I’m on the hook for two mortgages right now - bought a foreclosure in November which was an ideal house for our growing family at a cheap price, but have not yet sold the old place. This was a personal move, not an investment - I thought we were in great shape until the market tanked (although we bought the old house 8 years ago and have been aggressivly paying down the mortgage, so even if I had to sell it much lower than I had anticipated, it would still be OK.) But, the tigher lending standards, which I think are great, have me worried - potential buyer traffic has been slow as it is. Cashflow-wise we’re still positive, but barely with the 2 mortgages.
Work is OK - I work for a large consulting firm that recently went through a small round of layoffs, but most of them were strategic rather than market based - I’m still plenty busy. My wife is in school and will graduate next year with a PharmD, and there is no shortage of jobs for pharmacists. Next year can’t come soon enough 
The decline in property values is been nowhere near what it was in the late '80s. That was a truly epic meltdown, where properties in some towns lost three-quarters of their value. Even the worst-hit towns today have seen drops that are much more modest – at a guess, 30%. Most towns have seen drops that are more like 10% or less, and that’s after years and years of the prices marching upwards. When I look around at property for sale in my town, I’m staggered by how high the prices still are – like half a million for a dowdy turn-of-the-century two-family on a postage-stamp lot.
So it doesn’t feel to me like Massachusetts is reeling. I’m personally feeling no ill effects, knock on wood.
It seems like we’ve always zigged when everyone else was zagging. We couldn’t afford to buy a house in Chicagoland when everyone was taking out jumbo mortgages. Nor could we buy into the dot.com mania - so we avoided the bust.
For the moment, things are fairly stable with us ::knock wood::. We’re getting by on one salary, have minimal debt, and should start getting ahead once the kids are in school and I can earn money, too.
Of course, that assumes we avoid accidents, ill health and massive home repair bills. Last year we paid out almost $6k in medical bills (which is, of course, chicken feed compared to what some people have to deal with); year before that, it was $3k in house issues.
If the real estate market turns around tomorrow, then I agree with you. What we’ve seen so far has been a fairly short (albeit painful) downturn in the housing market. If it goes back to business as usual fairly soon, then by this time next year we will have forgotten all about this.
I just happen to think that this is only the beginning. It seems to me that the number of foreclosures we are seeing are already well in excess of the peak of those in the late '80s; perhaps that is only my perception. And don’t forget that these things tend to accelerate over time; less tax base for cities and towns due to devalued or abandoned real estate means higher taxes for those remaining, putting additional stress on those who are just getting by.
And now an economist is saying that we are in the deepest recession we have seen since WWII. Which if true means that it is the worst that I (and probably most people here) have ever lived through.
My job is fine and secure - I work for the gov’t. In theory, I could retire in less than 2 years, but this plummeting market killed part of my retirement (my 401k equivalent) so while not feeling doomed, I’m pretty much resigned to working longer than I’d hoped. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not a big deal, and I’m much more fortunate than a lot of folks. On the other hand, I was hoping to start a second career as a stay-at-home grandma (assuming my daughter makes that a reality) but it may not happen now.
So, no, I don’t feel doomed. Just a little disappointed.
I’m doing fine. I’m in a job I really like a lot and I’ve tripled my salary in 8 years, with plenty of room to advance further.
I bought a townhouse in 2001 and sold it last November for almost double. We’re renting right now waiting for the housing market to keep falling. There are tons of foreclosures in Northern Virginia, especially out here in Prince William County. My agent keeps showing me houses that sold 2 or 3 years ago for 600-700K that are sitting vacant with no offers at 400K. I’ve got a 800 FICO and 20% to put down. So, for me the housing market is wonderful.
As others have mentioned, my market investments have taken a beating, but I won’t be retiring for another 20-25 years, so no biggie there. The issue that is looming is putting a kid through college starting in the fall, and the 529 account is down.
I have a car note at 0.7% that will be paid off this year. No other debt at all. At least nothing that doesn’t get paid off every month. I’ve got a great health insurance plan.
Things are rolling along just great.
I’m slightly nervous, but I was slightly nervous in the salad days too. I have emotional issues when it comes to money, my parents are well enough off, but we struggled for a long time when I was younger and their parents struggled to the day they died so there’s a lot of mental baggage about money in my head. I work to stop that, but in a way money is my master, I am not the master of my money.
That means I don’t have any credit cards, my car is nearly paid for and will be driven until it gives up the ghost, and while we did just buy a house in July we’re planning on being here for quite some time so the market fluctuations don’t worry me as much as so far as the value of the home, but both my girlfriend and I work in the real estate world (she as a loan underwriter and I as an escrow officer at a title company) and it wouldn’t take much for either of us to get shot in the back of the head career wise at a moments notice. I’ve been really thinking about finding a new line of work soon since it worries me that we both have our work eggs in the same basket. She has the better paying job and she could pay all the bills if needed, thank goodness, so I suppose we’re alright, but we are staring down the chasm of the current unrest so we worry just a little.
I’m very optimistic. Pretty good for a building contractor in this day and age. Had a great year last year, and I’m hiring more people this year. (Anyone need a job?)
If I’ve learned anything during this market, it’s you have to be able to adapt. By the time this shakes out, most of the morons should be weeded out of the construction business, and we’ll be sitting pretty.
I work in a law firm that specializes in representing banks in foreclosures, so I have a lot of job security right now. We are at record levels of business, and the three partners each take a salary of $100K per month (that’s secret info leaked to me through a source in the accounting department).
I, in my esteemed opinion, am woefully unperpaid, but my bills are paid. I’m renting right now, but intend to buy a home in about a year and a half. While I need to keep working to keep up with my expenses (I can’t afford to lose my job), I am putting money into a RothIRA and a savings account, so these are moving in the right direction. I’m very impatient about my fiscal situation, but I’m also grateful for my good fortune.
I guess I’m young enough to be optimistic. I’m not fantastically wealthy but I’m doing ok. Most of my income goes to food, rent/utilities, and essentials; I don’t have any bad shopping habits or money-sucking hobbies like I used to. I’m able to put away money every year-- not a lot, but nothing to sniffle at, either. My SO will be switching to part-time employment when he starts school, but it’s not like we’re dependent on our two incomes to get by. I think we’ll be fine. If we moved somewhere with a lower cost of living, we’d be doing even better, but I think we like LA too much right now to leave.
I’m doing okay, but it could have gone the other way had I bought real estate a couple of years ago. I dodged that bullet completely by chance*. As it stands, I have about a year’s worth of living expenses saved up, and my job is secure for at least the next four years. However, my 401K is bleeding profusely, and I’m thinking that maybe I won’t be retiring in nine years.
- I’d been working off the old rules of thumb about mortgage-to-income ratios, had heard that real estate prices were skyrocketing, but didn’t realize how crazy the lending standards had gotten. I just assumed everyone else was much better at managing their money than I was.
I’m doing just fine. Extremely secure job, no mortgage or car payment, enough saved to pay for my kids’ college, investments doing fine. Doesn’t bother me at all to see a bunch of folks who saw fit to live on credit get handed their lunch. I’ll be on the golf course.
I’m doing okay. Absolutely no debt (achieved after a six-year slog out of my own personal credit crisis). I rent. I have no car; I travel everywhere on the bus. I’m aware that I will probably never have the income to buy a house, but after seeing what house-buyers are going through, that doesn’t seem so bad. I’m saving money, I’m taking courses and planning a trip to Europe.