Originally Posted by Rochard

It was getting silly. I bought a house in Phoenix in 2002 for $220. Average house. Two years later on paper it's worth $500k. That's stupid that an average house doubles in two years.

And I understood why. It was simple. Bank makes loan to buy for someone to buy house. The fact that they didn't qualify didn't matter. They make the payments for a year, default, and then the bank turns around and sells the house to someone else - at a profit. It was win win for them. Right up to the point where the value of the houses started to drop.

I've never understood why the value of a house goes up, while cars go down. They can build my exact house anywhere in the country with the blueprints. In the mean time, my house gets abused, beat up, is missing tiles from the roof, worn, has nicks in the walls, carpet needs replacing, etc etc etc etc.... And yet it's worth more? Meanwhile, try building yourself a brand new 1965 Ford Mustang? You can't.

It makes no sense. An old house that they can build next week brand new goes up in value, while a car that they will never ever make again goes down in value? That's backwards.