[TMagda]

I think real estate is bound to level off and maybe decrease slightly in the near future. Why? The discretionary portion of salaries (for salaried emloyees) has been decreasing and will continue to do so. 2 big reasons, the cost of health insurance and the decline of social security. Employers can no longer affford to pay the full load of health insurance and are passing more of the cost to the employee. My company's increase this year was roughly 2x the average annual raise putting our employee at the same level of discretionary as 2 years ago. With large companies bailing on defined benefit pensions and SS failing, employees are becoming more and more responsible for thier own retirement savings. This also reduces discretionary spending. I know a lot of people on this board are self employed, but I'm sure a lot of have employees and have experienced the heath insurance dilemma. It seems that instead of anyone addressing the problem (health care too expensive) most are working on the symptom (how do we pay this, this year). I believe the majority of the US workforce are employees and therefore subject to these issues. Most people I know are running 2 income families to pay for their homes. I also have run across some 40 year mortgages. That cannot be good for the kids either because they sit in daycare 9 hours a day.
Thoughts?