Mom, who's watching the housing bubble, regularly checks the value of our house. The current value is $14,000, shy of being double what we paid in 2014.

Anyone else watching the housing bubble? How much has the value of your house go up?

Jeanette Isabelle

My value of my house has increased, but I don't discuss specifics. How is this topic relevant to ETS?

I'm sure it's got to be worth more than $14,000

I don't watch house prices. It makes absolutely zero matter, ... until you actually SELL your house. It's like the stock market. on Monday ... I'M RICH! On Tuesday, I'M BROKE! On Wednesday, I'M RICH AGAIN! Totally meaningless until you sell your position.

It's a guess, but the inflated housing prices may impact us in other areas.

Jeanette Isabelle

I said, "$14,000 shy of being double."

I will not use actual numbers but let's let X represent the house's value when we bought it in 2014. Let's let Y represent X doubled.

2X = Y

If Z is the current value, we will get Z by subtracting $14,000 from Y.

Y - $14,000 = Z

In other words:

2X - $14,000 = Z

Do you follow?

Jeanette Isabelle

yup... Jeanette Isabelle brings up a good point that there is a 'bubble' and cites her experience with it and the current state she perceives it to be in.

As for why that should concern our fellow readers -
A fiscal bubble on any level can result in an impact on personal and public services. The "dot com" bubble had a huge impact on jobs, people on a personal level had a 'personal disaster' effect on individuals who then had to cope when it popped.

Following the ideas of being prepared should (and does in my view) go beyond being able to survive the weekend in the woods and include surviving a local disaster - storms etc. that impact us. Such events can cause a loss of shelter and require us to survive on what we've prepared with to accommodate such an event. A housing bubble bursting may cause significant levels of fiscal or personal shelter type of disaster that one will need to fall back on emergency preps to "survive" the impact.

Gathering information and looking for ways to mitigate the impact of such fiscal/social events as a housing bubble bursting should be worth exploring.

In our case we've built up equity and are on track to have our housing paid in full in a few years - a bubble burst on housing will reduce the value of one of our largest personal possessions which would alter our ongoing living arrangements and to an unknown degree. If the "bank" called the loan due next month we would have to sell... thus the concern.

Edit to add: To answer her question, our area seems to be stable and the values of the homes in our specific neighborhood are only up a bit over the last ten years - the newer homes just west of here however have jumped in price a lot and the brand new construction is way higher only a few blocks away.

Let's just say that residential real estate has historically been a good investment in most areas, generally outpacing the rate of overall inflation.

I have always thought that ETS was focused more om 'dramatic" survival - fires, earthquakes, floods, and the like, as opposed to 'mundane' survival - getting through the day, month, or year with resources intact or at least not badly ravaged

Survival is survival.

If you want something "dramatic," how about a financial crisis triggering a riot?

Jeanette Isabelle

Any riot, irrespective of its root cause, certainly qualifies.

As for the other category, it is simply living a well ordered life.

Ah, OK. The extra comma in the original sentence gives it a different meaning. I was thinking of starting a GoFundMe page to move you out of your shack.