Here is my honest assessment, I am debating which is worse Hillbillies or Schumitzi’s! I have not decided 100 percent yet.

It’s been an artificial market since 1996, when the tax treatment on mtg interest and property taxes changed.

The next transition will be from artificial market to completely failed and collapsed market.

After the RE market completely fails, it will not recover in our lifetimes.

Ergo, you will probably never buy a house.

Generally, VA loans are the only easily assumable ones out there.

You don’t treat the addict by continuing to provide drugs.

“Here is a novel concept, dont drop your revenues until you get your finances in order.”

Seems way too full of himself.

But the rich, by definition, have assets that the bank can pursue, right?
In CA, the loans may be recourse for primary residences (if refinanced, HELOC’d, or 2nd mtg) and bank pursues judicial foreclosure. They are almost certainly recourse for second homes/ investment properties. These would be a pretty big % of the loans, and I’ve read that many are walking away in CA without fully understanding their risk.

LOS ALTOS, Calif. — No need for tears, but the well-off are losing their master suites and saying goodbye to their wine cellars.

The housing bust that began among the working class in remote subdivisions and quickly progressed to the suburban middle class is striking the upper class in privileged enclaves like this one in Silicon Valley.

Whether it is their residence, a second home or a house bought as an investment, the rich have stopped paying the mortgage at a rate that greatly exceeds the rest of the population.

More than one in seven homeowners with loans in excess of a million dollars are seriously delinquent, according to data compiled for The New York Times by the real estate analytics firm CoreLogic.

By contrast, homeowners with less lavish housing are much more likely to keep writing checks to their lender. About one in 12 mortgages below the million-dollar mark is delinquent.

Though it is hard to prove, the CoreLogic data suggest that many of the well-to-do are purposely dumping their financially draining properties, just as they would any sour investment.

“The rich are different: they are more ruthless,” said Sam Khater, CoreLogic’s senior economist.
………..

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/09/business/economy/09rich.html?hp

I think continued market manipulation by the gov’t (mortgage rates, tax credits, relaxed underwriting/ down payment requirements, etc.) has dramatically increased the risk to the financially prudent. These housing “programs” also distort housing stats, buyer/seller psychology, and bank behavior.

So far I haven’t been able to come up with any decent mitigation plans to buying in a low rate/high price market.. It’s treacherous if your horizon is 3-10 years.

A Flat Tax just means the middle class subsidizing the rich. Unless of corse you are going to add in unearned income and get rid corporate subsidies and tax breaks and loopholes.

The graduated tax rates are fairer and better for society. The tax rates applied to the person making $60K are the exact same as the tax rates applied to the first $60K you make.

Is this discussion heading towards this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExWfh6sGyso

Pensions are not the only Elephant, we are in the Serengeti and the elephants are stampeding.

If you pleadge Aliegence to the Corporate Person of America, you might actually be closer.

Clot calls me one of those who, if I haven’t bought by now, will “never buy.”

I say it’s because there’s no product that fits. And I’m flexible. Adaptable. So I rent, and rent.

Why is there no mortgage for me?