During the real estate boom, many investors got caught up in the mania of buying real estate. In 2005, people I knew were going into the real estate industry left and right. Many seemed surprised that I elected not to buy any property.

Whenever someone asked me why I didn’t own real estate, I would simply point out that no properties near me cash flowed. I first started blogging about real estate in 2003, noting that a property in the same condo complex where I was renting was actually more money to own than to rent. I pointed out, correctly, that this meant I could not possibly cash flow on it as a rental with a 30-year fixed mortgage. (Those condos have already lost value, as I predicted, and are poised to drop further.)

Even though many looked at me like I was crazy for “throwing my money away”, I continued to rent. In August 2006, I predicted the real estate crash year by year, and also predicted that I would buy a house in late 2010. So far, my predictions have been eerily accurate; I predicted that Fannie and Freddie would crash, housing values would drop by at least 35%, and saw the recession coming.

I spent hundreds of hours accumulating data, confident that the coming crash would represent one of the biggest opportunities to buy property in our lifetimes. Here, I take my accumulated knowledge and answer your five most common questions about buying real estate. (more…)

How do you envision your future retirement?

Some shocking statistics recently caught my eye. The median IRA balance is just $55,000, and the median 401(k) balance is just $15,000. Baby boomers are working longer, since most do not have enough saved to retire comfortably. And, given the statistics, it’s likely you are in the same boat.

Why is it that so few of us save enough for retirement? Why are we so woefully underprepared? (more…)

In August 2006, I predicted U.S. real estate and economy news for 2007. I made some shocking predictions.

Perhaps the most interesting prediction I made was comparing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to Enron. I thought then, and still do believe, that this will make Enron look like chump change. (more…)

Combing through the questions you — my fabulous readers — ask me, I find one common thread. I write a lot of posts on real estate, but you want fewer esoteric graphs and articles and more common-sense advice. Fair enough. By the time you’re done reading this, you’ll have an excellent idea of exactly when higher-priced houses will fall in price, and you’ll have an armload of data to assist you in determining when a house is priced correctly — no matter where it is or what its price. (more…)

A rather unfortunate incident turned into a source of entertainment for me today…

The unfortunate incident was that my old desktop computer, which I set up in 2006 and used pretty much every day since, finally gave up the ghost. Therefore, I spent most of this weekend setting up a new desktop system (a Shuttle SX38P2 Pro with an Intel E8400 processor overclocked to 3.4GHz/1600MHz FSB, if you’re curious.)

While setting up my new desktop, I decided it was probably time to “clean house” a bit and go through all my old documents. I spent a few hours weeding out over 50GB (!) of no-longer-needed files. While digging through archives of documents I had saved, I came across a gem: A PDF report from the National Association of Realtors, which is dated November 28, 2005. (more…)