The Housing Bubble

Very true, my point is that if a family like ours with little debt, savings, and a high income is barraged with expenses as I listed every month, how does a lower income family do it? I suppose that if we were just spending recklessly, that’s one thing, but if a family making just the median of $48,000 a year has the same middle class “must do” expenses that we have (and they probably do), they would drown.

There is no way they could save for the future or even dig out out of significant debt… I don’t even want to start on those “keeping up” types…

I expect that they would skip:

Orthodontics
Vet bills (maybe find a free clinic for the required shots)
renters insurance

try not having kids

well-put.

Let their teeth rot, let their car fall into disrepair…let them eat cake.

If you have to do without needed car repairs, school books, oral surgery, etc., that is pretty bad. It’s not about “doing without” luxury items that is being discussed, its about a family earning $48k/yr credit to purchase necessities. It sounds so cold just to conclude that a family should “do without” school books, or car repairs or medical care because they earn the median income.

I suspect that they do without, but think of the actual cumulative effect of that - No needed dental work, no insurance, treasured family pet dies early, a car that’s always a gasp away from dieing, not being able to re-educate yourself to get better employment, the list goes on and on - you notice I didn’t include anything remotely like a consumer good in there. It’s a death spiral for most middle class families.

“Let their teeth rot, let their car fall into disrepair…let them eat cake.”

You forgot let them live within their means and to put money away for rainy days.

Let their teeth rot, let their car fall into disrepair

You might want to brace yourself for this, but there are people who…learn to fix their own car *gasp*! We did it when I was a kid (in fact, we rebuilt cars from the salvage yard/auctions as a primary source of income, but that’s another conversation).

When I was in college the first time around I always did repairs on my and my wifes (girlfriend part of the time) vehicles.

And teeth don’t just naturally rot me thinks. I know some of it is genetic, but there are things you can take responsibility for in regard to dental hygeine also instead of just being a victim of whatever comes along, as with most things.

Such drama. It’s possible to live on a meager salary without having bad teeth, a beater car, dead pets, and whatever else was mentioned here. It’s also possible to use credit cards and still be responsible. I live on a meager salary and I use a credit card. But I pay the card off every month (it’s just a matter of convenience for me to use the CC rather than cash). Plus, I don’t have a plasma t.v. I don’t eat out often. I’m not above thrift shops. I give myself a spending budget. I prioritize. Etc. And if anyone wants to pity me because I don’t have the latest and greatest of the technologies out there or because I’m not driving a brand-spanking new car (mine’s a 2006 bought in 2007), that’s ok with me. Because when I go to sleep at night, money troubles don’t keep me up. I know I have $$ in the bank and I don’t owe a nickel to anyone.

How many are in your immediate family? I’m referring to an average family of 2 adults and 2 teen/preteen kids. If I were by myself, I could live very well indeed on only my retired pay - wouldn’t even need SS.

1 adult and 1 four-year-old in daycare that runs me $832/month.

We have 3, luckily my son is past daycare. We have 2 cars - a 2004, and a 2002. Like you we seldom eat out and my wife purchases our clothing at fire sale prices. We follow the same policy IRT credit cards as well. My point is that there are some expenses that just have to be paid.

After the normal expenses of life which I define as: Mortgage/rent, utilities, insurance, food, energy, health related costs, and yes - vet bills, most families who have the same priorities have very little left - how many with teen children can absorb a $2000 bill for maxio faciary surgery without resorting to emptying their savings or using plastic? Not many I’d bet…

JWhite, I understand what you are getting at, and I think the answer is that things you consider necessities are only “necessary” when you make “6 figures a year”. People who make less spend differently. They might not go to the vet or even have a pet, or pay 2 grand for pretty teeth, etc. Certainly, it’s hard to imagine how the other half lives some times and if you had to make that transition suddenly it might be painful.

Don’t get me wrong, I often have the same thought. “How do they do it?” My wife and I do well now, we don’t earn 6 figures together, but close, and we make plenty more than we need. So we, like you, frequently have “one time” expenses, every month. And we pay them and we move on. I’ve been paying cash for grad school now since Jan ‘07, plus books. It seems like as soon as I pay one semester (I’ve been going year around), it’s almost time to do it again. And I just changed jobs and lost the work laptop, so I HAD to buy a laptop, I couldn’t do without.

