Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Markham
What it established was the economy was sliding and 13 years later only a tiny few are better off. Is the real economy any stronger?
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I think you might be off a little bit on your timeline; It hasn't been thirteen years. It's been eight or nine.
Only a few are better off? Seven years ago my town was a ghost town because so many people here lost their houses. Since 2000 or so, our town grew 290% and was one of the fastest growing towns in the country - Which means lots of new development, lots of new houses, which means.... Lots of new crappy loans. So many people lost their homes that it was creepy. We had two large condo complexes that they had started worked on, and just stopped working on them - just left the frames up and walked away. We had a restaurant that had the same issue (they never did return to build it). We had multiple shopping centers built that stood empty for years. Now all of the houses are occupied again, the condo complexes are built, the stores are filling up - They are even tearing down the old Mimi's Restaurant and building an In & Out Burger.
Are we at where we were in 2005? No, of course not. This is not something you can flip a switch and fix. This will take years to fix. I paid $500k for my house, it's worth half of that. It's not going to go back to what I paid for it instantly just because the economy is improving... It will take time. We have to work our way back to where we were. Everything is stable now, and we are getting better.
People will point out bad numbers, but... there will always be bad numbers. Always. Most of the numbers are good. That is what we need to see.