You should be consulting with your agent on their perception of the situation and how to proceed.

It is perception and is highly manipulated by the media.

The value of what you paid is based on your perception.

Let's keep learning / deviating our perceptions, and give our experience, good and bad, as knowledge to the next folks with the right mindset. 

If you wonder what is better between investing in the stock market or real estate, there is no answer to that as both have pluses and minuses and then it can come down to knowledge, risk and volatility tolerance, personal psychology and perception, which are different from each of us.

Money is deeply emotional and tied to perceptions of family security.Your fiance has already clearly signaled to you that she needs more security in the immediate future than you do - you're both just starting from different places. 

Perception is reality: my sphere knows me already as someone different; a friend, a goofball, a corporate manager, their boss lol - etc its difficult to "overwrite" how they view me.

Lolthats very perceptive.. were would those markets be without all these highly organized sales organizations bringing in money from all over the country and the world.. were would they be with only local organic investors. ???  

@Laura Cardenas Couldn’t Agree more, I definitely have a different perception after reading the posts.

What may be skewing your perception is your think of Self-Employed persons, say a plumber, electrician etc., who strike out on own as a "business".