My husband and I were some of the lucky ones who purchased a house in 2001 when the market was normal, the prices would now have seemed dirt cheap and unbelievable. The problem is that even though we bought at the right time we knew we could never afford to buy a new home because the costs have quadrupled and even if we sold for a profit, we couldn't afford the mortgage on the cost of a new home at the recent prices.
Well recently foreclosure rates in our area have skyrocketed, prices have dropped, and interest rates are low. We saw this as a chance to jump on the opportunity to buy before prices went back up. The depressing thing is that virtually all homes in our area are being sold by banks who have foreclosed on local homeowners. House after house we toured looked abandoned and I could picture the families who had lived there no longer being able to afford their mortgages and 2nd mortgages, upside down in their payments, no longer seeing their home as an investment and deciding to give up. Here we were looking to purchase at a fraction of what they owed. Doesn't really seem fair but I guess it's the way the cookie crumbles.
