Reply #3: The economy is tanking. [View All]

[Maat]

I have a real estate license (I'm mostly into investing, and helping my hubby with his computer companies, but I do have a license). I'm in good ol' SoCal. I'm a retired social worker, so I LISTEN to the neighbors. The gal next door is losing her house. The one around the corner is in foreclosure; it's only a matter of time until the notices go up next door (she had been renting it for several years, due to her job being up north).

We bought our houses for around $350,000. They range from 3,900 square feet to 4,900 square feet. They did go up to between $750K and $800K. Now, they are selling around $650,000 to $700,000. We have about five or six just on our block for sale.

We've always kept our mortgage at half of the current value (or lower), because I always felt very cautious.

I'm hearing fairly consistently how much trouble middle class people are having holding onto their homes.

We are inland, about an hour and a half north of San Diego.