Is Patience a Virtue... Or Just Missed Opportunity?

Nicholas - Ha, ha, ha... You have a wonderful sense of humor, I love it. Thank you

Joan -  I agree. I just do not know any other. I do not understand the stock market, it is too elusive for me, it is too "paper" to be real.

Charles Stallions Real Estate Services Inc - I did not know and did not hear Mark Cuban until 2-3 weeks ago he said that there are 3 type of people in the marketplace: innovators, imitators, and idiots. That was first time. Now, this was second time I heard him. It is a matter of taste, of course, but he twice impressed me more than both presidential candidates (LOL)

Castellum Realty - Lancaster real estate -  I would be afraid talking about expectations. I remember 4 years ago, when the market was going up very fast, I had a buyer signing a contract on a half million dollar condo and I told him that if he decides to sell in 18 months, when it is built, he would most probably make $100K. He laughed at me, said he was not going to sell, and that he did not care about making money on that.

Then he figured that there was money to be made, and started getting greedy. 6 months later he called me and asked me to put it on the market (even though it was not yet completed) and he wanted... get ready for that: $1,200,000. And when I told him that this was not realistic, he started blaming me for everything.

Expectations are too far from anything objective, it is not even a gray area, it is just plain black (LOL)

Tim -  I agree with you wholeheartedly, and that difference between $1 back 11 years and $1.36 today I feel every time I reach for my waller in the supermarket.

And when I am at the gas pump, I feel like the gap is way bigger than even $1.36 against a buck.

Thank you, you pretty much confirmed what I was saying in disbelief. I gotta learn the realities.

Gita -  neither am I, but I do not have any sizable and meaningful cash, like many people out it is all debt, mortgage, credit cards, loans, so there is nothing for me personally to worry about.

Cecily -  What is your address? (LOL)

Bryant - I can bet you still bought it so that the rent covers (or at least nearly covers) the expenses. i see too often the "investments" where owners have to come up with a grand every month, even thogh they have a tenant.

Our rental market is slow, and you can find rent very cheap. If the rents are covering your expenses, it is great.

Melina - Don't you think that this could be a great retirement plan?

Elizabeth Nieves - I just do not know any other way. Stocks for me are something too close to gamble. I donot have a 6th sense, and it means playing someone else's game. For me it is like going to the casino thinking that you euld beat the odds.

Diane -  I think we all will change the way we look at thing after what we saw recently. The whole notion of stability may be out of the window, and new realities bring new perspectives.

I think real estate can be a safer way to invest, and the problem is with securitized mortgages. Because this way they make it a paper. We see it right now.

Elizabeth - Why is it so unfair that we know the past better than the future? We never have a problem timing the past, and always timing the future. Would've been nice, ha (LOL)

Lynda - you should be the smartest of all of us. I think your approach could be the right one. I am serious.

William -  Thank you for your kind words. By the way, I read that you start your day at 5:30 AM, and it shocked me. That would be the act of heroism for me. I actually went to bed at 4:30 AM that night (well, right now it is 3:25 AM here). I know that it is not the best way, and I come up with all nice plans to change that, starting from next Monday (LOL)

James -  terrific comparison. I understand it. It was not the advice, that surprised me, it is the fact that on September 1966 the value of the stock was the same as 15 years later. I understand that it fluctuates,as well as I understand that real estate is cyclical, however, looks like Real Estate with every cycle is inching higher, meaning that the low of today is on average a bit higher than the lowest in previous cycle (given that we are at the bottom, which we do not know yet), and the high of the last market was higher than the high of the previous one.I think what was new to me is that in the stock market it is not necessarily this way. And you are right, real estate is different in that sense, as it is tied to brick & Mortar, while the stock is a reflection of the market, but it is in paper form. Yes, it is a fraction of many things, but the house is not a fraction, it is tangible, and as such, it has value in it, which can't go down beyond certain level with the bad market.

There is such thing as construction cost, labor, materials, whihc is part of real estate. So, no matter how bad the market is, it is not going to down beyond so much lower than replacement cost. The stock market is reflection upon reflection, and in bad market the values can decrease very substantially, and there is no limit how low they go, until they are worth nothing at all.

Esko -  So far this is my only religion. Thanks for stopping by.

Vadim - Absolutely!