I wanted to buy in 1999, when a beautiful one-bed, 4-room vintage condo in my Chicago nabe could be had for about $50K.

Now the very same unit sold for $160K in 2005, and sellers of comparables are just now breaking down to $140K.

As I am a middle-aged single woman who suffered a business catastrophe in the 90s and am now a salaried manager, I have been in no mood to be bold. I couldn’t buy in 1999 because of forementioned disaster, and by the time I had recovered my income and credit, the prices were moving way past me.

Call me a stodgy midwesterner, but I subscribe to the 30-year-fixed for no more than 3X your income gospel, and though the prices on these beautiful vintage condos may seem absurdly cheap in SoCal, they are still out of my range. 80% of the recent buyers of condos in my ‘hood, all teachers, managers, whatever making $45K to $75K a year, bought with “creative” mortgages, for they couldn’t afford these modest places any other way.

I passed. I made 4 extremely lowball offers, but I wouldn’t go higher because I wasn’t feeling suicidal. I’m glad.

If 4X your income is too much to be financed on a 30-year-fixed, how insane is 10X your income.

Now, I realize that half the folks in the USA are to the left of the I.Q. divide. However, you do not need even 5th grade arithmetic to figure that you can’t make a $5500/month nut on an income of $1500 a month. If Andrew Carnegie, a grade-school dropout, could build one of the most powerful and successful industrial combines in the world, do you really need 4 years of college to figure out that payments as big, or bigger, than your monthly income don’t work? Do you need a degree in economics to do 8th grade arithmetic?

I had and have no intentions of becoming a flipper. All I want is a condo that is exactly like my beautiful rental, for a price that is in line with the target market for such a place and with payments not more than incrementally larger than my monthly rent.

So I might rent a little while longer, especially since the places around here I could reasonably afford are such a steep comedown from my rental.

Your friend is F___d. Period. Of course, you know that already.

Yes, things are starting to get a bit testy. I live in Northern California and many around here think they are immune from this insane housing bubble. It ain’t so. This thing is just starting and will probably take 5 or so years to play out. Patience is the keyword for future home buyers. For those of you who are still renting and saving, you have every right to be outraged over any proposed bailout of sub prime borrowers and others. To think some politicians want to prop up the housing market at the expense of people who were prudent or for whatever reason, did not partake. And, by proxy, in the process we all get to bail out those who made these bad loans. Its a win-win for everyone except the taxpayer. Its total insanity. By the way, I was one of those who purchased in 1995 and made almost $1 million on our home. Ain’t it great. Problem is, my daughter, a college graduate can barely afford rent. Most of her friends are in the same position. I hope the bottom falls out of this ridiculous RE market even if it means I take a hit also. Such unmitigated BS!