June 09, 2007

Great news everyone! According to Yahoo and Realty Times, there was no housing bubble, real estate to be just fine

My question - Is it possible to sue these people? Nice to see Yahoo allow Realty Times to pollute their real estate section with this spin and blather. And nice to see Realty Times do their best to completely discredit the REALTOR profession.


Real Estate Sky Won't Fall: Here's Why

Real estate hasn't made much of a case for itself lately and it's not getting much help from any of the sub industries, such as builders and mortgage makers. Just in the past few weeks, so called experts from the mortgage industry, the building industry, and the resale real estate industry have all been quoted as saying that the sky is falling.

Nice job guys!

And while real estate's reputation as the number one investment is on the ropes, the general media and other investment categories have stepped up their attacks on real estate value. What do you need to know?

1) The Sky isn't falling.
2) Real estate is unique.
3) There is no bubble.
4) Value is a complicated cocktail.
5) There is always a baseline of demand.
6) There is always a baseline of mortgage defaults.
7) There is no risk.
8) Real estate is a great way to build wealth.

So, perhaps, don't believe every "the sky if falling" report or article. Educate yourself on the market and happy wealth homeowning!

32 comments:

Unknown said...

I like this line "even if you have to work two jobs and barely scrape by to make your own mortgage payment, you are building equity that over time will be quite substantial"

haha work 2 jobs and eat ramen to earn a commission for a whore! woooo

Anonymous said...

This is the most cruel & ironic joke I've ever seen. The # of people I know who are just getting by and have no life because they bought into this mania is TNTC (Too Numerous Too Count)!! The winners in this were all the pre-bubble owner's who sold at or near the high & either bought their dream home and/or paid off all their debts and invested the rest. But because it was easy money, many squandered it. The losers are all the people who overpaid w/ toxic loans that are now exploding.

This article is just ridiculous!!

Anonymous said...

Yahoo?

Who reads, buys, emails or surfs anything from yahoo anymore?

I suspended all my yahooing after they removed the "comments blog" from their on-line news articles.

They sold out to the bush criminal network regime. Sad, but true. I moved to google.

Anonymous said...

They already look like fools but just wait a few years

Anonymous said...

The author of that article is a fool.

Cheers, Haggis

Anonymous said...

This must be the new party line propaganda. They dropped the age old, time tested lines like:
Prices never go down and They are not making anymore land.

Anonymous said...

One word, morons.

Anonymous said...

It's good to know that there is no speculation or risk in Real Estate.

Anonymous said...

This HAS to be a rouge RE who controlled the reins on the publishing of articles. Just this week I was amazed at their honesty coming out of that rag, and then this gets posted on Yahoo by them? Yahoo is semi retarded so no surprise they publish that tripe, but someone hitting the sauce over there at realty times. I mean check out his article from them with truth involved.

Nation Doomed To 2 Million Foreclosures
by Broderick Perkins

http://tinyurl.com/279ern

Also note that there is no author on the other...hmmm...something fishy.

Anonymous said...

4) Value is a complicated cocktail.

Yep, this fool is drunk.

Anonymous said...

Yahoo quickly shed it's original geek-oriented management and put in "adults" who were experienced in "media" and all That Important Stuff.

Google stayed hypergeek, and the PhD geek founders keep their "golden shares" and can't be pushed out.

Behold the evidence.

Anonymous said...

I love #7, "there's no risk". Technically I suppose it's true; prices are somewhat guarantieed eventually to rise again like any tangible asset. Whether buyers will be alive to see it or not remains a question, but the author can't be expected to factor in your mortality problems.

I wish I had more time for a point-by-point rebuttal!

#6 and #7: "there's always a baseline", and how does this historical baseline compare to now?

It's almost like this was written by housing bears to discredit the bulls, in much the same way Bush could be the smartest opponent of US foreign policy in history.

Anonymous said...


7) There is no risk.


Wow. Maybe someone should tell that to all the FB's who lost their homes to foreclosure. RE is the best invesment in the world and there is no risk. It sounds like one of those late night infomercials with the midget twins who promise to make you a millionaire.

Anonymous said...

I love the juxtoposition of this article and the one above it from Bill Gross

I'll go with Gross

Anonymous said...

No risk? Oh boy! I need to get me some of them houses!

Justification for wild claims? Not necessary at the NAR.

Funny how there's no risk, yet foreclosures are up between 100 and 1000% YoY depending on the market. Almost like that "no risk" statement makes no sense...but then, what do I know? They're educated, professional RealtorsTM, and I'm sure Susanne thoroughly researched these claims before they were made.

Joe said...

Let Yahoo know:

http://feedback.yahoo.com/?prop=realestate

All comments are posted for all to see.

Anonymous said...

Did that cow Blanche Evans write this tripe?

Anonymous said...

SELL YHOO

Anonymous said...

