The collapse of U.S. housing market during the last three years has been tremendously painful to a lot of homeowners. They traded up houses without paying a dime for down payment, wishing to make a quick buck when their houses were sold. Or those who cashed in from their home equities for luxurious lifestyles. Have I mentioned the unsophisticated buyers who were told they could be homeowners too when their incomes could barely make the ends meet? The result, unfortunately, is endless regrets in foreclosures and bankruptcy filings. As we all know, the party is over.
Even now, some economists and investment analysts are still not optimistic on the recovery of the housing market. Some continue to throw stone without mercy. Not surprisingly, the headlines on newspapers and TV news are blowing their horns, claiming prices will continue to fall, and house sizes will continue to shrink.
While "McMansion" may have been a thing in the past, there's always somebody who wants to join the club. Let's just take LBJ as an example.
LBJ is not rich and has never been rich. Money is never a concern, don't you love that? It has inherited a huge estate from Ray, my next door neighbor who lost his wife a year ago. No, Ray is not dead and he has no plan to give his hard-earned wealth to a frog, even if it were Prince Charming. In fact, Ray is still healthy though he smokes quite a bit. Whenever I need to enter his home to help him out for something, I have to take a deep, very deep, breathe before knocking on his door. It is as if breathing his second handed smoke for a minute or two would kill me instantly. The fact is that Ray's fish died, all of them, and he doesn't want to keep the aquarium anymore. He's just nice to ask me if I want the tank for LBJ.
The windfall couldn't come at a better time when I have been thinking how to improve LBJ's quality of life in the last few days. Just imagine somebody gives you a house that is 10 times bigger than your existing one! As for LBJ, that means it'll move from a 1 gallon fish bowl to a 10 gallon "McMansion," which has an elegant courtyard for an afternoon nap, an indoor pool with sandy beach for sunbathing, three towers for food surveillance and endless hiding places for retreats, plus many more upgrades like floor to high ceiling glass walls, etc. Not to mention the unlimited supply of live insects as its edible buddies, all is free! I believe this new home will absolutely blow its mind.
In contrary to those who were the victims of the downturn of the housing market, no matter what their circumstances were, LBJ's windfall is here to stay. For now, I'm afraid its plan of searching its dad may have to be put on hold for a little while. But who could blame this little frog when a fortune just dropped over its head overnight!
Posts
