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A Spring Bounce will Test Your Resolve
invite response
2007 Jan 29, 1:00am 13,118 views 101 comments
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Person,
Depends on the environment. Back in the early 90's (with sterling credit) our mortgage WAS at 8%! This is the corner the REIC has painted themselves into. The buying public has been acclimated to believe that 5-6% 30 yr. FRM IS the "standard". As per my post above see how much fun it is to "sell" 8-9% money in a market of declining home values.
Yeah, it'd be a lot like that.
"A Harris poll conducted last year that ranked occupations in terms of prestige placed real estate brokers at the very bottom of a list of 23 professions. (Firefighters and doctors were at the top.)
Brokers themselves seem well aware that their business isn’t always held in very high regard. The National Association of Realtors has an advertising campaign called “Someone You Can Trust,†which stresses that Realtors are subject to mandatory ethics training. “Not many professionals can claim that on their résumé,†the ads read."
It's funny, the three people I know who are Realtors are all nice and quite honest people, but I did encounter a couple of scumbags when I first moved here and was looking for a place. I looked at one of the Painted Ladies on Alamo Square (famous in postcards, has gentrified a bit, but still rough) and the Realtor kept telling me it was a great, 'prestige' neighborhood. "Then why does everyone around look like a Blood or a Crip?"
I also have a friend who bought a gorgeous house in the city, and has discovered over $1 million in undisclosed dry rot and water and termite damage. Apparently the seller's agent has two lawsuits against him at this moment for not disclosing known defects.
Is there anywhere where you can find out about dishonest Realtors?
also, I wonder how there is going to be a spring bounce when foreclosures are at a 52 year high, sub-prime lenders are going under and lending standards tightening up. Seems like a lot of different $hit is hitting the fan at the same time; what a mess!
SP,
Just like sibling rivalry, you can only stop your wife's behavior if you start acting exactly the same way, except worse. When she calls you out on the behavior, call her out and hopefully you can establish a truce.
WARNING: While this may constitute advice, it may go horribly wrong and result in cold dinner, nights on the sofa, and in extreme cases, divorce and/or dismemberment. Proceed at your own risk.
Peter P
2007 Jan 30, 2:09am
When she calls you out on the behavior, call her out and hopefully you can establish a truce.
That can't get no truce.
Peter P
2007 Jan 30, 2:13am
People are still a little scared about not buying in if they haven’t yet, but foreclosures are going through the roof.
They have to be very scared about buying for the bubble to really burst. Foreclosure is an indicator that future psychological shock is building up.
Trust me, by the time the bubble burst, many people on this blog will have lost interest in buying.
SQT:
I wasn't quoting Brinker, just giving the gist of his remarks.
I think Brinkers words were "Cassandras," in regard to the housing bubble implosion advocates.
He cited some stats that sounded more like a dead-cat-bounce, than a bonafide base being set on prices.
All in all, Brinker seemed irritated at housing bubble believers.
Oh, well. Whatever. Nevermind.
SQT,
Then you definitely married a CLASS GUY! I realize they are friends and all but the quickest way to no longer be "my" friend is to pretend to be oblivious to your good fortune!
If you're knocking down major bucks in a down cycle (whatever the industry) you've got genuine bragging rights! Having a horse shoe in your back pocket b/c the Fed took rates to 1% and you happen to have a "free money" placard on your desk does *not constitute "skills".
SP,
Oops. Next thing I know, I get slapped with a libel suit from Mrs. SP...
But yeah, so I've been told (hey, maybe I could start my own libel case -- KIDDING!). Well, it works(kind of), with my mom...until she forgets and starts all over again.
I do practice the behavior you described everytime my dad gets too cocky about his investment portfolio.
I am reposting this here as well as in the latest thread
*****************************************************
The numbers that Hi_there posted are from the just released CME Case-Shiller Indices for November 2006 (please attribute your numbers in the future!). The numbers (with month to month percentages for the past two months and a year to year percentage) are at:
http://www.macromarkets.com/recent_news/articles/2007/01302007_S&P.pdf
Check out Boston… pure ugliness for the past year.
I think the Las Vegas numbers are looking so good as they haven’t had much of a chance to get “arms length†transaction numbers. New contruction isn’t included in the Case-Shiller CME Indexes. The SF Bay Area Index (which includes Alameda and Contra Costa counties) is showing increasing declines over the past two months of data (Sept/Oct, Oct/Nov).
DinOr,
Thanks - I posted that link a couple threads ago. Clearly when I was looking for work in '02 I should have been spending my time borrowing bucks and buying memberships at CME and CBOT. Oh well.
Bears got it - no worries!
Paul
« First « Previous Comments 87 - 101 of 101 Search these comments
I can already feel it coming. A "Spring Bounce". No matter that this bounce -- really more of a pause in the correction -- won't be they type of bounce Realtors point to as typical seasonality. No matter that this bounce won't be based on fundamentals, not even on technicals, but only on hopes. Regardless, the industry message that it's now time to buy will echo through the media and shake the confidence of many who've marginally been waiting out the bubble.
And it should shake the confidence of every one of us. Or at least prod our confidence a little bit. Intelligent people always reserve some room for doubt; recognize that it's always possible that they were wrong. The bubble-sitter who lacks any doubt at all about their choice to sit it out is just as foolish as the blissfully ignorant, debt ridden bubble-buyer.
Economically, this is more an extension of price stickiness driven by market psychology. Sellers are hesitant to sell because they perceive prices are weak now, but they also perceive that prices should stabilize or go up sometime soon. In the Spring, to be precise. This should (and already is to a small degree) stimulate marginal buyers into capitulating. Call it a ratchet on the way down the correction curve.
But, don't be so hard on your fellow bubble-sitters as they inevitably voice doubts. Doubts about how sharp of a correction to expect, how fast prices will come down, how long they will need to wait. Doubts about whether it's all been worth it. These are honest questions many of us will be asking ourselves as the resolve of our convictions are tested, yet again.
Markets have a nasty tendency to remain irrational for longer than doubters are able to remain bearish. After all, if seeing the bubble for the bubble it is were so easy there wouldn't be one in the first place.
--Randy H
#housing