April 27, 2006

Realtors and other members of the corrupt Real Estate Industrial Complex - the floor is yours - make your case


Defend your profession. Defend your peers. Tell us why housing isn't collapsing. Tell us why real estate is a great investment today. Tell us why the cost of ownership to rent ratio doesn't matter. Tell us why your city isn't in a bubble (even if the rest of the country is).

Tell us why people need realtors. Tell us why realtors deserve a commission. Tell us how appraisers aren't motivated to inflate their appraisals. Tell us why 50 year interest only no down no doc loans are a good idea. Tell us why the NAR numbers are valid. Tell us how US property is undervalued.

Tell me what an idiot I am. Tell us why deficits don't matter. Tell us why the outsourcing of American jobs to Mexico and China doesn't relate to housing values.

Tell us whatever you want. The floor is yours!

32 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm tempted to troll since you laid the bait but as bubble believer i can't. However, real estate made folks a lot of money for a long time, however I feel that time is now coming to a close.

Anonymous said...

chirp chirp

Anonymous said...

anyone seen The Banker recently? wondering how Keith's stock picks are doing nowadays.....

blogger said...

when my picks are flying, the banker is away.. on bad days, he's here to flame

as you'll notice though, it's been at least a month since a banker siting. in other words - ka-ching!

Anonymous said...

Keith - you're an idiot...

Here's how your stock picks are doing.

On 3/21, you recommended shorting GM, it is up 5.32% since then.

On 3/21, you recommended shorting PMT, it is up 2.31% since then.

On 3/21, you recommended shorting TGIC, it is up 16.85% since then.

On 3/21, you recommended shorting CFC, it is up 5.32% since then.

On 3/21, you recommended shorting CFC, it is up 8.77% since then.

On 3/21, you recommended shorting FBR, it is up 13.24% since then.

It is utterly amazing and uncanny how poor your stock picks are. The annualized return on doing the opposite of your picks above is 71%.

Keep up the good work

Anonymous said...

In case you forgot what you wrote, here's the link:

http://housingpanic.blogspot.com/
2006/03/housingpanic-real-estate
-dead-pool-get.html

Anonymous said...

ouch

blogger said...

what banker and friend of banker don't understand is that you make a pick, it scores for you, and you get out.

GM collapsed, the homebuilders collapsed, and you get out. loyal readers of the blog know that for the past 2 to 3 months my argument is don't touch the builders after their 50% haircut

pigs get rich, hogs get slaughtered

my only long term picks (buy and hold) are cop, aapl, gld, ebay, yhoo, dis, ewj, ewc and vanguard international growth. been that way for quite some time, the only new addition in the past 60 days is gld

Anonymous said...

what a hypocrite.......keith, did you misspeak when you wrote:

Please track those puppies and enjoy

And don't flame day to day - this is a play for 12 months. We're in a nice rally right now because housing investment $ is flowing into stocks, and also hedge funds are working overtime to get the market to an increase for 2005 so they can get paid


it seems your long term picks turn out to not be so long term........then you comment above

loyal readers of the blog know that for the past 2 to 3 months my argument is don't touch the builders after their 50% haircut

umm.....you were stongly advocating shorting builders just 38 days ago.....do they keep track of time differently in London?

get out of the stock picking business and stick to politics

Anonymous said...

Oh, man, Keith, you are taking a bruising here. But since HP is the Housing Blog with Attitude, you can ignore all this criticism and just keep broadcasting that give-'em-hell attitude. People shouldn't be coming here for information, or news, or analysis, and especially not for stock picks. They should be coming for the attitude! Cowabunga, dude!

Anonymous said...

can anyone quantify a stock pick that the blog host has made where he has MADE money? need dates / urls, etc.....

Anonymous said...

ignore em Keith....just give em the rallying cry below....

We're Housing Panic! We can't pick stocks worth a damn, we can't time the demise of housing, and we can't keep the immigrants out......but damn it all, we're the DUDES with 'TUDE!!

Anonymous said...

