I definitely have a great mistrust of the near future. It just seems pretty ominous right now. We'd be lucky to have mere stagnation, but I'm afraid these "bad times" are about to be made to look like child's play soon, by at least 2026 and likely sooner.
You raise really good points. Insightful, like many of the responses here. My main thought in reading is this is why I'm buying as cheap as home as I can that is functional. My strategy is just to buy the cheapest home that I'm happy with. If things go to hell, and I really don't have much to lose with the anchor around your neck that home ownership is. If the fridge breaks that's annoying, but I've been renting a long time, few to no landlords want to spend a dollar anyway. They don't lose so owning is the ticket to financial freedom, even if it's not a money maker and merely a way to get expenses down to taxes + utilities. Which is how I see it.
You raise really good points. Insightful, like many of the responses here. My main thought in reading is this is why I'm buying as cheap as home as I can that is functional. My strategy is just to buy the cheapest home that I'm happy with. If things go to hell, and I really don't have much to lose with the anchor around your neck that home ownership is. If the fridge breaks that's annoying, but I've been renting a long time, few to no landlords want to spend a dollar anyway. They don't lose so owning is the ticket to financial freedom, even if it's not a money maker and merely a way to get expenses down to taxes + utilities. Which is how I see it.