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>an astronomical $800,000 USD for a house <<cries in a Hong Kong dialect of Cantonese>>

• blackrock 7y ago
  And to give some more perspective: 1) Realize that this was back in 2007, when most people only dreamed of making $100,000 USD annually. 2) And housing prices were exceeding $500,000 USD in most of the state of California, because of all the shady house flippers borrowing on the ARM (adjustable rate mortgage) loans. So $800k was a significant percentage higher than most already over-priced mortgages at the time. 3) In order to qualify for a normal 30-year fixed-rate loan to buy a $500k house with 20% down, then you’d need to make an annual salary combined of $120,000. And since most people didn’t make that much, then you’d have to be dual-income to afford that mortgage. 4) And there was a saying at the time: House rich, but home poor. Meaning that these people bought an expensive house, but they were too poor to fill it with any furniture.