Honestly, the extra $10k they might have spent on the car pales in comparison to the $100k they lost on the house due to the market crash. So it's a bit absurd

Honestly, the extra $10k they might have spent on the car pales in comparison to the $100k they lost on the house due to the market crash. So it's a bit absurd to even focus on the car so much when it clearly was not the main culprit. As for the house, if they lived in any sort of metropolitan area, $250k is not extravagant. In fact, while their income was comfortably over double the median US household income, their house price was right at the median. The average American household leverages their income twice as much as this couple was.