HousingPANIC Thought of the Day

In Iraq we got "Debathification".

Can we get "DeREALTORification" in America?

REALTORS - The least trusted profession in America

HP'er Seth Jayson at Motley Fool destroys the National Association of Realtors and their pathetic support for a government housing gambler bailout

Damn, reading Seth is like reading HP. Actually, reading Seth is reading HP, word for word in many cases. Come on Seth - if you're gonna lift 100% of our stuff, at least hat-tip us.

But hey, this HP-inspired rant kicks serious ass. realtor ass. And the NAR is the most disrespected and discredited professional organization in America today. Deservedly so.

Desperate Realtors Applaud Bailout

This didn't take long. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) -- you know, the trade group that spends millions lobbying our legislatures in order to ensure those fat, 6% cuts on residential housing sales -- is in favor of President Bush's proposed housing bailout

By bum-rushing buyers into bidding wars in hot markets (I saw one from the inside, once) and issuing positive spin to gullible mainstream media outlets, the Realtors could create a self-fulfilling prophecy, for a while.

But now the roof is on fire, as all of those exotic mortgages threaten to toast the NAR's crop of gullible buyers. Unfortunately for them, an inevitable result of the NAR's getting people to bid up houses and buy with zilch down payments is that far fewer homes and buyers qualify for FHA assistance.

Do these yahoos still not realize why housing is tanking? It's precisely because the loans that many Realtors jawboned people into taking were too big and had too little equity.

If the NAR gets its way, the people of the U.S. who didn't go out and spend irresponsibly during this housing bubble will be tasked with stepping in to guarantee the bad loans of those who did, spurred by the 6-percenters at the NAR

This kind of shameless, pecuniary self-interest should surprise no one. After all, it's tone-deaf real-estate agents who came up with the infamous "Suzanne" advertisement that now serves as the poster child for the triumph of greed, duplicity, and bullying over old-fashioned financial reason.

That the greedy and thoroughly discredited NAR supports these bailout measures ought to be the final proof that they are not in the public interest