Extra#4560 <
> #4557
Basically, what's happened is, somewhere along the line, as a society, we confused the notion of home with the possibility of an investment opportunity. What kind of creature wants to live in an investment opportunity? Only man. The fox has his den, the bee has his hive, the stoat has a a stoat hole. But only man, ladies and gentlemen, the worst animal of all, chooses to make his nest in an investment opportunity. Mmm, snuggle down in the lovely credit. All warm in the mortgage payment.
Mmm! But home is not the same thing as an investment opportunity. Home is a basic requirement of life, like food.
When a hamster hides hamster food in his hamster cheeks, he doesn't keep it there in the hope that it will rise in value. And when a squirrel hides a nut, he's not trying to play the acorn market. And having eaten the nut, he doesn't keep the shell in the hope of setting up a lucrative sideline making tiny hats for elves. And when a dog buries a bone, he doesn't keep that bone buried until the point where it's reached its maximum market value. He digs it up when he's hungry.
And if estate agents were dogs burying bones, not only would they leave those bones buried until they'd reached their maximum market value, but they'd run around starting rumours about imminent increases in the price of bones in the hope of driving up the market, and they'd invite loads of boneless dogs to all view the bone at the same time in the hope of giving the impression there was a massive demand for bones. And they would photograph the bone in such a way as to make it look much more juicy than it really was, airbrushing out the maggots and cropping the rotten meat.