I actually do not think it matters if people are bitter or not. You can call them bitter renters or call me a bitter renter ((I do rent even though I own a couple places) oh yeah and I AM MUCH MORE BITTER for not going to Broadcom pre-IPO in the 90's when I had a chance then I am about not leveraging on RE) The mentality and behavior of posters may be driven by personal or emotional matters, however if this depreciation cycle is to act temporally like others in the past then it would be a no brainer to admit we have a long ways to go. Thus the bearish sentiment (whether driven by bitterness or not) is accurate wouldn't you say?
Interesting. I thought I would be alone. You know, I'll admit, I'm pretty bitter. But none of it has to do with real estate. I'm pretty bitter that
1) I quit qualcomm in 98, forfeiting 50% of my options.
2) I quit a startup wireless telco 6 months before it ipo's, forfeiting 50% of my options. Then not selling immediately after the 3 months lockup.
3) Leaving a company 2 months before IONA paid $200 million to acquire it.
4) Joining a b2b/eai company pre-ipo, and waited to exercise and sell shares when the stock was $150/share instead of $400+/share.
MPO and/or RatherOpinionated and/or whoever you feel like being at the next time:
Bitter about real estate? Honey, my grapes are so sour long before real estate bubbles, you couldn't make wine out of them if you tried.
That said, I would say stock options like the RE bubble was nothing more than a game of luck. Some win out of skill. Some that come out ahead did so out of luck. I have long learned you can only be lucky so many times. I'd rather be skillful and be able to build wealth then depend on a shear whim of luck. Hence, one of several reasons why I'm trying to start a company now.
……As far as the original topic…Yeah, I met lots of people at work that I would say are "bitter" for not buying earlier, or upset about prices reaching out of control. In the past, I posted about coworkers that said how much smarter they were for renting, but then had no control on their finances and basically pissed away their savings on crap..One coworker complains about not being able to buy a home but brags about having a $50k worth of DVD collection. Go figure. At the other extreme, I met a lot of idiots who bought 5-6 homes on 100% financing thinking this was so easy to make money and that they would retire so early on RE flipping and temp workers quiting to be RE agents. It was pretty crazy. Needless to say, we sort of know how they're doing now.
Frankly, my philosophy is simple. Whatever floats you're boat. But if you piss on the floor, you don't expect me to clean up after you….. And here lies the problem.
People pissed their money away on dodgy loans that they couldn't afford, didn't take the time to understand them, and now expect everyone else to clean up after their mess. Sorry, these people aren't kids who aren't potty trained. They're adults who should wipe their own mess off the floor. I don't enjoy cleaning up after my own messes I make, let alone be expected to cleanup after someone else. This bailout not only makes others cleanup the mess from people with bladder problems, when it's all said and done, those messy people won't even learn that they need to wear an undergarment!
