I'm not chuckling at this particular couple because they mismanaged things. I chuckle every time I read the "millionaire in the making" on Money, I chuckle. Because usually the author(s) seem to be confused about what an asset is and what a liability is.
In fact, I can't how many times I've seen an article that xyz is a millionaire in the making, because they have $700k in assets, and are 20'ies./30ies Of course, the fine line is that $600k or so is in "estimated home equity" on a primary home. Psss. cnn/money editor: until you're primary home is paid in full or until you sell your primary home less carrying costs(interest,property taxes,etc)….IT'S A LIABILITY. It would be interesting to see out of all those millionaire in the makings they interviewed, how many of them are still on track. Nevertheless, $1million USD isn't what it use to be, so I don't see the point of these areticles anymore.
As far as the couple featured. i think one thing to point out..What really did the couple have to lose? You had a couple who's future didn't look promising to begin with, so desperate to ride a rollercoaster for $50k. So doing the RE thing that required little skills for quick buck would have been the best thing for them at the time. Yeah, so they will get a ding on their credit. Yeah, they might even have to file for bankruptcy…The only one who's really getting hurt here are the banks and eventually the tax payers.
The problem that I see with all these "rich quick people" is that they seem to be so unaccustomed to new found wealth, that they eventually piss it away faster than they stumbled across it…This is the problem with americans in general. We tend to spend more and at a faster rate than we earn. This would go along the line of those folks you read about who win the lotto only to find them bankrupt 5-10years later.
On the other hand. It's sort of nice to start seeing things return to normal. Real skills, from real experience with real salaries. The RE thing was sort of as irritating as the dot com bubble workers who were paid ridiculous salaries to do eseentially trivial work. Now if they only figured out how to outsource these RE business things to India 🙂 (just kidding).
