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It’s a tough real estate market nowadays in this horrible economic situation we have found ourselves in. Home prices have plunged throughout the country and are still falling in places. For those who bought when the market was overvalued a few years ago, times are especially tough. Mortgages were given to any Tom, Dick or Harry and they had ridiculous terms which left those mortgage holders in a bad way.

I live in California, where the prices of homes five years ago was way above the assessed value and people routinely had buyers with fat checkbooks knocking down their door to get into homes. Unfortunately, I had just moved to Los Angeles, and I needed a place to live. Going with the conventional wisdom of buying is better than renting, I bought property.

This mindset put my wife and I into a condo that we could not nearly afford. When we applied for the mortgage we were sure we would be denied but when they said yes, we just figured they were smarter than us. Well, the mortgage was an interest only and so we were not building equity. When my wife got pregnant again, she decided to leave her job and full-time salary with it. We were setting and had set ourselves up for trouble. As things got worse and bills piled up, we found ourselves on decrepit furniture with home space heaters to warm us.

As was bound to happen, the housing market and economy collapsed. Our home devalued quickly but our mortgage payments did not. Now, not only could we not afford the home, we couldn’t sell it at a profit and barely sell it at a loss. We went through a bankruptcy to get rid of our debt and decided that to free ourselves up from all financial burdens, we would sell the home through a short sale if we could.

Today we rent and are on the path to recovery. We did learn many lessons and had I to do it all again, I would do it very different.

If I could do it again, I would get into an income property so that I could have a tenant cover the mortgage. I would get into a home that needed some work and touch it up with some home decor accents and maybe a touch of paint on the walls. Certainly, I would buy something not only in my price range but below it. And I would definitely get a mortgage that built equity and whose terms were logical and sensible.

The last thing I would want is the worry of a mortgage month to month that I couldn’t cover. The only thing I would want is a home with real value that anyone could see and I would be able to hang onto it long enough to make it a really great resale property, whatever the economy threw our way.