I don't come here to pick stocks. I come to read. If anyone can't do their own research and make up their own mind, I've got some ocean front proprety in Arizona I'd like to sell you.

Anonymous said...

when my picks are flying.......

that's funny....

Anonymous said...

At least Keith uses his name and serves up some links.

Who takes an anonymous flamer (heh) serious anyway? Are they analysts? Do they have any balls to go with their criticism or are they just playing with them while the flame with one hand? Oh the mysteries of the universe!

Anonymous said...

well said last anon.....way to stick up for keith

Anonymous said...

I'm anonymous... and I like it...ah hah ah hah.. (music in my head from the 80's)

Anonymous said...

Between renting and your poor stock plays, you gotta be losing your shirt Keith.....I feel for ya.

Anonymous said...

I'm short homebuilders.

What's strange is the way that the homebuilders have suddently diverged from the mortgage REITS and companies, in particular the subprime lenders. (e.g. CFC, NFI, NEW, and the most theoretically overextended, LEND)

The subprimers I had assumed before that they would be slaughtered but their stocks continue to go up.

For some reason they get traded purely on an interest rate play---noises that rates will not be going up as much, the stocks shoot up.

I don't understand it, as I think their problem isn't going to be rates, but toxic credit risks and foreclosures. But at present, they trade by rates.

Homebuilders did for a while; my shorts on them gyrated randomly and went nowhere. And just recently they started collapsing more and more regardless of the rate noise and general sttocks. (In particular PHM and BZH but I really don't know enought to pick and choose so much).

Anonymous said...

buy WLS.....Keith issued a short on them in early march and their stock jumped 30 pts.......

Anonymous said...

I think Keith already stated his point, shorts were'nt buy and hold picks, their shorts held for a limited period of time. The gains your celebrating are called bear market rallies. If you held those stocks for a long time, YOU'D loose money and the short would gain money over time. Still, it's possible to identify an opportunity for a break-out (up or down) in a particular stock. For instance, I could even make money shorting gold right now, even though it's in a long term bull market, it will consolodate from time to time and this can be identified by analyzing the charts. Would I want to go short gold for the next 6 years though? Hell no!

Anonymous said...

Well, aparantly I've seen Keith's shorts he claims were 'short term' only.

Where are the money makers? What picks has he recommended the last month since all those March recommendations to short that APPEAR to have lost money? Where did Keith say to 'take profit' on those shorts?

Am I being critical? Hell yes. If you're going to save money by renting at least invest that money and make more.

My choices? NXG, WFR, JOYG, ZOLT. I'll even post again on when to take profit.

So Keith?

Anonymous said...

Whoops. I see Keith has his picks listed.

Now all we need is for banker and his friends to make theirs.

Anonymous said...

I'll answer the topics of the post. I am a REALTOR, and I am also a real estate investor. I serve on my state Professional Standards Committee and currently am President of my local Association.

I won't tell you that housing isn't slowing, but I will tell you that it might be a fine idea to wait a couple of more months to get a better feel on the market, or not to take 100% financing or any kind of ARM product.

Real estate can still be a good investment, but as a REALTOR I would never tell a client that a particular property would be a good investment. The investors that I have had as clients over the years call the shots. They do ask me for data and I give them the data, but it's on them to decide.

Have I advertised a property as a good investment?? Yes I have. Have I done it since early last year?? Nope. In fact I didn't have to advertise at all throughout 2005. But you know what the lack of advertising did to my commission, and the commission of other REALTORS?? There was no full commission paid.

When the market is as hot as it was the last couple of years, REALTORS and clients did bargain for services. When as part of my service is marketing isn't needed so much because listings were hitting the MLS and those listings were selling within a week, it was easy to offer incentives to clients. Those incentives usually meant slashed fees.

Builders are now begging for REALTORS to sell their homes. Offering larger than normal buyers commissions. Where were the builders when the market was hot?? Trying to steal my buyers clients to leave me in the learch.

Now that time on the market will be extended back to more normal times, I will be asking more commission to pay for the advertising that I surely will have to do to create interest in my inventory of listings. But my clients understand where that money is going, and they also have the option of advertising their own property as well in exchange for a lower commission. Nobody take me up on that offer.