The wife and I have been doing well financially for a while now, it’s sometimes hard for me to imagine how to be any different.

But usually I just have to think back to growing up. If the car broke, we fixed it, usually that day. We did all sorts of things then I don’t do now, cutting firewood, tending a big garden. When we went out to eat, it was a BIG deal, maybe a few times a year. I think the nicest restaurant I ever went to until my wife and I’s first date was Red Lobster, and I probably only visted that a few times in the first 20 years of my life.

In contrast, my wife and I probably eat out once a week now (not counting lunch during the work day), sometimes more. Occasionally we might go out with friends and drop a good bit on a nice meal, wine or beer and then the bar afterward. This weekend I helped my sister move out of the house into her own place for the first time. When we finished, I took us (there were 5) out for pizza and beer, spent about 75 bucks. No big deal now, but when I moved out the first time (I’m 9 years older) there was no one around to take everyone out to dinner and I sure couldn’t.

Bottom line is, people adapt. Even if you can’t imagine how, you would likely also adapt if your situation changed.

J white

i agree with you i have no idea how many people live they way they live

my wife and i make a nice living together
we have no debt and we save in our 401ks and regular savings every month

we live nicely though

we do not eat out much (my wife is a health nut)
we drive a 2002 car (4 cylinder great on gas)

i get those one time bills you spoke about as well

last 2 months i got

$250 renters insurance policy
$400 life insurance (term policy)
$350 car registration and small maint.
$1000 car insurance

but i have not missed a beat on saving

i am working more and spending less
a great combination

these consumer debt junkies can rot for all i care

4 hour lines for i-phones in nyc it is amazing in 95 degree heat no less

i just go about my business and take care of my family and keep saving and waiting for the right opportunity
to come along

the people who are just waking up now to what we have been discussing here for 3 years are idiots plain and simple

You make some very good points Blueprint and I in agreement with much of it. Actually I can imagine life with far less resources. My wife and I both came from very humble families where there often wasn’t enough. My parents in particular worked themseves to the bone and saved every cent they could. Sometimes it wasn’t enough. We didn’t have credit cards. I can remember not having school clothes, no medical or dental visits till it was really urgent, we were homeless once and lived in a motel.

As recently as four years ago while I was in school, I made less than $20,000 a year to support 3 and that fact remains very alive with me which is why we live so simply.

My point remains that it must be very difficult in today’s America to make it when just the basics cost so much and average people’s incomes are worth less and less. The biggest luxury of a 6 figure income IMHO - is the ability to go back and reinvent yourself as needed with new skills without enpaupering your family. Most folk just don’t have that one luxury that I include in my list of priorities.

4 hour lines for i-phones in nyc it is amazing in 95 degree heat no less

95?? OMG - how do you people survive?

you must live in the desert huh?

95 with nyc humidity is pretty damn hot

You might want to brace yourself for this, but there are people who…learn to fix their own car *gasp*!

I think that might have been possible in the old days. Today you need a diagnostic computer to plug into the engine if it acts up. The days of replacing the distributer cap and setting the points are long gone. Today if your car won’t start its probably because one of the on board computers is hosed.

I’m referring to an average family of 2 adults and 2 teen/preteen kids.

I would argue that no one with the median household income of $48k/year has any business producing two children and then complaining about not being able to make ends meet.

95 with nyc humidity is pretty damn hot

You musta not ever been to Houston…you know you’ve had a humid day there when it rains in your car on the way home from work.

Yes, but the computers can also make it easy to repair cars yourself. The tools are available to read some of the codes. And if you are good, you can get the full suites of diag software and hacks to make them run. Remember, software can be copied while wrenches cannot.

And you expect semi-literate J6P’s to do this?

I have in my head an amount that we “should” be saving each month. I did a quick check last weekend and found that over the first six months of the year, we havn’t saved anywhere close to what I thought we should be saving.

When looking in more detail, there are a few chunks here and there that are one-timers (new desk to clear out space for baby–a trade-off for not renting a bigger place, some vacation stuff that we didn’t need to spend, etc.).

