Have you bought your own house or department ?

The problem is that we bought our house when the economy was still good, now it's value is less than half of what we bought it for, so we couldn't expect to get what we paid if we decided to sell it.

Yes I have. My husband and I purchased our home before all the housing market trouble. We recently refinanced to save a bit more money. We hope to pay it off in 15 years. So by the time my daughter is graduated from high school.

In the country I live, prices of houses have gone up. My husband and I have been very lucky we have bought when we did. We had no saving and the goverment has helped us with a deposit for a house. 8 years later, the house we live in has almost doubled its value. Now with the way the rent is going, I am so glad that we did buy as our mortgage repayments are less than the rent.

We have always bought, instead of renting. With a family of 5 we need all the room we can get. And house payments are generally lower than rent payments of the equivalent sized apartment.