Another serious issue is that folks want problems fixed on their terms.

On the Sidelines said…

I don’t think wanting housing prices to return to reasonable levels is wanting problems fixed on terms.

“Sidelines” then goes on to support Steve’s real point which is that we don’t really want to give up anything to have a better financial future. There’s always some excuse for why we’re going to play this no-win housing cost game to the end.

Think back 100 or 200 years.

What did our immigrant ancestors do when faced with this type of situation? Piss and moan and do nothing? (“The market for piano tuners is terrible in the Oklahoma Territory and I hear the Sioux are a bunch of anti-Irish racists. And I was born here. So I’m staying here famine or no famine!”)

Did they suffer an intolerable situation until they ended up in the poorhouse or starved? No! They went somewhere new to start a new life. It wasn’t easy. There was hardship, loneliness, violence, disease and bigotry. Did they worry about whether they could bring the family pet? Hell, they planned to sell, milk or butcher the family “pet” if need be.

We are an awfully spoiled bunch of whiners today. But then, our forefathers didn’t have the easy credit that we do. If they had maybe it would have been “The Spacious 5B 3.5Ba House on the Prairie” for the Ingalls family.

I knew way back in the 90’s that rents were waaaay outta wack with incomes but people were happy to just get friends to share apts. with as roomates.

I live in Brooklyn NY and I used to blame the people that put up with those rents and shared housing to be the cause of high rents. But later, I figured out that housing prices, flippers and financing that enabled them are more to blame.

The sad part about it is that Americans as a whole don’t know who to fight so we end up fighting each other. We are a divided and fully a conquered people.

Another serious issue is that folks want problems fixed on their terms.

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I don’t think wanting housing prices to return to reasonable levels is wanting problems fixed on terms. If you didn’t think the housing market was in a bubble you wouldn’t be on this blog. Your overly simplistic suggestion to simply move out of state is just that, overly simplistic. It doesn’t in any way help the housing market as a whole. California, especially SoCal is and has been where people come from all over this country. They come for the weather. They come for the fame and fortune of the movie/TV industry. Who knows why else they come, but they do and they will keep coming.

I was born here. I work in an industry that does not exist anywhere else. All of my family is here. Could I move out of the state? It wouldn’t be impossible. But what is the incentive? To buy a house in a town where I can’t find a job in an industry I have been working in for almost 20 years for probably less than half of what I’m earning now, several hours from anyone in my family. Wow – that sounds like a great plan… That will fix the bubble in SoCal.