Reddit post from 2014 predicted the housing crash in my town exactly

I was cleaning out old bookmarks and found a Reddit thread from 2014 where a local realtor in Austin warned that too many flips were happening on 30 year mortgages with no down payment. Back then everyone called him a pessimist. Fast forward to now, and three of those specific neighborhoods on his list went under within 6 months of each other in 2023. Anyone else dig up old local predictions that turned out spot on?

3 comments

3 Comments

johnson.river2d ago

Time heals all wounds but not bad mortgages.

henryt182d ago

...and that's the truth of it. I heard a radio segment last week about how people are still paying on mortgages from the 2008 crisis, which really puts things in perspective. @johnson.river, you hit on something there. Time can soften a lot of things like the sting of a breakup or the memory of a bad vacation, but a bad mortgage sits there in your bank account every single month like a stone you can't swallow. It's a different kind of pain because it's tied to your home and your future, not just a feeling you can outgrow. Refinancing or selling might be the only real cure, and that takes a lot of luck and the right market.

wright.leo2d ago

Notice how the one thing you can almost always count on is that bad money decisions have a way of sticking around longer than they should. It's like that scratch on your car that you tell yourself you'll get fixed but it's been there three years now. Time might soften the edges of regret but it doesn't erase the monthly payment that's still eating your paycheck. Sometimes the best you can do is learn to live with the ache and maybe refinance when the rates drop.