What are real estate brokers driving these days?

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Well, based on a very small sample of two brokers seen at an 'open for inspection' last weekend, they are driving a six-year old Holden Commodore and three-year old Holden Astra. If that isn't an indication that times are bad, then nothing is. But maybe you can excuse the average punter for being made to believe that house prices and share prices can only ever rise in value. Or that if you 'buy and hold' then eventually everything will be fine. Remember the expression touted - "It's time in the market, not timing the market." You know what, for shares the "time in the market" argument is starting to look pretty thin at the moment. Take a look at the chart below: Even for investors that bought index weighted stocks in the early 1990's their return until today is probably not that much better than those that had been in cash. For those that started investing around 2000 then the returns are most probably even worse. That's if the investors bought and hold, which is what a typical fund ...  more