Housing’s a poor investment. Buy anyway
I was raised to believe that renting amounted to throwing my money away. Buying a home, on the other hand, was an investment — and a safe one.
That was before the biggest housing-market bubble in U.S. history began to collapse, tossing trillions of dollars in wealth out the window.
Nine years later, values in San Diego County still haven’t fully recovered, particularly if you take inflation into account. In fact, prices have to climb an additional 50 percent before they regain the peak reached in November 2005. This means a whole lot of people have lost equity.
However, values are up 29 percent from a bottom reached two years ago. So the market is coming back, just like it did over three lesser downturns since 1980.
This suggests buyer confidence is returning. In all likelihood, most people have great reasons that have nothing to do with money, from bigger kitchens to freedom from cranky landlords.