[quote=no_such_reality]Yes, if they hadn’t spent part, not all, I thought I heard the bank was eating like $90K on the short sale, which means they had something like $650K financed. That’s on a home valued at one point at $1.1M, and pretty consistently two year plus run at million+.

His situation was pretty simple, he worked in a industry that vaporized. Vaporized basically overnight and stayed vaporized for 3+ years.

You can talk trash about buying investment properties, but frankly, you’re talking out of your *ss. As inexperienced landlords, there wasn’t anything they were buying around here, or phoenix, or any other market at that time. And I know plenty of people that did just that, in Phoenix, Vegas, Detroit, etc, all lost their backside.

The only thing they could have done was not tap basically $800K in equity. And most of you are already on record for how stupid you think that is when ‘investment’ properties are around.

In the end, the problem they had was very simple, he lost a job, in an industry that he had 20 years of experience in and wasn’t hiring anyone for 3+ years.

So yea, the world falls apart on you, you don’t have a job, you’re burning up your savings, and the house you’ve raised your family in for the last 11 years, has lost $500K of equity and you’ve only got a $100K of equity left.

You’ve got omnipotent hindsight balls, I’m sure you’d pull the trigger and sell, knowing without a job you can’t find a rental, can’t get another loan for a new place and ‘give it away’.

The denial is strong in this thread with the posters.[/quote]

My solution is simple…. I don’t plan on living past 55-60….It simplifies a lot of things…. My 401k becomes my kid’s inheritance, and my kid’s college is paid by the 529plan… Life insurance makes up a little more, and the remaining money should be able to pay off all homes free and clear…..And there’s plenty of extra-curricular activities I have that I know could guarantee with 99.9% accuracy that that will happen 🙂