Personal Economics 101

No one is predicting a crash in the housing market yet, but there are signs of a slow-down. Mostly due to raising mortgage rates and a change in the tax law, in my opinion. Realtor.com has a analysis via the link below. Then there are the smaller cities, like Austin, TX, and Nashville, TN, that burst onto the national scene just a few years ago—poster children for the supercharged housing recovery. Home prices rose to meteoric heights as builders raced to put up new abodes and transplants from even higher-priced metros flooded the cities. At the same time, their populations shot up 18.5% and 10.6% respectively from April 1, 2010, to July 1, 2017, according to U.S. Census data. And then, despite all the hype, list prices did the unthinkable—they began to fall. Austin is a particular eye-opener: List prices dipped about 3%, to a median of $362,000 in August compared with the previous year, according to our realtor.com analysis. The year before that they dipped 2%. And while median sale...

I've been a bit (or a lot, depending on your point of view) behind, involved, well, just getting rid of a nasty infection. But all is well. Here's some concepts to help you out. Now, please remember there are several different economic theories, and economics being a soft science, some don't always work in every situation. It's not like physics or mathematics. More like sociology or psychology. But these are generally accepted principles.

"Here's the big challenge of life: You can have more than you've got, because you can become more than you are. That's the challenge. And of course, the other side of the coin reads: Unless you change how you are, you'll always have what you've got."  Jim Rohn.