Aside from those things, we’re doing pretty well. What shocked me was the little things that we can spend less money on (cable, etc.)

Some of these things won’t appreciably change our lifestyle, but will shave hundreds off of our monthly expenses.

Generally, we need to re-think the definition of “necessity”.

We are 2 public school teachers with 2 kids. Preschool for the youngest is 1100 month (and that’s cheap in San Francisco) and the older one is in public school.

We do okay, but that’s because we rent out a room in our (rented) SFH, board dogs on the side, shop at thrift stores for clothes, and cook most of our own food.

We save, though want to save more. Have extra retirement accounts in addition to what the school district offers. One student loan and one car loan (sold the 4-runner for a Yaris), but we still have money for fun stuff (new iPhone, etc.)

It is doable, but sometimes I wonder why I didn’t go work on Wall Street, like my dad. Not really….

And while we only have 2 kids because we know we couldn’t afford more, I think it’s ridiculous to suggest that only people with money should have kids. I also think it’s nuts to have buches of kids when you are broke.

What amazes me is when folks with no kids, no car, no pets are making more money than we are and are still not able to save anything.

Well, that’s a way of viewing it, but consider this, most of the dental bills were for removing impacted wisdom teeth - I would never let my son just suffer needlessly, the books are for me in my nursing program - which when competed at the NP level equals a median 75-80K yearly income, consider the costs of replacing just the necesary contents of your average home of 3-4 after a fire, as for the pet, it’s been part of my wife’s life for 10 years, it’s not negotiable.

Everyone has different priorities, I just believe that ours are modest and defensible and I feel sympathy for others with similar priorities who are having a difficult time through no fault of their own…

Your views are one way of looking at it, I would ask you to consider the following though. Most of the dental expenses were to remove impacted wisdom teeth - I would never let my son suffer needlessly.

The books are for my nursing program with an income potential of 75-80k a year at the NP level in a profession that is growing 23% in the next 8 years, we have no public transportation here and there’s no viable substitute for cars.

What would be the cost of replacing an average household of 4 after a fire? As for the pet, it’s been a treasured part of my wife’s life for 10 years. It’s non-negotiable.

I believe we have simple and defensible priorities and I feel sorry for those with the same careful approach to finances who are being overwhelmed. JMHO.

Sorry double post! The screen went to “server not found” the first time and I thought it was lost.

>>Orthodonic and oral surgery - Society has brainwashed you that a set of pretty teeth are the secrets to success.

Silly me, I shelled out $1700 to replace a broken tooth. I should have just let tooth sit in my mouth and rot instead of being such an irresponsible spendthrift.

>>School books - If you can’t see that your children are being brainwashed in school, you have problems. Yank the kids from school and take them to the library.

Dang! Could find the book I needed at the library and had the unmitigated gall to buy it.

>>Vet bills - Well, having a pet is a luxury, not a necessity. It’s another life that you are responsible for. I have a cat and it’s very low-maintenance. As far as I’m concerned, immunizations and vaccines do more harm than good, so I don’t do those for kittie.

Shouldn’t have wasted the $400 when another cat tore up her stomach, the $ for her asthma meds, the $ for treatments for her horrible colds that she contracted because someone was too cheap to spend $25 to give her her vaccinations, that ultimately led to her lungs being damaged and contracting asthma, and my spending much more $ in the long run. Should have just let her die, which she would have without the medication.

>>Start thinking outside the box and stop worrying about what the neighbors or “society” think.

If it means thinking like you, no thanks!

>>They don’t care about you or your family.
You sure don’t.

People who make less spend differently. They might not go to the vet or even have a pet, or pay 2 grand for pretty teeth, etc.

Have you priced an orthodontist lately? More like 5 grand. We have decent insurance, but if I we had to pay the whole thing ….. forget it.

>if I we had to pay the whole thing ….. forget it.

Ain’t that the truth, in a lot of spending areas.

Have you priced an orthodontist lately?

No, fortunately I have good teeth and no little ones. My wife did get her eyes fixed though, about a year and a half ago. To be honest, I don’t even know what that costed, I would have to ask her. She paid for it all through her HSA and paycheck withholding. I’m glad she got it done and that we could afford to do so, but certainly had things been tight it would not have been an option. It’s a luxury.

