patrick.net

spiralspace,

Oh no problem. Myself as well as others I'm sure use the phrase "repartment" in the loosest of terms. Meaning anything bought on specualtion, unable to be sold at a profit and reconverted back into a rental. Be it a condo, SFH townhouse or whatever.

DinOR,

Cherry picking to sell the good and keep the bad seems to be a common human instinct. Most people, even well educated people, have trouble wrapping their heads around sunk costs.

Probably why so many people in Vegas end up losing it all because they just wanted to get their money back.

Cherry picking to sell the good and keep the bad seems to be a common human instinct.

Most people do not want to realize mistakes. Therefore, we hace "escalation of commitments".

The key is to exploit this human weakness.

astrid,

I don't know that SFWoman's friend over promised and under delivered but my guess is that she probably tried to "manage their expectations" right out of the gate only to be ignored by sellers that had "already spent the money". I see quite a bit of that lately.

spiralspace,

Well, most people (including my mom, I had a horrid time talking her out of a rash condo purchase recently, because prices can't possibly fall back to...) can't wrap their heads around the idea of home prices falling 30% or more, even though that would only get us back to 2002 or 2003 price levels. But I'm a bubblehead, so I gleefully look forward to 50%+ drops in NOMINAL dollars.

What makes the situation particularly funny is that most people over-learnt about never trusting the stockmarket again, only 5 years after talking about how tech stocks were not gonna go down, blah blah blah. Explaining to them why a S&P 500 index fund is likely to be a safer bet than a "tangible" house? Forget about it!

astrid,

So true. I'll go you one further though, the MORE educated people are the more likely to keep the losers. IMHE.

Dead carrion listings? (I love it)!

"Most people do not want to realize mistakes. Therefore, we hace “escalation of commitments”.

The key is to exploit this human weakness. "

What? You mean like selling a $100K condotel for $50K, then collect $3K a month on management fees? (yeah, I thought about it) :)

MA,

WOW! That's a scary comment. I know that realtors (TM) are fond of telling us all about how long they've been in the biz and all but I suspect the truth is that they're only as good as their last sale. True, some may be well connected to an ongoing "pipeline" of business with a steady revenue stream but for every one like that there are a hundred that need next months commission check to pay last months bills! Does anyone know when they have to renew or is it different by each state? This could be a very telling indicator!

Peter P,

I can't believe I forgot the classic rent to own leases, talk about escalating of commitment on iffy property!

DinOR and MA,

NAR really did its established members a disservice by setting up such low barriers to entry. Just imagine if they required a couple difficult financial planning type certifications, a year of apprenticeship with an established agent (while getting paid almost nothing).

Oh, and maybe some more liabilities for deals gone bad?

That would separate the wheat from the all too numerous chaff, much more so than a pathetic monopoly on the MLS database.

I can’t believe I forgot the classic rent to own leases, talk about escalating of commitment on iffy property!

I think auto mechanics rely on this behavior. The more money a person spends on fixing his car, the more likely he will keep his old car. Consequently, more fixing to do!

MA,

"Remember their chief battle is to fight against all the forces pushing that commission down."

Hehe, that might have something to do with the fact that their jobs are obsolete.

RE Boomers' median 401k/IRA savings at $2,000.
Two words: Soylent Green. For every problem, there is a solution. :twisted:

“RE agent rescues” “save a realtor®” foundation
CA's next growth industry :lol:

Even if the Fed tries to “reflate” this will exacerbate the fiscal crisis because SS benefits are inflation-indexed. You can only game the CPI numbers for so long…

Oh... I dunno about that. The Fed & BLS have proven to be remarkably adept at creating inflation and then hiding it from Joe Sixpack. The more Stealth Inflation they can successfully sneak by, the better the SS/medicare obligation situation gets.

Of course, the NAR could never get the sort of legal protection that the doctors and lawyer and accountants have for their jobs. Those jobs were actually necessary and have justifications for stringent compliance. They're just antiquated brokers who really don't have a role in this eco-system anymore.

The completely unscientific desperation index
Number of Craigslist listings using the word "motivated" or "desperate":
LA: Motivated = 252 / Desperate = 4
Sac: 234/3
SF: 549/4
Miami: 902/10
LV: 309/32
OC: 317/11
SD: 274/5

A lot of people post in the wrong geographic area, or include multiple postings, etc... so take these numbers with a large grain of salt. Still, the sheer number of listings in Miami makes me think they are probably farther along into the bust than California. And it is clear that LV has by far the highest ratio of desperate sellers to motivated sellers (I guess this isn't surprising).

Peter P Says:

The new one on Sand Hill Rd across from Stanford Shopping Center is very nice. I bet is very expensive though.

I've heard the smallest units start at $1M. They are doing well, but the talk has been that these condos were supposed to "lure" retirees who want the close proximity to Stanford, an active schedule (lectures from Stanfor profs, campus activities, shopping), but it hasn't been as spectacular as hoped. My guess? Retirees don't want to give up on their Prop 13 advantage in their current homes.

SQT Says:

I think there’ll be a few “fair-weather” mortgage brokers too…

I wonder how many of these people were day trading in the late 90's?

Fucking shit I'm sick of, "my house is worth $________.00, my house went up ___%".

Lets imagine this, a house made out of bales of money, what does the house look like now and what will it look like 1 yr from now? Missing the roof? New deck?

"I'm always meeting someone who is about to take the test" LOL!

Seems FB's don't have a monopoly on greater fools!

Almost every store has a HELP WANTED sign. But how do you live in Bend if you have those jobs?

Simple. You work TWO of these jobs. Or, if you're one of those laid-off Boomers from last Sunday's NYT article, you refuse such work as "demeaning" and "underpaying" and continue living the good life off your home ATM.

