Beyond that whole debacle, it's disturbingly cheaper to buy a condo than to rent a place, so I'm toying with that. Life is stupid expensive. Not a fan. Any smart people got advice on red flags to watch for in that process?

Yeah literally everything

- the amount of training to become a real estate agent is less than the amount of training to become an aesthetician. I think hair stylists have more ethics videos to watch, tho

- there is nothing preventing a real estate agent from practicing their best creative writing and then adding "buyer to confirm" to cover their magical beanstalk ideas

- the mortgage market is in flux, FNMA/FNMC are still partly under forbearance and the nation's eviction status is all over the place and subject to extensive and ongoing litigation

- inflation is something feared by literally everyone except the people responsible for addressing inflation

- timber futures are through the roof in part because our stock market is fully nihilist but also in part because Canada has been eaten by wood borer beetles

- Biden is trying to blow up 1031 exchanges which, fundamentally, means that right now you can buy an apartment building for $1m, sell it for $2m, then buy a $2m apartment building and pay zero taxes. Biden thinks that actually, anyone rich enough to do that shit should probably pay 43% capital gains tax which as you might imagine has the potential to upend multifamily in ways we haven't seen since the Tenement Act of 1901.

Fer real, dawg. EVERYTHING about real estate is up for renegotiation right now. Maybe you catch a rising star? Maybe you catch a knife. I honestly have no idea how this plays out because on the one hand the Republicans are busy pillorying Liz Cheney for saying mean things about Trump while Biden is busy going "here's $50 a month for your internet for everyone making under $200k a year".

Shit is bananas. Stay frosty.