[mikester]

I believe when we purchased our home that I was mostly prepared to weather a correction. We purchased in early 2004 if I recall correctly. I felt the house was over priced then but the circumstances were right. I had hoped for about 10 years in the home, now it maybe closer to 15 but that really isn't a huge deal I guess. As time progressed we received our quarterly statements from the bank eventually showing a nearly 100% increase in value from our purchase price. I never considered that 'money in my hand' primarily because I've been to my house and I know it isn't worth that much. Nobody in their right mind would purchase my house for twice what I paid for it...maybe I should have checked that out...

Anyway, we have a fixed at just over 5%. We also have a small second that is adjustable but fixable, we're watching that for the right time to fix. It's never been above 7% and right now it is adjusting down. We will fix it soon enough...

So, I feel that I can weather a 40% correction and be back at square one. I'm okay with that though obviously I would prefer a better scenario. We've also done some minor upgrades that might also affect the price but we shall see. We don't need anything 'bigger' as this house is big enough but I would like a 'better' house as this one simply has built in limitations that I can do nothing about. If we were to go down below that 40% mark it would be depressing...

Oh, and in case it wasn't obvious I'm in Southern California.