Is there anything less sexy right now than a House Flipping television show ? I have to tell you that my Tivo used to be filled with 20-30 episodes of these shows at any one time, and I could just sit all day and watch them and watch them… as regular “Joes” made thousands and sometimes even tens of thousands of dollars over and over, and with what appeared to be “ease”. I remember watching the lady who was so imcompetent that she took over a year to flip her house… this should have bankrupted her… instead, because she was so dumb lucky, she ended up making an additional 100 thousand dollars above what she originally was trying to make on the flip.
Those days are gone of course, and I wonder if true house flipping will ever return. I wonder if people who can’t afford mortgages will ever be handed them like candy… I wonder if regular folks will own three or four houses at one time, and will for a few months be “moguls”. It all seemed so easy… so unreal. Anyone could do it… so it seemed… everyone was doing it, so it seemed.
Here in 2009, most of us have a much different attitude about housing… we see it often as one of the worst assets… for thousands if not millions, we are upside down on our homes… something unheard of and even unthinkable just a few years ago… now, underwater and drowning in mortgages, Americans are rethinking the “American Dream” and even wondering whether or not owning your own home is a wise investment. Is it wise to purchase such an illiquid asset in todays economic climate ? When almost one in ten has recently lost a job ? When migration to other states or areas of the country is almost a foregone conclusion to get a job… what about a country where bad credit is going to be the norm… where the entire credit rating industry becomes just a moniker of bad grades… how will we as a nation deal with such adversity ?
I have been preaching doom and gloom for quite some time. My tone is unchanged… in fact it is my thought that we are headed much, much, much lower… probably DOW 2000 (yea two thousand), and I see housing prices falling back to 1992 levels. So, that house that you bought for $600,000 in Fontucky will be worth $85,000 in a couple of years. And even then, noone will actually buy it. It will just sit empty for years.
The stock market prognosticators will preach and scream at you to buy, buy, buy at every new low… ignoring the facts that unemployment continues to rise, the economy continues to contract, and our dollar continues to lose value against foreign currency. When the dust finally clears, an entire generation will be devestated and clamoring for socialism, and it will change the entire country for 100 years.
I am saddened by the fact that I will be telling my grandchildren one day about this time period… explaining how no one had jobs, people were losing their homes left and right. No one had any money. Everyone owed credit cards and mortgages out the ying yang… and everything the government did was either unfair (wall street financial bailout) or not effective (raising taxes and infrastructure spending). Socialism will be the final objective and the final desire of our country as the government closes its iron fist on the people while smiling at them and the people lift their open hands and take the government handouts while being shackled at the same time.
Sadness is what I feel. One day it all may change. Hopefully for the better. Who knows. Maybe none of this will happen. Perhaps, it will all turn out ok… I sure hope it does.
And I didn’t even mention 2012.
Mandrake
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