The RE market here has me confused. My wife has been reading the dismal headlines for the last year and thinks that we need to sell our home in South Carlsbad and either buy a foreclosure or short sale “steal” or rent a similar property for 30-50% less than our mortgage. Ran into a couple problems and selling our home isn’t one of them. In fact, we have two parties that would buy our house if we were to move. Based on a couple recent sales nearby it would be a great price. The problem is finding a replacement property that is anywhere near as nice as what we have for a price that we consider a bargain. Rents for decent, newer SFD homes are running $1.20 – $1.30 a sq foot and that’s what we pay for our mortgage so renting gets us nothing and we’d have to move to a new neighborhood whereas we love the area we’re in so the rental path does not work. Finding a foreclosure would mean we would have to sell, rent, and then be ready to pounce on something when we see it. That means two moves, storing our furnishings for a while, and not being assured we’d find something that comes close to the lifestyle we currently enjoy. Again it just doesn’t make sense. The big surprise to me was how much rents have increased. I expected lots of empty houses in 92009 and 92024, but we’re not there yet. Maybe in 2009 after more resets or will everyone inlcuding the banks be bailed out by then?