I don't care about your big house.

Here's yet another NYTimes article about the housing market. It's pretty much the same as everything else recent on the topic: the housing market has basically crashed. Lots of people lost lots of money.

In my admittedly uneducated opinion those who have directly suffered* fall into one of two categories. There are those who were irresponsible with their money and took out a mortgage they really couldn't afford and were (gosh, the surprise!) eventually burnt by it. This problem could have been avoided by not taking out a loan you couldn't afford. Yes, to a certain extent the banks were 'preying' on consumers, but when it comes down to it, you're responsible for your own financial well-being. If that means renting instead of buying, or buying smaller, or in a different area, then be an adult and deal with it. I had some sympathy but it's limited for these folks.

The second type of people I have no sympathy for, and those are 'house flippers' - apparently it's a big thing to buy foreclosed houses, reno them, and sell them at a profit. This is only going to work if the housing market is good, and if it rather suddenly goes from 'really really good', as it was, to 'utter crap', as it is now, you're going to find yourself in trouble. The guy in the Times article learned this the hard way. He bought a million-dollar house, a BMW, a Corvette. Then the money ran out and now, boo-hoo, he doesn't have his big fancy toys anymore.

Are we seriously supposed to have sympathy for these people? You go, you make some money, and then rather than investing it responsibly and safely, you buy a bunch of extravagant crap and then weep when it goes sour? I have a hard time seeing how this is any different from a kid bringing a brand-new, shiny, expensive toy to the playground, and then being stunned to tears when it gets dirty and messed up. The media right now is full of stories like this, and I just don't see how we're supposed to care.

Houses are...places to live. There's no need for them to be huge and expensive, and the idea of using them solely as investment tools is kind of ridiculous.

*I'm not including some of the folks mentioned in the article - plumbers, electricians, carpenters, other various contractors.