Forgot to mention that first home was on a busy street across from a railroad track and farm elevator in a less desirable town in PA. But again - it was what we could afford, and we knew that. We couldn't afford to live in a more desirable town/neighborhood. And that was a tradeoff we accepted.

but accepting our limits on our first home was the only way we were able to buy in the first place. If we had been unwilling to "settle" for that place, we would have had to rent and would have been priced out of buying for a long time.

even stand to walk through with us bc it smelled so badly of cat urine. But it was what we could afford and we put a lot of sweat equity into it and sold for a small profit 7 years later. We've bought two houses since then and our financial circumstances have changed significantly /3

a possibility for many who otherwise could not have, and frustration that historically low interest rates led to high home prices. We got lucky and were in a position to buy in 2009 and take advantage of the incentives from the housing crash, BUT we bought a fixer upper that our realtor couldn't /2

I suspect the issue is many fold. People trying to keep up with the Joneses, not wanting a starter house but more the caliber of a 2nd or 3rd house, plus a lot of millennials and younger remembering the crash of 2008, the home owner incentives that came as a consequence of that which made owning /1

He better not be the leader in 2026 either

Tone deaf as fuck. What about the voters who will lose their health insurance because they cannot afford the higher premiums? What do you have to say to them, Tim?

No need to wait on a different leader - that can happen now. He's not up to the task.

Schumer and Durbin have to go. Now. The fact that they had no exit strategy for the shutdown other than near complete capitulation says they cannot be trusted with this battle when it comes up again in January.

I mean this with all due respect: get the fuck out.