Don't know what the house prices are like around the Oakland and bay area but over here in Perth house prices shot up by over double, starting six years ago and over a two year period. Me and my wife were lucky to have bought our house right at the start of the bom and now ur house is worth twice what we bught it for. Our mortgage is just over $800 a month but some people we know who bought a couple of years after we did have mortgages about three times that much

migya wrote:Don't know what the house prices are like around the Oakland and bay area but over here in Perth house prices shot up by over double, starting six years ago and over a two year period. Me and my wife were lucky to have bought our house right at the start of the bom and now ur house is worth twice what we bught it for. Our mortgage is just over $800 a month but some people we know who bought a couple of years after we did have mortgages about three times that much

It has gone down as much as 80%!!! since the summer of 2006. It was way overvalued. People bought houses for 250,000 in 1993, and were turning around and selling them for a million. But the problem is, people who bought them for a million in 2006 are being killed. In East Contra Costa county 85% of the houses on the market are foreclosure sales by banks, and even in the desirable areas, like the immediate SF/Berkeley area, houses have lost about 25-30% of value. Lot of people can't make their payments...of course, the GOP solution is to cut more taxes, but that doesn't do you much good if you don't have a job.

carlgo wrote:I think every kid in the US, really everywhere, should have to take a course in what I will call Personal Economics. We all should have been taught about credit and savings, the real cost of things, loans, mortgages, retirement plans.

They would forget the details of course, but they would always know that they have to pay attention and that being fiscally irresponsible has consequences.

Still, a lot of people would have gotten sucked into the housing bubble when you could buy a house and make $50K before you made one payment.

Yeah, there is something in the financial industry (completely ignored, of course) called due diligence and fiduciary responsibility. That includes not pushing mortgages on folks who can't afford them. These zero down, interest only, balloon mortgages were being pushed bigtime by the banking industry we are now bailing out. In the old days (like only 10 years ago), you needed to be able to afford a monthly payment equal to 35% of your monthly income and have 10% minimum as a down payment. Both of those went out the window, pushed by Bush's "ownership society".

Now, there are very good opportunities for those with a head for real estate deals...I am not one of those...

coltraning wrote:

migya wrote:Don't know what the house prices are like around the Oakland and bay area but over here in Perth house prices shot up by over double, starting six years ago and over a two year period. Me and my wife were lucky to have bought our house right at the start of the bom and now ur house is worth twice what we bught it for. Our mortgage is just over $800 a month but some people we know who bought a couple of years after we did have mortgages about three times that much

It has gone down as much as 80%!!! since the summer of 2006. It was way overvalued. People bought houses for 250,000 in 1993, and were turning around and selling them for a million. But the problem is, people who bought them for a million in 2006 are being killed. In East Contra Costa county 85% of the houses on the market are foreclosure sales by banks, and even in the desirable areas, like the immediate SF/Berkeley area, houses have lost about 25-30% of value. Lot of people can't make their payments...of course, the GOP solution is to cut more taxes, but that doesn't do you much good if you don't have a job.

Definately sounds like things have hit some people hard. Houses prices in Perth have dropped a few thousand the last 6-8 months but look to go up again in about two years

We're seven degrees lower then the 1300's, we are not heating up even if we're it is a natural cycle if you think humans control the weather you're with out a doubt arrogant. lets get this thread going, I can argue all day.