Devil's advocate here:

R/E historically has been a good investment. Everything the say is more or less accurate. BUT and this is a big BUT, not when buying at or near the peak of a bubble. Had you bought pre-2004 and I am guessing mid 2008 and on, hold the home for 5+ years, you will most likely do very well.

That's the key that is always missing form the r/e "experts". They fail to mention that anyone who bought 2005-2007 will most likely lose big time.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Frank R said...

"Value is a complicated cocktail.

Now THAT is funny! I guess the realtwhores are resorting to funny math to dupe people into thinking there's any value in buying now.

Anonymous said...

1) The Sky isn't falling.
Of course not, it's just stumbling.

2) Real estate is unique.
And an apple a day keeps the doctor away. Thanks for this great cliched idiom! I'm going to use it.

3) There is no bubble.
That's because it popped!

4) Value is a complicated cocktail.
Yes, and it consists of 4oz of Vodka and 6oz of Coke.

5) There is always a baseline of demand.
And that baseline will of course save the entire housing market.

6) There is always a baseline of mortgage defaults.
Thanks for letting me know that the insane number of foreclosures out there are absolutely normal.

7) There is no risk.
There is no spoon.

8) Real estate is a great way to build wealth.
So is selling guns!

Unknown said...

No risk? Hah! There's risk getting out of the shower in the morning...

I know of a guy that bought two houses in Cape May NJ. One for 489k (Dec 05), and one for 502k (Feb 06). They don't rent for anything close to break even and he's dumped his life savings into them (10 % down and mortgage payments) He owes approx 450k on each house and the bank has approved a short payoff of 350k. Problem is there are no buyers willing to pay 350k for them.

If he does get buyers, he'll have a deficiency of about 200k that the bank will first try and collect (adding more fees), then later forgive and issue a 1099 for the debt. So the day is coming that he will receive a 1099 Misc income for 200k+ that he will have to pay income tax on. He's never made over 100k a year in his life...

No bubble? No risk? Hah!

Anonymous said...

You are so correct.

I reason that the lies continue
across all these major media because admitting they were wrong is a real insult to their "intelligence", not to mention the ego that goes along with these talking heads.

George Sorros summed it up correctly by pointing out that we are a country that doesn't believe in dealing with the truth.

Until we start dealing with the truth, and the mess created in housing that will effect most in this country (house or no house), we'll not make any progress in this country in setting things right for the long run.

Anonymous said...
This is the most cruel & ironic joke I've ever seen. The # of people I know who are just getting by and have no life because they bought into this mania is TNTC (Too Numerous Too Count)!! The winners in this were all the pre-bubble owner's who sold at or near the high & either bought their dream home and/or paid off all their debts and invested the rest. But because it was easy money, many squandered it. The losers are all the people who overpaid w/ toxic loans that are now exploding.

This article is just ridiculous!!

Anonymous said...

This was intentional by Yahoo, and the others (CNN, MSN, ect...) will also step of the pace on these lies as things get worse in the housing sector.

Like a tsunami, we'll realize the devastation *after* the crisis hits hardest.

Anonymous said...
This HAS to be a rouge RE who controlled the reins on the publishing of articles. Just this week I was amazed at their honesty coming out of that rag, and then this gets posted on Yahoo by them? Yahoo is semi retarded so no surprise they publish that tripe, but someone hitting the sauce over there at realty times. I mean check out his article from them with truth involved.

Nation Doomed To 2 Million Foreclosures
by Broderick Perkins

http://tinyurl.com/279ern

Also note that there is no author on the other...hmmm...something fishy.

Anonymous said...

"There's always a baseline of demand."

Very true. *Someone* out there in the United States wants to buy a house.

Boy, don't I feel stupid; here I thought that 0 individuals out of 300 million wanted to buy houses.

Anonymous said...

I think pre-2002 will be the date where people will be saved from massive losses in most bubble areas. Vegas peaked in 2004. Florida peaked in 2005. California peaked in 2006.

Just remember that assets generally fall in price faster than they rise.

Anonymous said...

Yahoo makes a mockery of itself when it tries to "report" the news.

Anonymous said...

Great article. Totally unbiased. I learned a lot from that piece. hahahahaha...

I like the Real Estate section of the Philly Inquirer it is f#$*ing hilarious.

Homebuilder Lenar thinks now is a great time to buy.

Anonymous said...

"4) Value is a complicated cocktail."

something on the order of
3% moonshine
3% 151
94% under water
call it the realtor!

Unknown said...

Saw an article today in the paper that said the CEO of Yahoo makes 71.7 million a year...

What catagory to you use for NAR bribes??

BTW, Google's CEO makes about 600k a year.

Anonymous said...

Guess yahoo isn't all one sided:

http://realestate.yahoo.com/Real_estate_news/story?s=rytimes/item-7a561f8d38111a8d3ce9cf67da8e277b.html