Hear, hear, wanngo.  If it's not the BF, it will be something else.  Exponential human growth can't be sustained, just do the math.  We're losing our Ice Caps, we're losing our Biodiversity.  Did you know that we are living during a Mass Extinction Event?  They call it the Holocene Extinction, and it coincides with the emergence of Homo Sapiens.

    This housing bubble is now unwinding and home prices are falling - traditionaly after a bubble the asset deflates by 80% or more?

Do you mean to say your house loses 80% of it's value? That is so off base I can't even entertain an answer to that. Sorry, that's just not the case. If by "traditionally" you mean the real estate bubble in the late 80's, I believe prices dropped maybe 20% tops.
If we're talking about millions of people dying, that puts a different slant on it. And not your "typical" housing bubble.
Take Care
Doug
    

I think what he meant is that houses in a BF situation won't have a value - there will be so many of them just stittin around that you won't be buying them, and selling them, and if you did, you'll probably take a huge hit on it.  I wouldn't think you'd even get 20% of a home value in that situation.  To say an 80% loss is a probable thing.... but that's my opinion.  I'm not a banker.

Many tears over this subject... Our home has DOUBLED in value since we bought it just 5 years ago - yes, it is WAY inflated in value. 

And values are still going up pretty quickly in our area.

Can't bear the heartbreak of moving - we love our home and our neighborhood. It's been the best 5 years of my life. But it seems like this is the only way to preserve the equity we have gained.

We can barely make the tax payment now - they have skyrocketed along with the value.  In a pandemic we won't be able to afford the taxes.

When TSHTF property values will plummet - we could appeal the tax assessed value... but who wants to be out doing that during a pandemic...

I really really really don't want to sell this house & move to something smaller/cheaper area etc.

But I don't want it sold for taxes either if we can't keep up... Or to owe a $200,000 loan on a house that is suddenly only worth $60,000 instead of $600,000

I read this quote from John Templeton: "After home prices go down to one-tenth of the highest price homeowners paid, then buy." Ouch

Most American's primary investment is our home. What are you all planning to do?

nwprepper,

Good advice 4abbie&maddie,

The thing is, NWprepper, you don't know at what point in this whole thing the banks will close.  Most markets watch the international markets - and vice versa - my husband sits up at night and watches Bloomberg (he's a heavy investor) to know what the Japanese and Asian markets are doing, and many investor's know that swing patterns will hold in US markets and vice versa for US to Asian markets.  If TSHTF internationally and markets start to shift wildly, you don't know if that's the Plunger for the US government to close our banks/stock markets.  The true plan of what they'll be doing in that situation is probably going to be hidden from all of us until it actually happens, because they don't want Mom and Pop to hide the cash in the mattresses and so forth instead of putting it in the bank.

By doing it the way you're thinking (and hoping) to, you're essentially gambling that the banks, and lenders, will still be working normally.  By the time you've read it's hitting you can bet they have too.  They have experts paid to warn them of just such scenarios.

I think many of us are wondering about the cash thing too - how long will cash be available, period?  Credit cards?  Who knows any of it.  But if you've got a doubt, you need to think hard on it, because you're subconscious financial instinct is probably screaming at you that you need to be careful of the plan you've outlined.   Good luck with it all..... take care. 

Property price movements are self-excited oscillations and every downturn will be twice as severe as it ought to be. The same rules apply to the following upturn.

Housing markets don't crash. They tend to fall by five or six percent per year for about five years, stagnate for at least a year and then rise as fast as they fell.

Whether prices are rising or falling is not the relevent factor. What counts is whether or not you can cover the repayments. If you are a property investor then it might be a good time to reduce your exposure but most of us just need a place to live.

Scott E, I am in no hurry to buy any RE right now to flip or as long term investment. I am looking for what I would consider a safe get away but I have not seen anything that fits yet (a nice cabin with solar power in the middle of nowhere is perfect). By the way, I foreclosed on one of those developers that got in over there head a while back.

Scott E,

Scott E,

MississippiMama,

mom24kidsagain,

4abbie&maddie wrote: There will be enough empty houses after bird flu that a lot of people will be moving into bigger homes.  Not their own.    One of the things I fear, as I live in one of those homes.

nwprepper,

7laws - I would tend to agree with you - I remember reading about "flu houses" that stayed vacant for years and years after the 1918 pandemic.

And also "Imagine buying a home for a million right before a disaster (bird flu) and having that home all of sudden worth less than your down payment, ouch!"

I think that's exactly what's going to happen.

I was a commercial real estate broker in S. California during the S&L crisis. Cheap money was chasing office buildings as an investment - construction was driven by investment demand, not tenant demand.

Then the house of cards collapsed, and overnight, office buildings that were financed based on $140 a square foot were all of a sudden worth less than replacement cost.

Many good, solid real estate owner's entire life savings were vaporized because of circumstances they had nothing to do with. And the S&Ls ended up owning a whole lot of worthless office buildings. Then they went under and guess who was left holding the bag?

In our society we have short memories and just don't think these kinds of things are possible.

I have a friend who just bought a house with an "interest only" loan.

Loans are so cheap and easily available that people are buying way more house than they can afford. And as Kilt mentioned, there has been a lot of investment demand. 

Anyway, hope you found a great getaway! We bought ours on Anderson Island.

nwprepper,

I own my house and I have $10 in my wallet. My house is suddenly worthless but I spend my $10 buying a second house next door and let it to a tenant for 5 cents a month. Its not going to happen is it?

7laws what we are doing is building a place no one knows about. It's on an island. When it hits we plan to just disappear.

The one variable is hubby's daughter from a previous marriage. She is dearly loved but ADD and flaky as they come. Don't think she will listen to us and bug out.

My worry is that she won't listen to us, then when everybody around starts dropping, she'll want to come live with us.

So I have told hubby that we have to prepare for this - my idea was to have a trailer as an isolation room, setup with food & provisions for 2 weeks.

She is so hyper & irresponsible and would drive me *crazy* to live with, but she is family and we do love her.

If our place weren't on an island, there is no way I would trust her to not sneak out. She is EXTREMELY social.

If she did, back to the trailer... unless she did it in the middle of the night without our knowledge, then we are really screwed...

Your quarantine is only as good as the flakiest one involved. Here are a couple other threads that have explored this issue:

Happycamper has 3 campers for quarantining - that's where I got the camper idea:  Family member that didn't prep

Thoughts On Disaster Survival -MUST READ!

Divorce and custody issues: trouble

nwprepper wrote: I have a friend who just bought a house with an "interest only" loan. Loans are so cheap and easily available that people are buying way more house than they can afford. And as Kilt mentioned, there has been a lot of investment demand.

nwprepper Greetings! I live between Seattle and Tacoma. Houses here BEGIN @ 250K and "interest only" loans are almost the only way to get in for most people. I say go ahead and get the interest only loan with a well-chosen (bird flu ready) house. When other parts of the country have experienced downturns, the NW has maintained and often increased home appreciation. Conservative estimates are 10%/yr for this area; try getting that in any other safe investment. I don't think this area will experience mentionable depreciation overall. We'll ride it out like we've always done, except for the Boeing crunch in the 70's. And even then, the last person out did not turn out the light. Actually, with the reverse mortgage and equity loans, your home gives you more than a place to live. We'll all need a base of operations and community support. Better to choose where that is and get settled now before TSHTF. Do you really want to live in an apartment or condo then? Too many "close" neighbors for my liking. For good or for bad, the Pacific NW has been a safe haven for decades. We'll just have to sidestep the Seattle Fault and Mt.Rainier. D