...and you thought Tysons had traffic now.

[Steve85]

real estate is not a good investment
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/real_estate/0704/gallery.stocks_v_realestate.moneymag/index.html">http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/rea ... index.html</a><!-- m -->

one thing they fail to mention is the liquidity of stocks versus a home.

I think a more realistic case where the investor, aka landlord, prices the property in-line with current values based on what home buyers are paying would have very different results.

Are there that many landlords willing to leave 60% on the table? every month?

Personally, I feel that owning a home is very different than investing in real estate. I think it is an important distinction for many reasons one of the most important is realizing that you need to leave room for investing and saving when purchasing a home. I have heard so many people refer to their house as their retirement, an easy mistake. It also makes analyses based purely on ROI moot.

Great graph...
Seeing the price outpace income to that degree is a real eye opener to the kind of financing that was going on. Then I read an article in Money about a mortgage program not available in the US which is truly sad as it encourages saving:

As we know your interest is calculated based on the remaining principle. In an Offset mortgage your savings account balance is subtracted from your principle to calculate interest. So saving money makes your mortgage cheaper. There is apparently some weensy US tax law issue ( I have an email into the mag for clarification) that makes it illegal here. Instead, we allow qualifying at introductory short-term rates that will sink a buyer in 2 years rather than encouraging saving.