admitting it

Have you ever talked to someone before 2007 who said "I got a terrible deal on my house" or "When I sold my house I really got hosed".  Everybody always got a great deal, if it's a buyer they were an early mover or nobody knew certain things that they knew.  If they were the seller somebody bought it right away or they held out for the right buyer...

The interesting thing is, in 2007, or 2008 or 2012 or whenever people finally bit the bullet and realized that they bought a ridiculously overpriced box to put their other boxes in, people finally started to admit that they had been hosed.  It was because the math was so aggressive nobody could spin it anymore.  I knew a lot of people who lost 40% of their house value.  If you are an average American, many people lost the equivalent of throwing away the next five cars they purchase.

But we are all so tied in to the belief system that includes owning a home that we just grind away.

I moved recently, I'm renting for a grand a month.  Throwing twelve thousand bucks a year down the toilet.  That is how much commission is paid out to real estate agents on the sale of a two hundred thousand dollar house.  I'm not hating on real estate agents, I'm just saying let's be careful about what we consider money down the toilet.

Or there is the roof I'm never going to replace.

Or the 1.3% average property tax rate I'm never going to pay.  That tax by the way is on an asset that is sometimes deprecating.  Imagine if after the stock market took a dive the government told you there was a tax on the gross amount of stock that you owned and they got to decide the value of the stock (whether or not you could sell it for that).  We accept this every year with our homes.

The relativity of money has been lost in two major areas for my generation, homes and education.  We throw ourselves into six figures worth of debt for both and neither are giving us anything.  We are wholesale working for the banks in this country, but hey, at least the rates are low.

The difficult part with renting is right up front you have to admit that you should probably get ahead in some other fashion.  But with home ownership, you can send that check off to the bank and feel like you are getting traction when in fact you almost never are.  The place I live now was purchased for $166k four years ago, the one right down the street (that is exactly the same because we are on original Americans) just went on the market for $95k.  I could rent at a thousand bucks a month for the next six years and that would only break me even, not including taxes, maintenance, realtor fees etc.

But you know what's crazy, I walked past the one that just went on the market, pulled out my cell phone and called the real estate agent.  I started feeling this romantic feeling about owning again.  I started thinking about how much cheaper than renting it would be...

We are brainwashed, I push so hard to try and put myself into situations that only hurt me.  I don't know how to unbrainwash.  I woke up at 5am panicked because I don't think I'm making progress in my life.  Is progress paying a bank most of an income I hate making?