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

To: JakeStraw who wrote (27769)	3/4/2005 5:36:42 PM
From: RealityNotFantasy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

WARNING: Pride, Arrogance - Showing Off may cause you to make unsound financial decisions............. You wrote: "Then why did your cousin buy it if he/she can't afford it? Isn't that akin to all the dopes who max out their credit cards & then cry about about it like someone twisted their arms to get them into more debt than they could handle?" IMHO... I totally agree with you but this is the mentality these days anywhere, LOL! If you can afford the monthly payments, go for it, don't even think about the long term costs. On a side note, this is also the same cousin who has a two door sportscar and a two door small pick up truck for family cars. That means if the baby sits up front in his/her car seat, they have to shut off the front passenger air bag with a key. Mainly, the people I know who have purchased homes the past few years (esp. the ones who really can't afford it) have purchased because they don't want to get left behind. Keepin' up with the Jones'.... It is so typical that after they buy it, they spend thousands on brand new designer home furnishings and show it off to family and friends. Yet, its so obvious that they must've either borrowed to the hilt or added more balance to their credit cards in order to pull it off. I've learned that showing off will cost me money and the showing off gets old quickly ;) Not a very good investment imho. I think I am surrounded by friends and family who have big egos..lol. I'm not jealous; I'm content with what I have :) I have a friend who purchased a home a couple of years ago and likes to tell people how his property is now worth $20,000 more than when he purchased it. BUT, get this, once he found out how much his property was worth, he went out and purchased a $25,000 SUV. Then, tells everyone that he wants to move up to a bigger place and utilise his $20,000 home equity. According to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary: Equity: the money value of a property or of an interest in a property in excess of claims or liens against it. Financial Ignorance: This person just spent over and above his recent RE appreciation on that SUV, how can he use it to fund a bigger place? Yes, the equity is technically still there but practically speaking he's already spent it on the SUV. He had a perfectly good 6 year old car (paid off) with only 40,000 miles on it. I see it as a wash because once he moves up to a bigger place, his mortgage payments may stay the same BUT he now has a car payment. More than likely, his mortgage payments will go up AND he will also have that car payment. Same person, different story. This person goes out and spends something like $200 on eating out for three straight days in a row with his girlfriend and complains how expensive eating out is. I said, "Why don't you guys stay in and cook?". His response, "Do you know how much groceries cost?". LOL. Financial Ignorance once again: Eating in is typically cheaper than eating out.... If my girlfriend had not stopped me from responding, I would've said, "For $200, two people can eat heartily for about 2 weeks if they know how to buy and cook food prudently". I typically eat in for practical reasons. It makes me wonder sometimes how he survives working in banking. Perhaps, you don't have to have business / common sense in banking? The funny thing is this person thinks he's also a financial expert. Keep dreaming...LMAO! The bottom line is showing off costs money! Just my two cents...