Nobody disputes that there are a lot of people who are in a stable situation and who are not at risk right now.
However, those people are not participating in the buy-sell market and they have nothing to do with whether the market goes up or down. All the action is on the margins and from what we’re seeing the size of those margins and the pressures being brought to bear are on the increase.
The guy who sold out in 2005 and took his equity out of state basically timed the market and came out ahead. Good for him. Dreams can come true in America. The lady who purchased her home back before the big runup and then leveraged it into the nicer CV home is probably in an okay situation but it might depend on how she set up her financing. If she used an ARM and she has less than 20% down she might end up having a problem at some point.
Bottom line – it’s not how much you make that counts, it’s what you can keep. And timing counts.