even though the weekend Chronicle keeps crowing about record sales of new homes, I checked with a real estate agent neighbor to see what my house could list for. After a CMA, she said that we could sell it for around $20,000 less than we paid for it 22 months ago, and then all of the fees involved in a real estate transaction take their cut before I would see one penny. So I'm looking at around a $40,000 loss right now if I have to sell.