Buying a House

If you're thinking about buying a house right now... read this article first! It says that it's still not a good idea... not yet. It talks about the housing crisis in general, the causes of said crisis, possible solutions and gives some basic formulas to use to know when it's a good time to buy:

For a rough indication of the wisdom of buying a house, look at the yearly-rent/price ratio for the model of house in question:

3% = do not buy
6% = borderline
9% = ok to buy

(Courtesy of Boz Millar)