My blood pressure is 190/120 and I need to start taking better care of myself!
I think you already know the answer to your question. There are two reasons driving the decision that trump all others: 1) ensuring good health; 2) protecting your family from a great economic depression.
Have you fully considered the second of those two reasons? Yes, you are a doctor; life has always been good; it seems no way this economic meltdown will hit you in extreme ways….but in fact, you should assume it will hit you hard, if you don’t take extreme measures to avoid that.
The FOMC itself has even implied that economic data is now so dire that a 1929-style economic depression must be treated as a distinct possibility, and the FOMC has now told us it is unleashing all extreme measures to prevent that possibility.
When such conservative economic decision-making committees reach such an extreme conclusion, you should also take prudent (and extreme) measures to protect your family’s financial security.
Assume all bets (that upcoming years will be “normal”) are off; that really anything that happened during the last Great Depression could happen in the next few years, and we could get hit with additional unforeseen and horrible events that didn’t even happen in the 1929 era. Look at the extreme events that already unfolded before our eyes in 2008. This has been insane, and it will get worse before better.
You sell your house now, not because property values will probably fall another 10%, but because it is in the realm of possibility that home values might fall another 50%.
You sell because during the Great Depression tens of millions, including great doctors, lost their jobs, then lost their houses.
You sell because the dollar could crash by 90% (or more) over the next 5-10 years, and owning an American home means exposing yourself to a massively declining currency.
You sell to hoard cash in a SAFE and liquid investment form, to survive the worst of what lies ahead. You sell to get the equity into investments that will not suffer but will prosper during these extreme economic conditions. For example, you diversify a portion into gold investments.
You sell because people like me are telling you to sell, and we have great track records. I sold our San Diego home at the top of the real estate market, and then rented it back from the investor who bought it, and enjoyed living in it as the landlord watched what was now his property fall in value by 50%. You listen because I saw the financial crisis coming three years ago so I successfully shorted the markets and so appreciated my 401K by 50% this year (including commission costs). You listen because you know what I’m writing makes good common sense.
Consider this: On Monday this coming week I will turn my back on a nice six-figure job. My bosses love me. They give me great raises and last week dropped an unbelievable option grant on me that is already in the money.
But on Monday I will tell them I’m leaving them to transfer to completely separate business unit of our company. They will be extremely pissed off, but I’m willing to pay that price. I’m moving out of a recession-sensitive business segment into a recession-INsensitive BU with revenue stream from long-term medical product contracts. I’m leaving a cushy fly-on-the-corporate-jet, high-status job, to move back into a boring, grunt-engineer-in-the-trenches job. But I’m gaining JOB SECURITY. It is the smart move.
You either get out of the way of the financial Tsunami to help your family survive it, because if you don’t you risk seeing it all get blown away.
