MultipleProp, I am pissed with myself (is that called bitter?) for not having bought in 1996, when I could. I made a decision not to buy each year from 1996 through 2007 based on the idea that I couldn’t really afford to pay for the homes I wanted to live in. I could always afford to buy them if I assumed someone else would later pay a lot more. To me, that didn’t seem like a prudent basis for judging affordability.
To figure out how much I could afford, I worked out how much I earned, how much needed to be set aside for current expenses, future retirement and health care and other reasonable contingencies. What was left, added up over the length of the future earning career to which I was prepared to commit, was how much I decided I could afford for a home. This seems like a prudent basis for deciding how much I can afford.
Clearly, those who took on more risk did much better. I am disappointed with the results of my decision, but just as I can’t question the gains reaped by those who made riskier decisions, neither do they have any right to help from me or other taxpayers when their bets start to lose. Efforts to support prices are therefore offensive to me. It makes the whole game unfair, taking from those who choose less risk and giving to those who choose more risk.
