Hello, my friends, and welcome to Wednesday! I apologize for missing the first two installments of Apex this week. Monday was a holiday, and I meant to take that off. But yesterday? Well…I plum forgot, and that’s the truth.
But I’m back today with some favorite recent money stories from around the web. Let’s dive right in.
If houses are so overpriced, why are people still dying to buy? [/r/leanfire on Reddit] — “I mean there are always people who dont know what they’re doing but the consensus seems to be that houses are overpriced and have been so for a while. What are arguments for buying a house that people might not be seeing. What’s the other side of the story?” Interesting to read these comments in light of the fact that I just sold my house because the market is so high. [See also: This thread on Twitter about how bizarre the U.S. housing market is currently.]
Speculation and investment (and the difference between the two). [GMO Quarterly Letter] — “Investment as an activity allows for both parties to a transaction to be satisfied with the outcome, whereas speculation generally implies a winner and a loser. While that is a slight oversimplification, it’s a useful one in thinking about why speculation can be such an intoxicating activity, and why a market driven by speculative activity probably isn’t sustainable.” This is long, complicated, and poorly formatted, but it’s important.
Die with Zero, a book summary. [Debt-Free Doctor] — “Most books about investing discuss how to grow wealth and accumulate more, this one was the total opposite. It detailed an interested concept of how we could plan out our finances to ensure that we enjoyed life and died with, you guessed it, ZERO… [It’s] one of the few books I’ve read that have made me pause and rethink my view about money and life.”
Last of all, here’s a video completely unrelated to money. It’s a five minutes of concert footage featuring Mumford and Sons performing “There Will Be Time” with Baaba Maal before an enthusiastic crowd in Johannesburg, South Africa. I think the song is beautiful. Maybe you will too.
And that’s all I have for you today. Come back tomorrow for more of the best from the world of personal finance. I’ll see you then.