I really like the $ 5 loan math example!

Perhaps a person with a HELOC that still has money available on it can use the same argument?

As for the complex math used for obscurities, I agree that the more complex it needs to be when explained… the more is probably being hidden.

(Wasn’t Enron involved in some very advanced mathematics right before they collapsed?)

“Just because a river is muddy, doesn’t mean it’s deep!” ~ Adrian Rogers

REIC math (or “realtor math” as John dubbed it) reminds me of a joke that was popular in my jr. high. It went:

Will you lend me ten dollars? I only want five of it now though- and you can owe me the other five. Now, since I owe you five, and you owe me five, we’re even!”

I remember a girl in my math class who said, “I can’t wait to graduate from high school- after that I won’t have to do math ever again!”

Too many of her kind are wandering around- and they don’t get the joke- or “realtor math.”

You will note that I stick to pretty basic math most of the time as well. I see too much of the higher level stuff done to hide the facts, rather than expose them.

Thanks, also, for revealing to the intellectuals at HousingDoom that I live my life around 5th Grade math!!

One advantage of investing in the midwest is that I never… never… put in any “future values” to my calculations. In our little towns, we never really expected a property to be worth significantly more in the future, when adjusted for inflation. (lucky if it held it’s value!)

When you take out the speculation of future values and use only “today dollars,” the numbers look pretty raw.

I would LOVE to know what kind of math Blanche Evans and David L. use to explain how great it will be for non-speculative investors in 2007 / 2008.

Thanks again!