Buying a house is really

investing using lots of leverage. You put down a small percentage and get a loan several times larger. It is kind of like buying stocks on margin. The difference is of course - one, you live in the house, two, the house is not as liquid, people don't buy and sale as often as with stocks. But still it is a lot of leverage. Which means if the market goes up, you small downpayment as investment gets high returns, but when the market goes down, you loose big too-unless you tough it out by keeping up the mortgage payments and wait it out until the market recovers-which can take many years. People were known to just give up and walk out of the house when they can not keep up the mortgage payments.

Bottom line is like buying stocks you have to gauge your ability to take risks. There is no garantee that the housing market is only a one way up steet.

所有跟帖： 

• However, renting is losing -dfieja0efj- ♀ (44 bytes) () 03/16/2005 postreply 08:56:18

• 你错了。原则是：如果价格长，房东合算。降或不长，房客赚。 -要算了再说。- ♀ (0 bytes) () 03/16/2005 postreply 09:06:05

• true -agree123- ♀ (0 bytes) () 03/16/2005 postreply 09:07:24

• But anyway, you have to pay -dfjeoijwfo- ♀ (31 bytes) () 03/16/2005 postreply 09:07:38

• just something. -agree123- ♀ (20 bytes) () 03/16/2005 postreply 09:18:52

• no, that's not true. -depends- ♀ (251 bytes) () 03/16/2005 postreply 11:15:38

• 非常正确。人们总是假设长，不考虑降。买了股票的人们总吹嘘赚， -没人说赔的经历。- ♀ (0 bytes) () 03/16/2005 postreply 09:10:14