This is a great website.

I was absolutely floored last night.. for kicks I follow the real estate markets, here, CA and FL... wow, wow..

I put in some of my old addresses, an areas that our friends and relatives still live in....

They have lost so much in such a short time.. some of them have lost between $100 - $300 in equity in only One Year depending on the area.

30 days = $10-$15K gone

Most of them have refinanced and are big time upside down.... it's crazy.

I don't think they lost $100-$300K as much as I think they overpaid by that much. Ouch.

I bought my house in Southern California in 2001 and by 2006 it had appreciated -- from an already expensive base -- about 75%.

Since that time, things have really dropped by my home is still worth about 25% more than I paid for it.

Unless you bought after 2005 and/or took a lot of perceived equity out in the form of loans, most people have a fair amount of equity. And for anyone that bought early in the 90's, many, many are still millionaires in terms of home equity.

I'd love to buy another investment property but things are still plenty expensive here; relative to other markets, that is.

Yeah, it is nuts.

We bought in DC in 1998 - 150,000.000 That would have bought about a $75,000.00 house in OKC - maybe less.

In 2003 we moved and bought another house. A renter completely trashed the first house but someone who was speculating bought it "as is" for $350.000 in 2004. Utterly insane. We never even put it on the market - the buyer came to us with money in hand and an offer. We didn't even have an agent.

Meanwhile, we paid $340,000 for this house in 2003, dropped another $40,000 in it for repairs (it was trashed). Houses on this block were selling for 100,000 less the year before. In 2005, houses sold for $650,000 on this block (and this is one of the nicer houses). Would have been a nice time to sell. The housing market crashed and we could probably get about 390 - 400 for it, now. Maybe. Prices continue to drop.

Meanwhile, back in Oklahoma City, Husband bought a little house in 1980. We sold it last year and made...get ready... $4,000.00 on it.