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Housing market predictions anyone?
As a couple we are at a point where we would be given a mortgage of a small size house in the city or a somewhat larger one in a suburb (this is a very expensive Western European capital and collectively we earn upper middle class salary). But the prices are so crazy that whatever we buy would definitely not be enough to raise a decent size family as long as we stay in range for our jobs.
The obvious plan would be to get a mid sized place now and then sell and upgrade to a larger house in 5-10 years.
I am very paranoid that the current prices are a massive bubble and if we get a loan today we will be left holding a massive bag when the prices crash and we won’t be able to meaningfully upgrade to a larger house. But on the other hand throwing a large fraction of our income down the toilet with the rent feels ridiculous when we can afford not to.
I felt this way around 10 years ago. I bought a condo thinking I'd lose money on it. I sold it a few years later for a massive profit with shockingly little tax liability.
Then I bought another place and sold it for another huge financial windfall. Now I'm in another place with enormous unrealized gains that someday I'll sell with much less tax owed than you'd think.
Past performance is not necessarily an indication of future success. But I had your mindset long ago and good thing the woman in my life demanded we buy a place.
We keep importing more people. We keep not building nearly enough to house said people in and around major metro areas. I'd say look at Canada for a glimpse of America's future. Housing prices ain't coming down, except for minor short term crashes here and there that hardly slow down the relentless trend upwards.
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