I never could figure out why one would pay for a cat. Everyplace in this world I have ever been someone was eager to give one away for free.

The oral surgery thing is very interesting. I have a good friend from Africa. He has a perfect set of 32 teeth without dental care. After he moved to the US he went to a dentist because he has employer-provided dental care. First thing, they told him he needed to have his wisdom teeth pulled. He asked why, since they cause him no pain or problems. That was the last time he went to the dentist.

very good point Jwhite. I often spend time thinking that too when see people shopping loads and loads of stuff and I am standing in line with 1-2 stuff in my hand…no cart.
I totally agree with you…each person had their own priorities but I define my wealth as my health and my family and I would go to any extent to save those…I can earn everything else in life but not these two.
Rudyard Kipling comes to mind:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master,
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And - which is more - you’ll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

Same with us. Not counting basic living costs such as rent, insurance, food, energy, and utilities which eat up 40% of total net income, we try to keep all other costs below 15% of our remaining net income.

Bubbleviewer, what’s with this?

“Vet bills - Well, having a pet is a luxury, not a necessity. It’s another life that you are responsible for. I have a cat and it’s very low-maintenance. As far as I’m concerned, immunizations and vaccines do more harm than good, so I don’t do those for kittie.”

I feel sorry for kittie. Have you seen feline lukemia or feline AIDS? What happens if kittie gets sick? Will you look for a bargain euthanasia job, too?

There are good vaccines and bad (cheap) vaccines; the trick is to find a vet who uses the good ones, and spaces the vaccinations out.

I knew a man who was diagnosed with prostate cancer, who refused to have surgery because other people (all hanging out in the health food store macrobiotic section) convinced him that the surgery survival rate was terrible. He died after eating macrobiotic crap for several months.

The survival rates for many forms or surgery depend heavily on the skills of the surgeon, not the condition or the procedure. The same is true of immunizations. You get what you pay for.

Many posters on this site still have no clue as to how many of their fellow citizens, not uncommonly those with graduate degrees, will never make $50K, let alone six figures.

This group is so progressive when expressing the real situation in housing, yet seems imperiously blind to the effects that the resulting economic fallout will have on most of us here.

There are a h5ll of a lot more WalMart people than there are
you MDs, lawyers, engineers and computer snots.

The truly rich will have walled compounds and private ShutzStaffeln to protect themselves.
What will YOU do!
Wave your kid’s orthopedic appliances at the barbarian hoards?
Maybe sic the freshly doctored cat on them?

Thank you for your generous words! I really don’t mind the feedback though (can’t stand the heat - ad nauseum -.) We are, after all, nothing but a bunch of electrical particles eminating from a glowing box on this blog, there is really very little to get upset about!

I agree with your observation Jwhite, and have often wondered how the the 50K per year households survive. I often found myself humbled to see how so many of them simply “do without” things I take for granted. I have also learned that many of my kid’s friends like to hang around our place bcause “its so nice” (maybe also because the fridge and cupboard are usually well stocked with goodies and snacks).

we’re having a version of the “this is what things really cost even when you’re careful” conversation with our 21-year-old niece. (Her parents have tried, and now it’s our turn.) But she’s a bit of a ditz and a wanna-be hippie and I suspect she’s just going to have to run into the brick wall of reality.

I think JW makes a valid point. Most of these things are expected by most, and bought by most….even those that cannot afford them.

The un-rich(??) are currently Heloc-ing and Charge-carding these items but as we see from the AMEX and CapOne report they are not actually paying for the product and services.

What Heli-Ben is hoping for is the price of everything will come down as the “Credit is Income” people lose out.

I’ve often thought that the explosion in credit cards since the 80’s has been a de facto wage subsidy for the middle class. Oh? Your wages are stagnant? No raise this year? Well, here’s a $10k limit credit card!

An excellent point, stewie. The average American has become a glorified indentured servant, perpetually running to pay Bill X or Mortgage Y while livin’ The High Life.

“America is broke.”

Not all of America. Those with cash aren’t.

Americans with “cash” are being systematically stripped of it through the devious 1-2 punch of first letting it plummet in value against all other currencies, and then comes the bank runs, forcing the only solvent people in the land to stand in line @ 2 in the morning and wait until 5 pm the next day, for a crack at their money.

