May 23, 2006

The stupidest things I've seen during the Housing Bubble Ponzi Scheme



* People who only look at their monthly payment, and not the cost of the asset
* People who believe their realtor has their best interests at heart
* Overnight camping in order to buy a stucco ghetto home in Phoenix
* $800,000 1-bedroom condos in San Diego
* Miami Beach "grand opening" condo parties with models, DJ's and open bar
* Bartenders getting their real estate license
* Anyone who said "it's different this time"
* realtor.org and realtytimes.com
* Appraisers who can "make the numbers work"
* 50-year mortgages

* Lazy reporters quoting realtors
* No-down, no-doc, interest-only, teaser rate loans
* Las Vegas condos

* Greenspan telling people to get into ARMs right when he started raising rates
* George Bush telling people to buy homes right at the top of the bubble
* The corrupt David Lereah
* People listening to David Lereah, George Bush or Alan Greenspan

What'd I miss?

39 comments:

Rob Dawg said...

Blingz
Swimming Naked
Appraisals
Las Vegas ANYTHING
People who take the easy way out and
blame Bush for anything they don't like

Anonymous said...

condoflip.com

Anonymous said...

the banker and that realtor from boulder

Anonymous said...

These realtors, brokers, appraisers have been lying for so long, they may actually believe what they are saying.
A neighbor whose house had 2 contracts fall through told me, "My realtor said things are going to pick back up in a month or two".
I told her my realtor has been missing since she took time off to help the Easter Bunny hide eggs.

Anonymous said...

Holy shit. CNBC just had Bob Toll on to discuss the housing market.

Kudlow was throwing up the biggest softball questions. He was basically telling Toll that the housing market is still outstanding. If Toll said anything at all negative, Kudlow would come back and say yeah but that's still very strong.

Great interview Kudlow, let me quess, you are trying to flip about 3 spec homes?

Crazy

Anonymous said...

You forgot the over used RE Agent quote when talking about an over priced POS house, "It has good bones."

Joe said...

Las Vegas ANYTHING
Hey, I'm the Vegas hater on this blog.. thank you. :)

Anyways, the stupidist thing I've seen is that ugly pink Barbie Hummer2 from that "oh the humanity" skank a few months ago. That epitomizes the irrationality of the bubble right there.

Anonymous said...

I wonder how many realtors have any education higher than HS/GED. No, your RE class and open houses don't count for credit.

Anonymous said...

An Irish real estate company selling condos in Orlando with the claim that property there has gone up 25% in the past quarter and is expected to continue to do this for the next 5 years. They offer guaranteed rent for a period, beyond that you can rely on capital appreciation. Right.

Anonymous said...

"A neighbor whose house had 2 contracts fall through told me, "My realtor said things are going to pick back up in a month or two"."

Realtors aren't market guru's. It's not the realtors job to do anything but market and sell the home.

I've got plenty of inventory right now, and sure it's alarming. I'm spending more to market my listings than ever. But that's the name of the game. I also won't take a listing where the client wants more than market value right now, if the client isn't willing to offer some sort of concession right now, the home won't sell.

It's right about that time in my discussion with a seller where I ask them if they would like to sell the home themselves and save the commission they'll have to pay me to offset those concessions. The answer is almost always that they hire me to sell their home. They will sometimes find a different realtor that will put the home on the market for what the seller wants, but I have a feeling they will be coming back to me later on, or simply market the home themselves.

I'm only willing to do a job that I think I can do. I don't take listings to waste my time or the clients. If they can't sell at below the high point of the market from last year, they don't become my client. My choice, not theirs.

Anonymous said...

a liberal guy who runs a housing bubble blog and blames everything on other people. Bush did not "tell" people to buy houses. Greenspan did not "tell" people to get into ARMS. BTW when rates were at their lowest, the spread between a 5/1 ARM and the 30 yr fixed was the widest, therefore, not a bad move to get into a 5/1, and put the savings in the bank. You are a socialist, bitter loser. Also, you are a pussy who wont just admit you are a Dem/Liberal. Just another left guy who thinks the world owes him something.

Anonymous said...

wacko above!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

I miss the Banker.....did Keith ban him? He was the reason I came to this blog in the first place (saw your blog mentioned in BW Online last fall....)

Anonymous said...

I dont own a car, live/work in NYC and take subway. I'm right btw...Bush didn't tell people to spec on houses. Alan didn't tell them what form of borrowing to use. You lefties are the haters. Just read this blog, and see how angry you all are that people spec'd and flipped houses. It is ok...it's ok to take risk with your own $ in a free market. get over it, and go to Starbucks, get a $5 latte and surf the net on your Apple computer.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like "anon" is holding some depreciating assets and needs to vent. I'd be pissed to.

Why does it always come down to left or right?

Is it so wrong for people to hope that affordable housing might one day be a possibility without having to move to bumf*ck USA?

Take a chill pill dude...

Anonymous said...

Stupidest housing items:

condoflip.com

Trump condo towers in Vegas - IVANA Trump

ipayone Center in San Diego

help-u-sell

50-year mortgage

Carleton Sheets no money down real estate program

"The national median housing price has never gone done year-over-year in all of its recorded history"

--- The long-haired freakazoid guest commentator on Fox's Sat. business block that kept repeating that mantra

Anonymous said...

