We bought our house in the early 90s. It had been sitting, unsold, for well over a year. The housing bubble had burst and the developer was holding on, hoping to get his price. He did not.
That's not to say we bought at a dip. The housing market continued to fall and it was years before our house was worth what we paid for it.
Even now, the best part of our housing investment has been our (and when I say our, I mean Helaine) attention to paying down the balance. Sometime over the next few years, the house will be ours, free and clear
The simplistic thought is, real estate always pays off. It does not. There are short term bumps and starts. We are probably in the early stages of a major nationwide housing bust right now. Buy or sell at the wrong time and you can get hurt.
This is all leading to the video I've attached just below. Someone took the average home cost, adjusted for inflation from 1890 to today, and plotted using "Roller Coaster Tycoon," a computer game.
If you're more 'old school' here's that same data plotted as a standard graph.
This shows the real volatility of real estate better than anything I've ever seen before. It's fun too.
I know I've been attaching a lot of 'outside' videos recently. I'm going to try and not let it become a crutch, but some of this stuff really deserves to be seen.
Loved the roller coaster....hate my mortgage... evi