh, I love history.

Best advice in this thread was this. Buffett has a similar quote which we have on our office walls as a daily reminder.

"Be Fearful When Others Are Greedy and Greedy When Others Are Fearful"

What do you know, I always thought Will76 was an overly confident fool and he was wrong in this thread. Good times.

The problem with this was when everyone was buying real estate, it was also a bad time to buy stocks.

Why would you say that? You still had 30% of gains ahead of you from the date of this thread. Obviously you would have stayed in stocks until everyone got greedy - which was precisely and obviously on October 8th,2007. ;-)

But seriously, I think it's a great rule to be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful. It's just a generality. It doesn't tell you when others are greedy or fearful or how to measure it but I live by it in the following way. When the market goes down I get excited and buy. When it goes down further i get more excited and buy. When it gets absolutely destroyed I am the happiest person in the world. Deals! When the market starts to rise I get sad that the bargains are starting to disappear. When it rises further I miss the good old days of cheap stocks. When everyone everywhere is talking about stocks I get interested in something else entirely.

hah! Great find!

Someone post some real stats, instead of vaguaries. Show us homes in Tampa, Florida for example as mentioned in this thread from 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009. Let's see how they have fluctuated in value.

Best Bump Ever. Awesome.... hindsight is 20/20.

This is definately amazing to read, great great bump :)

Tampa, FL. Median home price.

9/2005 $287500
9/2006 $259999
9/2007 $235000
9/2008 $190000
Current $179000

Ouuuuucccchhhhhh!

Inventory in that same time went from 5913 homes to 41,808 homes!

Source: http://www.housingtracker.net/old_ho...Florida/Tampa/

Thanks Colin!

Do you think they should have sold in 2005 or 2006? Is now the time to buy and flip when it gets back up to 2005 prices? How long do you think it'll take to recover back to 2005 prices?

To get back to 2005 prices for the Tampa area from here at 5% per year would take a decade and the long term appreciation of the housing market is roughly at the rate of inflation - which historically has been less than that.

I'd much rather be in the stock market. I think this is a historic opportunity in the stock market and personally I think stocks are a lot easier to value. There is going to be all kinds of unpredictable real estate and banking legislation and that just adds another element of risk to real estate from my POV.

Bill Gross said earlier today that he still thinks long term rates will get down to 4.5%. If I were really a real estate bug I'd wait for the lower rates and then wait for a few months of uptick. Bernard Baruch said something like "you take the first 10% and the last 10% and I'll take everything in the middle". That seems like a good rule here. he also said "Don't try to buy at the bottom and sell at the top. It can't be done except by liars. "

That's awesome :1orglaugh

The market's pretty dismal still, people thought they hit bottom several months ago or more and were picking up amazing bargains. Wiping out a lot of value in everyone's portfolio. When do you think it'll start picking up?

While not meaning to minimize the role that legislative and federal reserve actions had on the housing bubble this thread shows that beliefs also played a role in the bubble. The belief that "real estate prices always go up" was widespread and yet obviously false. Without this belief I don't think we would have had a bubble. There have been low interest rates before without a bubble. And there have been housing bubbles without there even being a FED. There was a bubble in land near railroads in the midwest (Kansas, Oklahoma, etc) that ended up in a disastrous bust.

A bubble requires not only the right legal environment but also the beliefs and actions of men.

There was a boom in pending orders in January. Up more than 15% in states. If it translates into that large of an increase in sales in February and March we could see the bottom in some Southern and Western states before June with a bottom probably coming later in the Northeast and Midwest. The CEO of Wells Fargo - who have 1/8 of all mortgages in the US - said recently that he sees evidence that a bottom is forming. Not that we are "at bottom" but that "a bottom is forming". One thing he pointed out is that they are now getting multiple orders per house. Prices in the closest market to me; orlando, were actually higher in December than November - though this has happened occasionally during the crisis. Bill Gross said yesterday that he thinks rates will still go down to 4.5%. That is a huge decrease in the mortgage payment one gets and changes the calculus of home buying substantially.

How timely was this???