"Realtors aren't market guru's. It's not the realtors job to do anything but market and sell the home."...
How about telling them to get real with the pricing. With the market changing, you are wasting time and money when you aren't marketing the house correctly. It seems you are more worried than "entertained". My guess is not too many of those houses you're marketing are selling - maybe the prices are too high!

foreclose_me said...

Any other ideas on why someone who owned real estate before the year 2000 would be scared when real estate prices were running up like they were doing in 2001-2005?

Most true investors become concerned whenever the market starts behaving in ways they can't understand.

Anonymous said...

The 50 year mortgage.

Anonymous said...

To the Condoflip.com poster: I'm quitting my job to become a daytrader.

Anonymous said...

People who take the easy way out and
blame Bush for anything they don't like


You are right....he is too much of a dumbass to be responsible for anything.

Anonymous said...

Toll Brothers stock going up today was pretty stupid. At one point it was up 6% until the general market helped take it back down. I love the quotes from the analysts: "We were relieved that it wasn't as bad as we thought it would be." That's kind of like saying "It was just a dirty bomb, not a full blown nuke."

Anonymous said...

Buyers Agent to couple purchasing my Scottsdale home that had appreciated 195% in 24 months, "And I can't wait to list this house for you in 2 years for double what you're paying."

Anonymous said...

SCOTTSDALE AS-IS TRIPLE-OVERPRICED 20 YEAR OLD CONDO CONVERSIONS "DONE" BY MONTECITO INVESTMENTS CO., COMPLETE WITH LEAKING ROOFS, MOLD AND RENTERS FILLING 90% OF THE UNITS.

Anonymous said...

SUZANNE RESEARCHED THIS!!!

Anonymous said...

What about Barbara Corcoran's prediction that the "Super Bowl" was going to bring the buyers out, and that anyone waiting was going to be sorry. I hate her more than the stupid long haired freak on the Biz Block.

Barbara must be held accountable for her actions, right now she says the the "50 year mortgage" is going to be the hottest thing going.

Let me tell you something you stupid NY Bitch, you need to shut up, sell any properties you have, because they are going down to 2001 levels over the next 15 years, you will be bk.

Anonymous said...

What's ironic is the google ads that pop up on this blog. :)

Anonymous said...

Duh forgot to add the ad.

Pre-Construction Profits, Condos, Condo Hotels and resorts, Principal Guaranteed. $50k min.

LOL

Anonymous said...

you forgot osman.

Anonymous said...

Enough guessing - Here is the reality - May 24, 2006 The Commerce Department reported Wednesday that sales of new single-family homes increased by 4.9 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.198 million units, the highest rate since last December.

Anonymous said...

My Humble Opinion (just had to put it here too)

My thought on the numbers getting skewed is that all of the pre construction condos that sold in the last two or three years just got the certificates of occupancy (CO) during the last few months. You cannot close on a home until the CO is issued. This would mean if only one new high rise opens its doors, all of the several hundred condos that were sold pre construction in past years (except the cancellations), all of these closing happened at once. These closings went onto this years books, as these condo towers take years to build and some were sold out before the developer broke ground.

I am talking contract sales made back when you could get low enough prices to buy three condos and sell two and have the third one free and clear from the profit on the two flips, before the building was even built.

I think they could not wait to publish these so-called “increases” in closings. If you dissect the data, you will see that single family home sales are way down, thus my reasoning above.

Dogcrap Green said...

Sell your house for $400,000 with it's 4.5% mortgage. And pay an agent $24,000.00

Rent a house for 4 years and pay your landlord $60,0000.00

Buy back your house for $375,000 with a 6% mortgage.

Let's see you lost $84,000 saved $25,000, but have to pay $5,625 more per year in interst on your mortgage.

Should I sell again in 5 years when Kieth screams bubble II?

Then I paid $28,000 extra in interst payments So I guess I'm only down $112,000

If only gold did not start dropping

ROFLMAO

blogger said...

twib said...
Considering the monthly payment is not the stupidest thing ever. How else do you decide to buy vs. rent. You have to know the monthly payment.

keith says:

twib - I wish you well. It's that kind of financial ignorance which will lead to the bankruptcy of so many folks with similar thinking.

Why? By that logic, as interest rates rise and payments rise, then the asset price must fall assuming rents stay flat so that payments stay the same.

Dogcrap Green said...

my mistake you lost $60,000 saved $25,000 but have to pay an extra $5,625

But wait where is the tax benifit lost?

Where are rising rents?

I'm so confused... I just don't get it.

Dogcrap Green said...

Kieth your assumption that rent stays flat is totally false.

It is the one thing that will appreciate faster than you can imagine.

Rents will go up 33% in 5 years.

degoboy said...

The realter who purchased a 800 sq ft piece of crap in a piece of crap neighbood for 320,000 in feb 2006, threw in some cheap upgrades and did a slapdash paint coat(using no doubt unlicensed illegal alien contactors) and put it up for sale in april for $450,000. I saw the home: the yard was still piled with building and landscape materials even as it was being listed. He had 4-5 signs with flags all over the neighborhood advertising this crap house. That street, Baltic ave in Long Beach, has four homes for sales in one block, all being brought up and flipped, probably by the same idiot. Very nasty area, being run-down and ruined by flippers doing slapdash upgrades on recently purchased homes all over the nieghborhood and attemting to sell for quick easy profits.

Anonymous said...

Dog Crap Green: ypu are the man. You put Keith in his place...that place: a place for dumbass financially useless people. You are right.

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