Dont make that mistake again

Interest rates are falling down, inflation is at its lowest in 33 years , house prices are at the bottom. Every paper screams that this is the time to buy your "dream" house. The question is that if this is the right time ? Or is there any right time at all ?

There is a tendency in human beings. Like all animals we too are territorial . Though we have brains to make us a little less territorial we are none the less territorial. This tendency causes a need to feel in control. The need to own something , to call it your belonging and cherish it forever. The need to control makes us seek a space we call our own . May be we stayed in Rental dwellings with invasive landlords, too high a rent and a place that always belongs to some one else. There was no end to our miseries except the fact that we could buy a new house or was it ?

These days I am meeting a number of people whose houses have been left incomplete on account of default by builders , people who are unable to pay EMI because of job losses , people whose house values have fallen below the purchase price ( or loans ) making them an unwilling defaulter. They are sad and angry at their states. They feel cheated by banks ,builders and governments but themselves.

Now again with interest rates dropping , again a cry is being raised that houses are affordable . Thankfully people are more patient this time , waiting for prices to come down . They have been burned last time because they did not take time to research their facts , read between the lines etc. But the same people will again fall for hype when things go back to normal . Why ? because of the tendency to project good future many times but poor future very less number of times.

This is the time for us to retrospect that is there any friend of us all in these builders , banks , governments etc. Behind the lovely looking ladies of customer care is a shrewd business man who is hell bent on finding techniques to take more of your money . So this a time to think of that business man who is a "devil in God's clothes" and to find out the real truth . The relationship of banker and bankee should be based strictly on business. However today it has become a master slave relationship because a slave has become greedy and is ready to obey his master for any favour even though it may not serve his purpose.

I have a car loan which I was always confident that I could pay . So till this far when 3 years have been completed , I have not even bothered to talk to them once. Because I do not think that they are my masters . They need my business too to run their business and hence talk is striclty business and no-nonsense. That is the reason I have not taken loan beyond my comfort and I can still shout at them if they make mistakes .

The point is that even a normal person needs to be smart and financially educated to find out the reasons behind all the goodies that are offered all time . It is for us people who know to educate people who do not know and for them to learn what they dont know .