I never cease to be amazed at how many people in bubble markets thought that the appreciation would never end. It’s as though people have absolutely no common sense. How in the hell can you continue to sell houses (or any product) to people if they don’t have the income to actually pay back the loan? It’s like a bunch of first grader’s playing with Monopoly money. What’s sad is that I have friends who live in CA and FL who believed that prices would just keep going up with no end in site. I warned them back in 2004 that they probably had less than two more years before this giant Ponzi scheme started blowing up…………None took my advice. I took my own advice and cashed out of my Leucadia home in the early spring of 2005 and moved to the high-country part of SC where housing prices are sane, taxes are cheap and we have everything that we had in CA…………except for the great coastal weather. I do NOT have one ounce of sympathy for the people who bought into this foolishness.
