Those who leveraged that inflated value to buy things that they couldn't have otherwise afforded lost quite a bit.
Know plenty of people like that, glad that I don't live like they do did.
I often used to say to my wife "Look how Bob and Karen are living. They go on expensive vacations every year and buy new cars every two years. How are they doing that?"
Now we know. They walked into the bank three weeks ago, turned in the keys and walked away. Sold everything else they had and are now renting a much smaller house struggling to survive.
They aren't the only ones I know like that. Plenty of both my son's friends and families did the same thing. We turned that into a life-long lesson for them: This is what happens when you live beyond your means and why its important to have savings set aside to get you through the rough times.
That's about the only good that's come from all this that I can think of.
“We turned that into a life-long lesson for them: This is what happens when you live beyond your means and why its important to have savings set aside to get you through the rough times. That’s about the only good that’s come from all this that I can think of.”
Young people today will bear the scars of this “fundamental transformation” for years; they won’t breed, they won’t buy a home, and they’ll probably regard all jobs as temporary in nature.
On a related note, Hispanics and Asians are being imported to compensate for America’s current birthrate of 0.
I didn’t leverage my house but bought more house than I should have and we have been working hard to pay off the mortgage and wait out the recession/depression. Looks like we are going to need to move now so despite having equity, we are going to have a non imaginary loss comparing what we have put into it and lost opportunity on that cash with what we will be able to get out of it.