Welcome to the new American post-industrial, globally arbitraged labor market. Here's your nametag.

Finally got around to watching "Cinderella Man" this week. While that happened in the context of a different bubble, the circumstances seemed eerily similar today. (Happy family, big house, seemingly-solid retirement portfolio.) And, I'm hearing service people talk about their investment properties. Sure, I've run into people who have bought before, but the assumption is that someone in a professional career has the income to support this. *cough*

From a survival standpoint, rudimentary job skills and adaptability (including a willingness to work and live "below" one's former station in life) offer the greatest assurance of long term survival.

But I'm getting all apocalyptical again...

including a willingness to work and live “below” one’s former station in life

Like working at a demeaning job?

But I’m getting all apocalyptical again…

Honestly, humanity is inherently evil. I do not have much hope for a better world. Perhaps a biblical end to this world is well deserved?

Peter P,

I don't believe in evil or good outside of individual cultural contexts, so I don't think of humanity as evil, at least not in the biblical sense.

I'm more worried about the situation of a suicidal culture, as posed by Jared Diamond, because we as a culture are unable to respond to the human and environmental realities of our situation. I fear we might just keep polluting and allow disasterous climate change happen, for human population to keep growing and push our available resources to the breaking point, and then it'll all be too late.

See also Roman Empire, Mayan Empire, Northern China, Easter Island, etc...

Speaking of the evil humanity, a guy at a stock forum pointed me to this: http://www.theepochtimes.com/211,111,,1.html

I am absolutely horrified and disgusted. This is worse than combat-related kills and massacres. It's not just the greedy cadres. It's the police, doctors, unsympathetic press and populace. I guess this is one of the reasons why my parents would never go back to China.

I don’t believe in evil or good outside of individual cultural contexts, so I don’t think of humanity as evil, at least not in the biblical sense.

So you believe in Moral Relativism?

I’m more worried about the situation of a suicidal culture, as posed by Jared Diamond, because we as a culture are unable to respond to the human and environmental realities of our situation. I fear we might just keep polluting and allow disasterous climate change happen, for human population to keep growing and push our available resources to the breaking point, and then it’ll all be too late.

Don't worry, be happy. What needs to happen will happen, good or bad. Human civilization goes in cycles and all good things must come to an end.

All bad things must come to an end too....including housing bubbles.

I’m more worried about the situation of a suicidal culture, as posed by Jared Diamond

Unless you're on an island, that's almost confusing the company for the market. The species itself will survive, though cultures may not. Drawing on the synchronicity of Slashdot and digg threads, I'd like to quote one poster who supposed that a motivated group of 24 (educated) people could, in a resource-rich location, get back up to a pre-atomic level of technology in about a decade. (That unfortunately assumes they don't have to play politics with other groups of survivors.)

Don't worry Astrid... If history is any guide, our wasteful and decadent era will be followed by one or more of the following: massive war, genocide, famine or plague. Have a nice weekend! :)

The species itself will survive, though cultures may not.

How about cuisines? :(

@GC,

Isn't the "Epoch Times" a portal for the Falun Gong movement itself? Not saying the Chinese government isn't evil and repressive (it is), just that I'd be a little suspicious of extreme claims, like coerced live organ harvesting from Falun Gong prisoners. This story just sounds a little too urban-mythy for me without some independent sources to back it up. Kind of reminds me of the chain email warning about people waking up in bathtubs full of ice cubes in Vegas --minus one kidney.

What the hell……..the sun will be cold one day anyway…….

There are other suns, and other planets. Until every star is dead, and every mass decayed to cold iron, there is still hope for the species.

I am absolutely horrified and disgusted. This is worse than combat-related kills and massacres. It’s not just the greedy cadres. It’s the police, doctors, unsympathetic press and populace. I guess this is one of the reasons why my parents would never go back to China.

Maybe these folks are affiliated with the ones that harvest moon bear bile,

tinyurl.com/k5fe7

or the ones that force very young girls into prostitution by strapping them to a branch and submerging them up to their armpits in a cesspool full of leaches.

tinyurl.com/hqymr

Ahh the middle kingdom, full of history and mystery.

But I digress, the Chinese are world leaders in the finance of American debtors, clearly we can look the other way on such trivial matters as human rights or basic dignity, can’t we? I mean after all, look at all the cheap crap we get in return.

There are other suns, and other planets. Until every star is dead, and every mass decayed to cold iron, there is still hope for the species.

You really believe in ET's? :)

HARM:

Ever read Niven? He hypothesized that offering people life-through-transplants would encourage people to favor such harvesting programmes for criminals. A depressingly possible future, especially if you already have a culture that places a greater importance on the society than the individual.

Which reminds me... I did see "The Island" in the past month. Yummy!

requiem,

True enough, but that's hardly much comfort for me, since I'm highly unlikely to be amongst that 10.

Although the island effect is most obvious in geographically isolated pockets, there's no reason why similar effects cannot apply on a larger scale. Humanity is on an island, we don't yet have the technology to escape the Earth if we mess it up.

If we do make some sort of breakthrough and do continue on (perchance one day to become an enlightened culture of energy beings operating on a couple double A batteries...well, then I demand reincarnation personally and the ability to continue blogging with you all.

Peter P:

There's plenty of time before the sun goes red giant to spread to other systems. Being able to leach technologies from other species (assuming such exist) would be nice, of course, but not required.

requiem@,

Yes, Larry Niven's one of my favorite sci-fi authors, as he writes in the classic tradition (as in more emphasis on actual science). I would much prefer organ cloning to organ harvesting though. As Peter P would say, stealing someone else's organs invites bad karma. :-)

Still holding out hope for someone to invent "Boosterspice" before I croak, though.