Oh, yes - really crazy...

...isn't it? Just think about the human factor, and forget the (springy) market. Or mortgages. Or the currently popular short-sell. Or the global market.
You own a home. You have an opportunity. Wow. A BETTER job! You have to move-gee, someone just has to come up with, oh, say, between 180k to oh, 1M+ so you can move, and they can move, too - depending on where you live and what your equity situation is. And how much the kids cry. People with more money than that can pay someone else to move there for them.
And what your spouse expects to move into, of course...
Oh yeah - don't forget leaving your house on sudden notice in your Sunday best sweatpants so strangers can troop through it and judge you on your home hygienics, and whether or not they like the neighbors; and the neighbors kids and three or four large dogs, or the fact that you are NOT a vegetarian.
And this can go on for one, two or three months? Longer? Or until your spouse finds a job halfway across the country, too? Why does anybody even move out of their recliner, let alone a place where their kids, pets and in-laws can eat over the sink if they feel like it?

(Bear, our canine companion, and a tasty treat.)

A while back, and likely it still is the case, in Japan a small rambler-type home was a million dollars. Who is ever going to pay that mortgage off? Only love can bear a burden like that - maybe these homes will remain in families for generations.
Even in our 100+ year old pile of bricks and boards near the Rock River in the Midwest, it could happen - not flooding -we are WAY out of the flood plain - I mean moving. But only if I get to retire when we get to our new place.

But I suspect this home will (lovingly) fund a reverse mortgage for my spouse, Theresa.
When they finally come to move me-in my recliner-to a place where she doesn't have to listen to me snore so much, or watch me eat over the sink.



Thanks for stopping by,
Steve
steven.stearns@obeo.com