Americans with cash buy cheaply from those without cash. Cash rules.

I’ll take cash and jewelry!

i will miss combo cash and aladinsane gold cash debate

personally i prefer cash

trader joes does not accept gold for payment

letting it plummet in value against all other currencies ??

Talk to me in two years….My bet is one year T-bill rates @ 6-7% or more by mid 2010…

“America is broke.”

Not all of America. Those with cash aren’t.

The truly rich have only a tiny portion of their net worth in cash. They have it tied up in income producing assets: rental properties, businesses, stocks, bonds, etc.

Only gangsters have huge stashes of cash.

I love that reasoning. Trader Joe’s does not take gold, therefore it can’t be worth anything. Try paying for your groceries with stock certificates, or Treasury bonds. They don’t take those either, so they must be worthless, right?

Cash is liquid; gold, stock certificates, treasury bonds are less so. Nobody is saying these things are worthless, they just aren’t as liquid as cash is.

There is a premium put on liquidity, especially in a credit crunch. This premium adds value to whatever it is that is considered the most liquid. Right now it is cash that enjoys that premium.

It is inconvient to exchange gold, stock certificates, treasury bonds, etc. for cash; one must find a buyer set up to handle the transaction. Sometimes there is a fee for doing so, a commission and/or a bid/ask spread. Using cash entails none of these inconviences or costs.

When houlseholds earning low six figures have to start asking themselves “where can we cut back?” you have to wonder how the “middle class” is faring. The truth is that a lot of people who think they are middle class are not really middle class. They might have a old boat and a pickup in the driveway, but when you look at the less visible details, like diet, healthcare, etc. you begin to realize that many are just lower class folks with pickups that aren’t beaters.

Good question ,what defines lower lower class, lower class ,middle class,upper middle class,upper upper middle class ,and rich ,today .

I know that some of the things that the middle class use to get quite easy 40 years ago is something that only upper middle class can afford today .Obtaining home ownership was not that hard for the middle class 40 years ago ,and this was done without using teaser rate toxic adjustable loans .

Class has more to do with education level than money in the bank (or assets), IMHO.

We can’t afford a house on our $100,000 combined income, but since we both have master’s degrees, I think we are middle class.

Maybe some would not, tho.

“Class has more to do with education level than money in the bank (or assets), IMHO.

We can’t afford a house on our $100,000 combined income, but since we both have master’s degrees, I think we are middle class.”

Have met many well educated, monetarily endowed individuals with absolutely NO CLASS!

As far as defining class goes, I agree that it is a lot more about education/manners/culture than amount of money in the bank.

To my mind, if you’re talking about someone who can’t afford stuff, call them, “low income”, not “lower class”.

No… cds or other term savings could be loaned out… what couldn’t be loaned out under 100% reserve backed banking is deposits, which are supposed to always be available upon demand (and how is that possible when at any time there is only a tiny fraction of total deposits in the banking system?)

When money is saved long term and loaned out, no new money is created. When a deposit is lent out, spent, deposited by someone else, lent out, etc, there is a creation of money of the amount originally deposited divided by the reserve ratio.

Replace “deposit” with “CD’ in the above paragraph and you get the same money creation. Customer buys CD, bank loans the money back out, someone spends it, someone buys another CD with the money, etc.

OK dumb question - can you clarify what is the difference between “deposits” and “term savings”?

It makes sense if you replace the term “depoist” whith the term “demand deposit”.

Certain deposits are called demand deposits, these are supposed to be available “on demand” (i.e. you can walk in at any time and have that money available). Savings and checking accounts are examples.

In contrast, CD’s are not supposed to be available on demand, they are available on maturity or at the end of a term, hence “term deposits”.

nd you get the same money creation.

Not the same degree of creation. If you are only leveraging money deposited in CD’s it would be a fraction of all money when including demand deposits.

Doh - OK told you it was a dumb question.

So - seems that Bailey Building and Loan didn’t practice 100% reserve backed banking - since when there was a run everyone was demanding to retrieve the balance from their savings accounts, to which George replied that their money had been loaned out to others to build houses etc. Fair to say?