People don't need REALTORS, how about that?? But I think many folks do see the value of a REALTOR. What do people need negative nancy blogs that scream the sky is falling for??

Some REALTORS are good negotiators, really good. They have access to the best market information to search for properties. We often have the best contacts within the community. I get calls from folks who have no intention of listing with me, but are all too happy to tell me that if I bring them a buyer they will pay me a commission. I have sold dirt, commerical, and residential properties in that kind of scenario and was paid handsomely buy the seller in every case. Those sellers sought me out, even in a hot market.

The appraisal thingy bugs me. I have little to zero interaction with appraisers (except if one is playing in my foursome at the golf course). They have a job to do, I have a job to do. I don't tell them how to do their job. If a listing does not appraise, it means I wasn't doing my job. But I know other REALTORS who beg and plead with appraisers to get the number they are looking for to benefit their client. My personal practice is different and I won't change it.

50 year mortgages are a bad idea, I have seen clients come to me with a pre-approval for these and have turned them around on their plans. But sometimes, if it's what the client wants, you have to serve them. I do deals, I'm not a financial planner. Because of my status as an investor (something I always disclose to my clients), I will tell them what I would or wouldn't do.. as an investor, not as a REALTOR. My clients are the boss, but if I don't like the situation the client is getting into, I'll quit working for that boss (just like I quit corporate jobs in the past).

Now, I'm just a baby in this business as I'm only in my fifth year. However I am very active within the REALTOR community. As I look around with the kind of REALTORS I interact with, I find the solid majority of them practice real estate in a very similar manner as I do.

But I also realize that there are unscrupulous REALTORS and brokers, plus a goodly amount of REALTORS who don't have a ton of good working experience... which I think leads to the bad rap that my profession gets from time to time.

At the same time folks are free to do deals on their own, or even hire an attorney to put the legal deal together. See, I've twisted zero arms to get people to work with me. I've let listing clients fire me, I've let buyers clients work with a different REALTOR. I don't have a team or even an assistant working for me. I won't become a broker. I take on as much business that I can to properly service the clients I have, and still leave me time to invest in properties myself.

I'd be willing to put my profession up against any other. I'd bet we'd find the same percentage of idiots that would run through any profession. We'd find the same % of unscrupulous folks, the same number of poor performers. In other words, there is no fool proof industry that exists, even amongst ditch diggers.

Osman said...

Ok Entertained Realtor, I'll break my silence for you.

Nice, well written response.

But you took Keith's troll bait. Tsk, tsk...

Posting thoughtful commentary to this over-sensationalized, sky-is-forever-falling blog is a waste of time. Take it for what it is: stock pump'n'dump, whatever drives clicks to Keith's ads, over the top tabloid trash.

It's entertaining, when I'm bored. Like sugary candy you *know* is bad for you.

Actually, I take that back. This blog isn't even up to tabloid standards. At least they have a return address and retain some control over what's published. Keith turned anonymous commenting back on because incendiary, racially biased, senseless comments drive traffic and ad clicks.

We also don't have a clue who Keith is. Anybody notice that?

When Keith pumps Gold or his recently shorted stock plays, there's no return address. We don't know anything about his professional experience or credentials. And yet he questions the work ethic, values, and credibility of so many others? Ha!

What a place from which to throw spears. Ah, the joys of anonymity.

Keith, how about sensationalizing some different crap? I'm starting to get bored with the regurgitated Iran, David Lereah, immigration rehash. Here's a good place to start.

p.s. If you're looking for a really good economic analysis blog, try Calculated Risk.

Anonymous said...

Ent. Realtor:

Honey, real estate is not a profession. The classic definition of profession is: "An occupation, such as law, medicine, or engineering, that requires considerable training and specialized study."

No matter how many times you call it a profession, it's still just a JOB. What do you need, a high school diploma and 6 weeks training at "REALTOR U"? GMAFB. The person who wipes asses at the local nursing home needs more education and specialized training! And they actually *work* for their money.

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