Homeowners are sitting on $5.4 trillion in ready cash, the most ever

[BurfordTJustice]

Homeowners are sitting on $5.4 trillion in ready cash, the most ever a.. The amount of equity today's homeowners are able to tap is at the highest level on record. a.. The collective amount of tappable equity is now an estimated $5.4 trillion, which is 10 percent more than at the pre-recession peak in 2005. a.. Unlike during the last peak, homeowners today are far more conservative.

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Manhattan Home Sales Tumble Most Since 2009 as Buyers Push Back

Home sales in Manhattan plunged by the most since the recession as buyers at all price levels drove hard bargains and were in no rush to close deals.

Sales of all condos and co-ops fell 25 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier to 2,180, according to a report Tuesday by appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and brokerage Douglas Elliman Real Estate. It was the biggest annual decline since the second quarter of 2009, when Manhattan's property market froze in the wake of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s bankruptcy filing and the global financial crisis that followed.

[gfretwell]

I think they remember what happened to those people who did suck all of the equity out of their homes last time. Some are still living in their car.

[angelicapaganelli]

My house isn't an ATM. People who treat the equity in their homes as a source of funding for lattes are idiots.

I'll continue sitting on the equity in my house until I die or someone hauls me off to a nursing home (preferably the former).

Cindy Hamilton