Correspondent Joel M. submitted an article that struck me as a harbinger of the future: In Greece, Property Is Debt:

"At law courts throughout Greece, people are lining up to file papers renouncing their inheritance. Not necessarily because some feckless uncle left them with a pile of debt at the end of his revels; they are turning their backs on what used to be a pillar of Greece's economy and society: real estate.
 
Growing personal debt, declining incomes and ever higher taxes as Greece's depression grinds on have turned property and the dream of easy money into dread of a catastrophic burden.
 
After many years in which only very valuable properties were taxed, many Greeks went from paying almost no taxes on real estate to not having enough money to pay.