Randy_H's Q&A

Licensees?  GMAFB.  Real estate salesmen and women are not qualified to dispense any tax advice simply because they passed the coloring book agent license test.  Most CPAs I know don't consider themselves qualified to dispense tax advice (because they aren't tax accountants but financial accountants), even though they had to pass a tax portion of their exam so rigorous most realtors probably couldn't even understand the instructions.It's not that hard.  Go to a **tax professional** for tax advice.  To a **financial professional** for financial advice.  To a **qualified mechanic** to fix your car, to an actual **medical doctor** to diagnose your ailment, to a **used car salesman** to buy a used car ... and to a realtor to buy or sell a used house.(so happy to see the more things change the more they stay the same)

Generally, the purpose of such arrangements is to separate you from your money.  On occasion someone gets lucky and stumbles upon a rent-to-own situation that is legitimate.  Of course, on occasion someone gets lucky and stumbles upon a series of random numbers that entitles them to a free pile of taxpayer cash from their resident state government.  I once landed on "Free Parking" in a game of Monopoly also...

If you ask me, this question was made by someone to see how low the lowest agents would go to grift a deal.  From the responses, it appears,Agents:  2 / 2 say buy, preferably through them.Lenders: 1 / 1 blindly spamsConfirmed Lenders:  0 / 2 say to buy.  Both warn to actually save some money first.A microcosm of what's wrong with the industry, I'd say.

So, if the inflation rate is negative, you should pay off everything, no?Right now the only justification to carrying even sub 2% student debt is the flexibility/low-risk factor that *government subsidized* student debt implies.  In other words, if you have privately underwritten student loans, you should always pay them off since real-inflation (as experienced by you) is negative .. ie, there has been and continues to be deflation.If you have Sallie Mae sorts of loans, then great.  Carry them on the basis of flexibility options.As for the original questioner:Rent.  You're too young and have too much ahead of you to start shopping for albatross neck ware.   Figure out what you're going to do with Act I of your life first...

I prefer renting, at least a tad bit longer, because homes here are suddenly being reduced by $250K, $300K, $400K or even more.  Homes that have languished on the market demanding 2006 prices for over 2 years are quite suddenly being slashed and popping up as pathetic short sale attempts.And yet, no one is buying even at those prices...Seems that not all that many people can, or should be buying million+ dollar homes.  Not even in gilded, uberprime Marin County.Coming soon to a block near you:  decent homes for under $1mm; truly luxurious homes for $1.5mm; true estates over $2mm.  What a change from just a couple years ago when a million smackers wouldn't buy you a government subsidized dog house.

Call me...I deliver dreams!I'm dreaming of a 5BR, 4BA, with separate legal in-law,, au pair, hot tub, solar pool, master suite with sauna and bidet, view, and what the hey, California Prop 13 legacy transfer status.  Oh yea, in Marin County, south of SFD.What's your number?

They used to say about real estate "location, location, location".  Right now, it's "jobs, jobs, jobs".  Simply put, everywhere can see prices fall further regardless of how little that area bubbled up if employment and salaries fall.In my old hometown in rural southwest Ohio, prices barely budged from the early 90s til 2006.  However, they are falling fast now because jobs are dropping even faster.

if you have to. Or can't get a bank loan.Or if you don't even need a bank loan, or a family loan, or an IMF loan, or a TARP loan, or a "loan" from Vinny -- because you could just buy with cash.That is, if you value that cash and don't feel like p*ssing it away into the bank account of some lucky fool.

You have yet to answer my half dozen questions, grasshopper.But I'll give you a clue about your little wiki-pic.  Go look up the global share of value-weighted manufacturing by nation.  You'll be quite surprised at who produces the most global manufactured goods by value.  I'm done with your trolling.  I will not reply to you further unless and until you decide to engage honestly.

I'll answer your question when you answer the half dozen of mine you ignored.  You were going good, then seemed to lose focus.  As for what you think I am, it brings a smile to my face.  I usually get accused of being not academic enough.  My blog articles on Capitalism 2.0 are regularly criticized by real academics for being inadequately referenced, not peer reviewed, etc.That I seem to rub you and them the wrong way tells me that I'm exactly on the right track.