How Much Is A Trillion?

Bloomberg reports today that the worth of real estate assets in the U.S. has dropped by almost a trillion dollars.  A trillion dollars?  Okay, the exact figure is 947 billion, but who's counting?

To put that in perspective, a billion dollars looks like this, sort of.  This is an average sized human standing next to 1 billion dollars in $100 bills.  A trillion dollars would be a thousand of these stacks.  How much is a trillion?  It's a million million.  It's a thousand billion.

Imagine a thousand stacks just like the ones in the pic and you might be able to get a feel for the challenge U.S. real estate is having right now.

Bloomberg reports that "A loss of $947 billion in real estate assets over the past year was compounded by a drop in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index last quarter, the first decline in a year. The erosion in wealth, which remains below pre-recession levels, and a stagnant job market may prompt Americans to keep trimming debt and rebuild savings, limiting the spending that accounts for 70 percent of the economy."

Yikes!

But for Canadians, this means the most incredible buying opportunity in history.

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