Who knew that Bedford Falls had it’s own little housing bubble going? The truth comes out - now I see it. George plowed under a cemetery in fact to build Bailey Park! For shame.

Tongue in cheek of course - though I wonder some times which side most HBBers would take - I think many would see Potter as the hero in the story. Perhaps this’d be worth a separate discussion…

“Tongue in cheek of course - though I wonder some times which side most HBBers would take - I think many would see Potter as the hero in the story. Perhaps this’d be worth a separate discussion…”

That thought has crossed my mind on more than one occasion.

a logical consequence of the free market ideology run amok

Virtual, don’t you think this might be more a result of centralized control? When a system exists that concentrates power among a small group, it seems to be a consistant result across all forms (democracy, communism, socialism, capitalism) of economy or government that eventually concentrates wealth as well among that group.

It seems fair that if a socialist system changes over time such that it is no longer socialist, that a defender of socialism would point that out. Likewise, the same is true for any system, if someone is critical of an aspect of that system which no longer exists it seems fair to point out that the criticism is not valid because the aspect being criticized is no longer the case.

The common element I see, is not that “free market” or socialism runs amok, but that central authority distorts the system to such a degree that it no longer is what it started out to be and then that central authority uses it’s power to divert wealth/resources to itself and supporters.

From that point of view, it seems that what we should object to is not any particular idealism so much as central control.

I agree Blueprint ,we should object to central control and a lack of application of the rules of law ,or the regulations .

This government would like you to think that the rules of law were applied during the boom and its just a matter of making new laws . What regulatory agency was in charge of considering loan products that were put on the market ? For instance, what regulatory agency allowed low down adjustable stated income loans ? Certainly a drug company would not be allowed to put just any old drug on the market ,as a experiment ,just because the drug company decided it would be a money maker .

If the laws allowed for Wall Street to create loan products to be sold on the open secondary market ,and than those same loans to be rated by “conflict of interest ” rating agencies ,than how did that come about ? Usually if you put a faulty product on the market ,like a drug for instance ,your liable .
What regulatory agency was in charge of products put on the market from Wall Street and their greedy hair-brain ideas?
What agency was responsible for law enforcement of fraud in lending ? What agency is responsible for over-site when places like Countrywide doesn’t underwrite loans and has a 37% default rate ? What agency is responsible for truth in advertising when places like the NAR put on a advertising campaign that tells the public ,’Now is a good time to buy “,or,
” Your not using leverage correctly if you don’t buy real estate with your equity in your home .”

My point is that capitalism has always required a strong check and balance system and public protection laws and regulatory agencies to keep the bad guys from conning the public .

Long standing rules of commerce ,etc, were violated during this boom ,but instead of talking about the rules/laws that were violated during this crime wave housing boom ,the politicians want to sweep that aspect under the carpet .Any talk about liability would be calling for the liable parties to be
punished .

With an angry authoritarian social twist.

It’s fascism with a money fetish…

It’s two taste treats in one!

“Another funny thing as I let my emotions get the best of me I called someone stupid who is probably pretty damn smart. Anyway I`ll take it all as a lesson and as you said hope we get the one in D.C. that will screw it up least”.

We all do it… As to the learning part… The day we stop learning we are dead.

Ron Paul voters here pretty much have said they’re going to write in his name.

Mark-to-market in someways is like housing appraisals. Unfortunately, the implicit starting point too often is “what number do we need and how close to that can we get without the lawyers down our throat” and then they work backwards.

I feel bad for young people who were herded into buying in the bubble.

I fell badly for some of them.

I certainly felt some of that pressure in my late 20s from my ex-wife, but we were fortunate to buy at a good time and sell at a good time.

In the younger people I know (I work with a fair number of 20-somethings who make decent salaries) it seems there are three groups: A.) people who can do the math and are biding their time; B.) people who’re goaded by partners or family or peers who use the “buy now or be priced out forever” gambit; and C.) people who feel like they’re entitled to BMWs and exotic locations and granite-studded condos at the ripe old age of 26.

Group A I don’t worry about. Group B I feel badly for if they do succumb to the pressure. Group C? I have no sympathy for them at all.

There is nothing new about his lies. Kind of like his Abe Lincoln quotes.