Your use case reflects what I said exactly.
For someone to buy your condo today, they will be signing up for a mortgage whose monthly cost is near the going rent price. And most likely, more than the going rent price.
If they were to just buy and rent it out, they will likely be doing so at a loss.
The market going up or down after the purchase of the property is independent. It may go up, it may go down. That’s the gamble you make if you’re doing it as an investment.
Your experience happened to take place at an extraordinarily good time to already own property., and FOMO was certainly fueling the frenzy during the peak.
Whether that continues to be the case is unknown. Economists are all over the map.
It made you more rich on paper, but the reality is that you aren’t in the same boat as landlords. The reason is that if you live in your property in order to realize the profit on it you’ll have to sell it and move somewhere less expensive (i.e. somewhere likely less desirable).
Prices in real estate going up only really benefits real estate tycoons, the local government (depending upon location), and other side players in the market (e.g. real estate agents). For the rest of us, if you sell it just means that you have to turn around and buy in a more expensive market. Also (depending upon location, California properties aren’t completely re-assessed for taxes until they change hands) it hikes your taxes.
As a single property owner in California, I’m rooting for prices to drop so I can upgrade and still pay the same amount of taxes (or less).
I wouldn’t bet on it happening though.
