DaCounselor, but your scenario is very similar to the scenario I described as well. How many people you know bought in 99 and sell now without rolling it into another house? If you don’t have the profit in cash, then it’s just paper gain. Your example is picking buyers at the bottoms selling at the top. So was my example, pure and simple. It’s all theoretically. I know several people personally who got a tone of stock options, cashed out at the top and retire. Those are just as real as your buyer in this case. Except the people I know took that money, bought a house for cash and take the rest of their profit to live off until they die. So the next time you take this gravy example of home ownership to show how much it’s better than the stock market, don’t forget that we’re at the peak of one of the largest RE bubble in the last century. Lets see who will fair better in 10 years when this bubble play itself out. Paper gain doesn’t count.
