HousingPANIC Stupid Question of the Day

Will single people start asking prospective partners what their "mortgage status" is before considering whether or not to date them? Shouldn't they?

- Renters: Good to go

- Own free and clear: Good to go

- Bought before 2002, never HELOCed or Housing ATMed: Good to go

- No-down option ARM negative equity mortgage: Get lost you pathetic loser!

- Took out a 90%+ mortgage in 2003 - 2007: Sorry, gotta run!

HousingPANIC Stupid Question of the Day

What should the hundreds of thousands of unemployed realtors, mortgage brokers, home builders and REIC do next?

A) Do the jobs illegals can't do anymore

B) Paint toys for Mattel (hattip to an HPer for that one)

C) Move to India and work in call centers

D) Rob little children of their lollipops and sell them for cash

E) Other

Phoenix real estate clerk: "You look out on the street and see five to ten houses for sale, but many people still don't believe things have changed"

I think someone needs to tell all the other Phoenix real estate clerks that things have changed. All those big dreams, those millions and millions you were going to make in real estate?

Poof.

Get ready for the used car lots full of repossessed Boxters and BMW's (again), get ready for declining sales at Tommy Bahama, and get ready for a rush on ramen noodles at Safeway.

(Note - that's a real picture of the real estate clerk goober interviewed in the article)

If Christopher Guest ever films a mockumentary about real estate agents, he could do worse than to make the trip to Phoenix and get a load of Brett Barry. With a George Michael beard, bleach-white teeth, perma-tan and a smattering of gold jewelry, Barry darts around his office in a strip mall, his face lighting up whenever another human comes within shouting distance.

Specializing in a planned community near Scottsdale, Barry lords over his territory in a canary-yellow Porsche Boxster whose vanity plate reads SAYSOLD. "It's a realtor thing," he says, half apologizing for, half drawing attention to his chariot. Locals tell me today is the coldest day of the year in Phoenix, but that doesn't dampen Barry's enthusiasm. "Let's put the top down!" he calls out as we get in the sports car for a tour of his domain.

Barry is skeptical of Zillow's valuations, especially in a market like Phoenix, where so many properties are languishing. If the Zestimates are based on sales, then Zillow is missing a whole lot of data. He points at a stack of pages from the MLS (for Multiple Listing Service, the nationwide database of properties for sale). "Look, 213 days, 353 days, 529 days," he says, referring to how long each house has been available. "There's a lot of fat in the market. Prices are still too high."

For any homeowner looking to sell, it's a gloomy message: These are the worst of times. Not long ago, Phoenix was the nation's fastest-growing market. The median price rose 55 percent in 2005. Agents were closing deals on the hoods of cars; investors flipped homes without ever moving in.

Fast-forward to early 2007: Throw a rock in any direction, and it'll bounce off a FOR SALE sign. "There are 45,000 listings in the Phoenix MLS, and that number hasn't changed in six months," Barry says as we cruise among lookalike stucco homes. With every passing week, the number of houses on the market rises, increasing the downward pricing pressure. "It's like a freeway pileup."

"You look out on the street and see five to ten houses for sale, but many people still don't believe things have changed," he says, shaking his head at a dirty carpet. "The average seller says, 'I need to get this much out of our house to move up.' But the market doesn't care."

HousingPANIC urges the real estate clerks of America to rebel against the NAR and demand the firing of The Corrupt David Lereah

It should now be painfully obvious, my underemployed, nothing to do, ramen-eating real estate clerk friends, that the NAR and The Corrupt David Lereah (TCDL) are no longer your friends. Their actions and activities are actually HURTING YOU, not helping you.

You are paying dues to, and still publicly supporting, an organization and it's spokesman who has made your profession a laughingstock, and "REALTOR(TM)" the least-trustworthy position in America. Yes, you are now lower than Catholic priests and stockbrokers I'd say. And that's tough to do my friends. Tough to do.

So it's time for the real estate clerks of America to rebel. Start an online petition (maybe firedavidlereah.com?) calling for the immediate dismissal of NAR Liar in Chief TCDL, and demand an apology to the American people for the continuous lies and distortion that spewed out of the NAR during the mania and subsequent collapse.

Yes, TCDL is paid to do the NAR's dirty work, to lie, to spin and to distort. Yes, he made a deal with the devil and now has a lifetime to answer for his evil deeds. But every day he stays at the NAR is like another day of the GOP hanging on to Tom DeLay. And you know where that led...

I don't expect real estate clerks to take my advice. Collectively your brain power is a bit low obviously, as your morals are too. But I'll give you this advice for free.

Real estate clerks, and the NAR, are now a joke. America will blame you for the housing crash. You have screwed people time and time again, people who TRUSTED YOU, people whose interests you were supposed to represent, all for that big commission check.

You can atone for your mistakes and evil deeds. And you can start with a house cleaning at the NAR, and the firing of your Iraqi Information Minister.

Or you continue to be seen as a joke, and eventually just whither and slither away. Which is what I think will happen in the end unless we see radical change, and soon.

Peace out. I hear Safeway is having a sale on ramen by the way.

Different professions vary greatly in how much they are trusted to give their clients or patients good advice. According to a recent Harris Poll measuring U.S. adults’ trust in 11 different professions to give advice that is best for them, the professionals trusted completely by the greatest number of adults are doctors (50%), dentists (47%), and nurses (46%). At the other end of the list, those with the fewest adults saying they trust them completely are stockbrokers (6%), real estate agents (7%) and insurance agents (9%).

LA real estate clerk on his office: "The rest are looking for side jobs at McDonald's - It happened overnight."

I think dumpster diving comes next for our realtor friends. If you see a realtor picking through the trash, someone give the poor guy a quarter, OK? Or some ramen noodles.

Here's a sign-of-the-times article from LA. Troubling, disgusting, predictable and real. The housing crash is here. And watch realtors move from screwing homedebtors into a house to screwing foreclosed homedebtors out of a house.

Picking jewels off of the dead. Yup, that's the next step for realtors.

Some analysts contend the shakeout is already over. Others maintain it hasn't even begun.

Hennigan and the company he works for, Home Center Realty, don't have the luxury of waiting to see how the story will play out. They need to make a living now, and they're betting that things are going to get worse. Maybe much worse.

During the four-year boom that ended last summer, Home Center expanded from 15 agents to 80 in three offices. The roster of agents has since sunk to 52, only about half of whom are active.

"The rest are looking for side jobs at McDonald's," said Home Center President Jason Bosch. "It happened overnight."

Hennigan works in the Norco office, a small building set on a hill off Interstate 15. He's been full-time since August 2005, when he quit his job as a route salesman for Peet's coffee. He gets a salary to help run the place, but to pay his own mortgage he still needs to earn commissions buying and selling houses.

An agent's best prospect for a sale is someone who must act now — a homeowner told by a lender to pay up or get out.These owners are in crisis. They need to refinance if they can or sell and move into something affordable. If they had an easier option, they wouldn't be behind in their payments in the first place.

Bosch, on the other hand, thinks the residential real estate market will soon revisit the horrible days of the mid-'90s — and then get worse."I have no doubt that we are entering the next phase of an unprecedented market," he says. "One that Southern California has never seen.