Real Estate Market / Inflation / Recession / Depression

[katzenfreund]

Please stick to the topic and don't insult or discuss other members.
Thanks!

[Shuffler]

Why don't the optimists start a contrarian thread entitled "Real Estate Market / Progression / Optimism" and we'll see how that one turns out...

[sterlinggirl]

Originally Posted by themaster

So tell me what has bob done exactly for you?

When I put my house up for sale this summer, I was pessimistic about the market, and priced accordingly. It sold in 3 weeks.

My neighbors who listened to the optimists calling for July '08 to be the bottom priced theirs a little higher....and still haven't sold.

[CosmicWizard]

sterlinggirl...

I'm thinking that a real estate agent worth their salt would understand the local market and suggest a listing price that would reflect the local conditions. Thus you could have accomplished your goal of a quick sale without having to expose yourself to the negativity, depression and gloom of this thread. ( I should listen to my own advice....I'm on this thread everyday soaking up the negativity with the rest of you! )

Now wether or not you would have acted on the agents advice is a whole other matter. Hearing it from the mouth of a mere real estate agent is not as authorative as reading it on an internet forum. Aparently your neighbor ( optimist or pessimist ) either had an uniformed/unrealistic agent or didn't follow the advice of the agent.

[Bob from down south]

Originally Posted by LBear

How about this?

Bob and Jazz will pay us each $100 if they are WRONG and the future is not all doom & gloom like they say it will be.

IF, Bob and Jazz are RIGHT, then each of us will pay them $100.

So do we get to use Dow 13000 as a starting point, since that's about the point you started calling Jazz and I socialist heretics for suggesting an economic implosion was imminent?

The future needn't be doom and gloom if you've prepared for what lies ahead. That means pay off debt. Save. Economize. Be prepared to defend what you have. Be prepared--financially and psychologically--to live with and consume much less. And reassess where you've put your retirement savings with the rosy-colored glasses left on the kitchen counter and the CNBC soundtrack on MUTE. Just as with the NASDAQ tech wreck, the pundits are doing everything in their power to keep people in the market, riding the Titanic all the way down to the bottom. It's an odd sort of baptism...they seek to hold the faith-challenged investor down under the Holy Water--until the bubbles stop coming up.

But for the hundreds of millions who haven't prepared, or even so much as even thought about the possibility that their future may not include $4 Starbucks drinks and 10 mpg Hummers and Escalades, a deflationary collapse will mean the unanticipated shock of severe deprivation compounded by their uniquely American sense of entitlement to things they have not earned. For them, what lies ahead is pretty doomy and gloomy.

The Dow dropped 680 pts--nearly 8%--today. S&P took a 9% haircut. At the same time, commodities also took a beating...oil down 10% to below $50, gold down more than $40. Short term treasuries are yielding negative real returns, and the 10/30 year bond yields are going haywire. That smells an awful lot like a severe deflationary bout overtaking us. And I'll say it again--the last time we saw recurring crazy high percentage intraday trading ranges in the equities markets like this was in the 1930s.

The Governor of the State of California declared an "economic emergency" today. Unemployment there is already 8.2%, even using the cooked government numbers. Having lived there, knowing the tremendous amount of tech and agricultural production capacity, I wonder how Colorado, with very little productive capacity in comparison, can avoid the same fate.

Maybe we can sell some more $500,000 parking spots in Vail.

Debt is for Dummies

[Bideshi]

Originally Posted by Bob from down south

Maybe we can sell some more $500,000 parking spots in Vail.

Debt is for Dummies

OOOH! I want two so I can park my Ferrari sideways and avoid dings...

[Bob from down south]

Originally Posted by CosmicWizard

sterlinggirl...

I'm thinking that a real estate agent worth their salt would understand the local market and suggest a listing price that would reflect the local conditions. Thus you could have accomplished your goal of a quick sale without having to expose yourself to the negativity, depression and gloom of this thread. ( I should listen to my own advice....I'm on this thread everyday soaking up the negativity with the rest of you! )

Now wether or not you would have acted on the agents advice is a whole other matter. Aparently your neighbor ( optimist or pessimist ) either had an uniformed/unrealistic agent or didn't follow the advice of the agent.

The realtors, as a group, drank more of the Kool Aid than anyone else. Their part in the creation of the bubble was critical--they had a big part in facilitating the massive runup in prices in collusion with mortgage brokers, appraisers, and developers. Their cognition of the market collapse came very late to the game. "It's just a slowdown," and "the bottom is near," were the early battle cries. Just listen to the spewage coming from NAR talking head Lawrence Yun and you can get a good whiff of the current hype.

It's hard for a fast-talking realtor to advise a seller to set a low market price that means taking a serious a** whupping, when just months ago he or a guy that looks just like him was telling these same people that "real estate always goes up," and "buy now or be priced out forever."

But there is some Jungle Justice out there. I know hiring managers that won't even look at a resume from a displaced former real estate industry worker, whether they be from a mortgage broker or lender, real estate sales, or development. They have a black cloud over them, a deathly pall, owing from what many of us know deep down about their culpability in creating this ugly, chocolate mess. It took a lot of those people to look the other way and get us here. I trust they will get paid back handsomely in the dark days ahead.

Debt'll Do Ya

[CosmicWizard]

My qualifier was: a real estate agent worth their salt

We all know that Lawrence Yun and the NAR do not have our best interest at heart, so why keep harping on it? It's old news.

[Bob from down south]

Originally Posted by CosmicWizard

My qualifier was: a real estate agent worth their salt

We all know that Lawrence Yun and the NAR do not have our best interest at heart, so why keep harping on it? It's old news.

The NAR's spin machine continues to be ongoing current news, but an age-old story. When the NAR goes bankrupt and ceases to exist, then I'll stop talking about them.

I would also suggest that many of those "worth their salt" realtors were just as zombified by the Kool Aid as the clueless newbies looking to cash in on housing sales fueled by cut-rate credit crack as it piled up at every mortgage company in town.

Debt is a Drug

[themaster]

Originally Posted by sterlinggirl

When I put my house up for sale this summer, I was pessimistic about the market, and priced accordingly. It sold in 3 weeks.

My neighbors who listened to the optimists calling for July '08 to be the bottom priced theirs a little higher....and still haven't sold.

It sounds to me reguardless of bob.. you just used common sense.. of course house sales have more to it then just that..