Thursday, March 12, 2009

Tumbling Down

We bought our first home in 1977. It was a perfect time for the market in our neighborhood. We paid the astronomical price of $24,500. When we sold it less than two years later, we had gained about $1,000 a month in equity. I thought I was a real estate tycoon!

We saved some back when we bought our next house and invested it on a real estate deal. Lost every penny of that investment!

Like now, our nation was in the throes of a tough economy back then. We had also just experienced Viet Nam and Watergate. Hope was in the air for the future and everywhere you turned, people were trying to find the road to riches. You wouldn't believe how many of our friends thought they were had found that highway when they turned at a sign marked Amway.

One of the largest financial solutions to really mushroom during that era was the availability of easy credit. For everyone. To buy anything. With payments that could go on forever. With another company always in the wings to rescue us from the last loan.

Look where that got us!

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