But That Was Then, Today It's Different

Well, I am heading out on a short vacation and seeing as how tempers are flying, people are getting scared, and because I don't want to babysit this blog while I'm gone, I am going to turn off comments for now. But I will leave you with this tidbit I found over in the DataQuick press release archives -- it's a snippet of a lengthy table:

Those percentages in the "Loss" columns are the percentage of sellers who lost money on the sale of their house... sellers who had to write a check at closing. Yep, Marin wasn't as bad as some other places (and I doubt it will be any different this time around), but tell that to all the people who lost money. I guess 13 years ago Marin wasn't immune or even all that special; not like today.

And just think, back then the market tanked for real reasons like a recession and job losses and all the rest. Today we don't even have that as an explanation; the economy is doing great we are told and everyone is so much wealthier today (thanks to all that "wealth creation technology").

But it seems prudent to take into consideration the facts that the numbers are so much bigger today, the debts (as compared to income) so much greater, and the loan types so much flakier...