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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JBTFD who wrote (7260)	12/11/2002 5:16:04 PM
From: reaper	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 306849

(i) if 'forced savings' is such a benefit, may i suggest you start mailing me $1000 every month that i will hold for you and give you back in 5 years. you really should do it, 'cause you'll be better off. (ii) the tax benefits of a mortgage interest deduction are small, especially for a single parent earning $42k with two kids and a large standard deduction. as noted in my prior post, the tax benefits are SMALLER than her increased monthly payment. (iii) your note on fixed residential cost is, in general, true. that said, i would note that in this SPECIFIC case her payment increases 20% in two years to $1260 from $1060 (sorry, that's actually a 19% increase), likely a hell of a lot more than rent was likely to go up (presumably you are aware that rents are actually declining nationwide right now). i would also note that this point is based on an HISTORICAL precedent of real estate inflation, which may or may not be the case going forward. i bet there are a lot of people in Japan right now who wish they hadn't FIXED their housing costs in 1988. (iv) the woman highlighted in the article is a single mom with two kids and couldn't scrape together $5 grand for a down payment. home improvements?? come on. your post actually makes my point wonderfully. it repeats all the pat answers, completely lacking in intellectual rigor, for why we should invest in real estate, no matter what the cost. change the words a little bit and it is exactly the same post i got from stock-market (especially tech-stock) apologists in 1999. Cheers