There are many possible reasons for why it doesn’t hurt so much to lose money on an asset like a house. First, it isn’t very tangible, since no one really knows what their house is worth anyway. Second, it hurts less whenever everyone else is also losing on their houses. (I once heard a very rich person say that he didn’t care about his absolute wealth, only what his ranking was on the Forbes list of richest people.) Third, you can’t really blame yourself for house prices falling, but you could second-guess your decision to carry around $18,000 in cash. Fourth, the fact that a thief has your
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