Hmmm...interesting tip on buying a forclosure....

I was looking at Trulia.COM, the housing sales website when I spied a set of questions written about secrets of buying foreclosed homes.

I liked the idea of buying a foreclosure because I figure the current owner (bank or whoever) might be a bit distressed and ready to deal.

But the set of questions brought up a fact that I just hadn't totally considered....well, only sort of half considered.

I had thought about the possibility that the person who defaulted did so not because they fell into bad times, but perhaps there was something so WRONG with the house or their life situation that they just elected to DROP it.

Well, this article brought up a particular case of this that I hadn't even considered.....what if the old owner used the house to cook methamphetamine? (here is the Wiki entry on methamphetamine )

I suppose I had considered the possibility that a house might have a nasty mold problem...or any of a host of other health related issues.....but having a problem of drug residue all over wasn't something I had considered. It would be a problem much like that of having lead paint.....it could be fixed, but at what cost?

Oh well.....just another thing to consider I suppose.

Hmmm....as goes Gold, so does Oil?

I saw this BLOG today that describes what sounds like dire times for oil....but at the end of the article, I saw the graph I have included here.

It is interesting to me because it compares the price of oil (per barrel) to in units of dollars, Euros, and Ounces of Gold.

We know how Gold has gone up in recent years.....and we see the same thing with oil.

But I didn't think the price of oil and gold had tracked each other so well....almost a flat line as opposed to the dollar!

What does that mean? Do people put Oil on the same level as gold? That is, is it so needed by the world that it has become a new place to consider a "sure thing" should there be financial collapse?

I don't think so myself.....but I wonder what other think?