Let's time-travel back to February 9th, 2005.
An email blast from a Prius-driving 29-year-old Realtor (c'est moi) just went out, predicting that no homes in Silver Lake would sell for under the eye-popping price of…$250,000.
And now let's time-travel back to 2023, and get angry at ourselves, once again, for not buying a house 17 years ago.
I get it, those old prices are hard to look at, for me too, but listen - don't beat yourself up, there was no way to know, and back then, we had all the same complaints.
Homebuyers:
“There's no way that Spanish house two blocks from Sunset Junction is worth more than $260,000. It needs work! I'm not paying a penny more and I refuse to be in a bidding war.”
Investors:
“$650,000 for a fourplex but apartments in Silver Lake rent for $700? How does that even make sense? I'm buying out of state - nothing in L.A. pencils!”
Trust me, those are almost exact quotes. I have the emails in my archive to prove it.
“Sure, that was true THEN, but not TODAY,” you might counter. "Today's prices will NEVER seem that low.”
They will. I promise.
And. Let's all stop beating ourselves up. We didn't miss the bottom. We didn't miss the boom.
We didn't miss anything.
Maybe we could have bought in 2005, and, looking back from 2023, felt like geniuses.
But if we didn't, surely the next best thing is looking back in 17 years, from 2041, and feeling very smart indeed.
