thelostfish wrote:tell that to the millions of people from all walks of lives, to the small corporation to the big corporations over the generations whom have gone bust.
huh?

there is a difference between leveraging yourself 10:1 and then the investment going bust to getting fired from your job and unable to find a new one.
thelostfish wrote:also for my original post about the gal who was in a sorry state of affairs. Well she could not liquidate either since she doesnt have the 100k odd to pay off the outstanding loan.
also you cant say those people were totally stupid, in fact she was a smarter lot who bought AFTER the crash in 1997/98, thinking its the bottom.
thelostfish wrote:sometimes, the risks were unforeseen, like SARS or Sept 11? Whoever thought USA would be attacked so damn easily? or that the recession would last 5-6 years? or that cows could go mad and birds could infect us. or that USA will go to war so often...oh wait, maybe that's was for-seeable
this is a really bad argument...really bad. when you cross the street, do you think to yourself "I might get hit by a car." No, you worry about things you can control....
thelostfish wrote:As for comparing to
property prices plummetting during a recession. Well what did you expect? during the recessions almost anything anywhere will lose some value, no? shares/stocks, interest rates etc. if you compared to the property values since 1995/6 here in singapore to their lowest point in 1998/99, about 40-60% lost in value. but at least the property is still there.
some hot shares back then (i shalln't name them) have lost more than 1000%

and even gone bust. sure you may say not all shares were like that, and i would say not all property were like that either. I know of a lot which have already surpassed their highs attained in 1995/6. on the other hand, I have seen people who have lost 100s of thousands to millions overnight on shares. and they never recovered.
the recession argument was used to jeppo's response on why real estate is not a short term investment. how do share prices fall by more then 100%? I'm confused.

there is a concept called risk:reward. The higher the risk the higher the reward. There is no low risk high reward investment. none whatsoever. If people are investing 100k and making 1,000,000 in a few weeks or months, that is a high reward and the risk is that you may lose everything which many people did. and anyways, the share prices that lost "1,000%" were also the same ones that gained about 2,000% in about 1 month (i.e. JDSU, ICGE, etc). so again, risk reward. if something rises in spectacular fashion, then it has a good chance of also imploding in spectacular fashion.
thelostfish wrote:but all this is tiresome to debate, since really, its different for everyone. some like to invest in property, something tangible, some like to invest in shares/currencies. but any investor would tell you that shares are much riskier. and hence also higher returns
back to the topic about rentals, my posts were meant to shed some light as to why it seems like the rental rates gone mad. which i feel, it may not be totally true.
I was trying to explain that if the rental you were paying is about 3-4%, i think you dont have TOO much to complain about. cos anything lower, frankly is cheap, and given today's market its probably a rather unpopular flat/location. (refer to my earlier post about bank giving 2.5% on your CASH)

rental rates have gone "mad" because sales of property have gone mad. as sale prices go up, rental prices have to go up as well.
condos are selling out before they even print marketing materials. also The gov't has closed more HDBs so people have to relocate. pretty simple really. why are banks offering 2.5% interest? because the central bank is flooding the market with liquidity. call your local politician and ask them to stop doing it.