My heart bleeds...not

tgavin71 · #1 (**permalink**) 08-13-2006, 05:22 AM

Interest rates rose by a whooping 1/4 of 1% last week in Australia. Could have been the week before I am hopeless with time. Anyway since then we have been getting all the doom and gloom about how the housing market is going to crash, the economy is going to go down the gurgler and the world is going to end.
IN today's paper there is a story about how the increase in rates is squeezing young families out of their homes. When I read the heading I istantly thought well you make your bed you lie in it. If you have to sell when faced with such a small rise then you have more than money problems. Then I read the rest of the article. The poor diddims can no longer afford to pay for their Sydney Harbour Mansion!!! It is on the market and they are hoping to get 5.5 million for it. If the millionaires are getting squeezed out of the market what hope is there for the rest of us.

#2 (**permalink**) 08-13-2006, 09:24 AM

Everyone, no matter what economic class, has the ability to live beyond their means. But I do think they should have more sense than that.

Course some people will buy a house they can't afford anyway. A friend of mine told me someone in her MBA class had one of those McMansions, and she wondered how they afforded it. Apparently, the place had hardly any furniture inside. Of course I don't think their McMansion cost 5.5 million.

tgavin71 · #3 (**permalink**) 08-13-2006, 06:08 PM

[quote=taking charge]Everyone, no matter what economic class, has the ability to live beyond their means. But I do think they should have more sense than that.

QUOTE]

I was thinking the exact same thought. Too many people want to have it all now and are not prepared to work for it. My husband grew up in a very well to do area where just about everybody (except a few including my husband) sent there children to private schools. The dearer the better. It was to show others how wealthy the family was. Of course the big house came as part of the package. DH went to one house and they only had living room furniture. Secretly he looked, ok spied, at the other areas of the house and they were all bare. No carpets even. Bedrooms were a mattress on the floor and cardboard boxes for their personal items. Cost of schooling for the 3 children was $30,000 a year and that was primary school in 1986!!