Here's their brilliant "get the facts straight" campaign and plan of attack:
* A little bit of high-school-level graphic design, with ALL CAP WORDS THAT SHOUT AT THE IGNORANT TO LISTEN TO THE AUTHORITIES
* Add some standard stock-art images of families and white picket fences
* Spin that past performance equals future returns
* Use great phrases like "stable", "responsible", "strong" and the really funny one "Washington is different"
* Don't talk about out of whack P/E ratios, historical averages or basic fundamentals
* Place a ton of ads in MSM while getting ad-supported MSM to plant pro-realtor stories
So, that's about it. I didn't see the prayer meeting, or the blame the media slant, so the realtors are evolving a bit. But in the end, same old same old. And what they don't realize is - if they ever want to eat again, the BEST thing that could happen is for prices to come down, and come down hard and come down fast.
Nobody is buying their bullsh*t anymore, and they're not buying homes either. And that's the facts, jack.
Check out seattlebubble for more on the goings-on in the Evergreen State, and this chart from the CEPR that shows how out of whack rents are to "ownership" costs in Seattle.
April 13, 2008
The Washington realtors Association has a plan to stop the housing crash in its tracks. Monkeys I tell ya. Monkeys.
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24 comments:
I could've made a better logo in about 2 minutes on my Mac.
Houses in WA have white picket fences so everything is gonna be fine!
-Begin Urgent Public Service Message-
Attention ALL Potential Homebuyers that absolutely must purchase a home and cannot wait for the 50% off sales next year:
1. Find the house you want using web resources.
2. Do not contact any real estate agents regarding the property.
3. Contact the owners directly and have them show you the property. If the home meets your needs, urge the owners to dump their real estate agent and lower the price by the sales commission amount.
-Return to Housing Crash Programming-
Wanna "GET THE FACTS STRAIGHT"??!!
Just check out this little interview and charts by Robert Shiller--(dumbed down a bit for the masses to also be entertaining)!
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?cl=7333181
These RE shills are such a bunch of clueless idiots!! They will do absolutely anything to sell a house!!
I didn't think renting was that cheap in Seattle. Maybe me & the Mr should start looking for jobs up in the Evergreen State. :P
Homes have dipped in price, better buy yours now before prices go up this summer!
Anyone daring to buy a house in this market is catching a falling knife!
... have plenty of the jumbo size bandages on hand.
I was just enjoying some of my newly created HOUSING PANCAKES,and some $1 CrashBucks ,and was thinking as a read Washingtons attempt at stopping the HomeSmash-O-Ramma .............I thought they said there was no crash happening there.
Sour Grapes Credit Jam for the Toast,and HomeFireFries come to mind.
Pass the Salt in your wound,Oh,and some Ketchup please.
Tonight ,I fire up the BBQ,and some Orville Redenbacher.
I live in WA. State. Every month by the 5th, the NWMLS publishes the prior month's housing data. That is until the last few months. Now the data is always late by at least a week.
UNTIL NOW. They still have not published the data and when I went to their web page the only published a small amount of the data. Surprise, the data has been reformatted and much of the prior data is now missing.
My conclusion is that they do not want the residents of the state to know how bad it is getting. They think that by hiding the information the problem of swelling inventories and lower sales prices will vanish.
Today the local paper, Seattle Times had the regional map with the area break downs. It shows substantial reductions in sales price.
Ella
Didn't REO Speedwagon have a song about HomeFires?
A fool and their money are soon parted.
Anyone still wasting their time listening to these realty whores might as well just throw their money into the gutter.
If you have a partner who is pressuring you to commit to a toxic loan, think real seriously, because it will most likely be *your* ankle alone the ball-and-chain is tied to for 20-30 years.
these are the exact same arguments being used by the realtors in Vancouver.
somehow, "vancouver is different" from everywhere else that has prices detached from both wages and rental income.
i am starting to think that the longer people fight the inevitable, the worse it will be.
AL-QWAFFER,
That chart you have is quite misleading. Renting usually means apartments. Owning usually means houses.
I'm not saying renting isn't a better deal that owning. It may very well be. I'm saying that just doing a straight aggregate comparison like that is meaningless since you're comparing apples to oranges.
Yes indeed, LET'S GET THE FACTS STRAIGHT...
No matter how you slice and dice it, Seattle is in decline, along with the nation.
You want month-over-month data?
OK, decline...
Case-Shiller index:
Dec 07=184.88
Jan 08=181.62
You want year-over-year?
OK, decline...
Jan 07=183.92
Jan 08=181.62
Seattle's peak just happened a year later than the rest, peaking in summer 07. Been on a steady decline since...
Good luck to the residents of OR, WA, and CA:
Time -- Mysterious Earthquakes Off Oregon
Scientists listening to underwater microphones have detected an unusual swarm of earthquakes off central Oregon, something that often happens before a volcanic eruption — except there are no volcanoes in the area.
There have been more than 600 quakes over the past 10 days in a basin 150 miles southwest of Newport. The biggest was magnitude 5.4, and two others were more than magnitude 5.0, OSU reported.
On the hydrophones, the quakes sound like low thunder and are unlike anything scientists have heard in 17 years of listening, Dziak said. Some of the quakes have also been detected by earthquake instruments on land.
I could've made a better logo in about 2 minutes on my Mac.
Frank uses a Mac, from a liberal company located in the most liberal area in the US.
Republican Hypocrite!
So tell us something, Frank, do you really think that faking conservative by kissing GOP butt the way you do will really make you wealthy some day?
According to the chart Seattle has about the same ratios as Sacramento and they are doing fine. Not!
The pictures they used are pretty domesticated.
Images of hookers and blow would've been better.
Scientists listening to underwater microphones have detected an unusual swarm of earthquakes off central Oregon, something that often happens before a volcanic eruption — except there are no volcanoes in the area.
Mister Bigglesworth thinks somebody's getting excited!
meow
I wish we had those prices for renting over here...
PJ
great post
'Washington is Different' will work on people there. Especially in Western Washington. They don't like outsiders, discriminate in hiring against those from elsewhere, and think they are special and different and the exception. And if house prices DO fall, it is due to some one or some force outside of their precious PNW.
anon @ 8:02, et al ~
Guys, never depend on the media to get it right, especially about science.
Oregon has 4 of the country's 18 most active volcanoes. Ever hear of Mount Hood, just outside Portland? Or Crater Lake (a volcano that collapsed after a massive explosion millions of years ago)?
There are also about 600 smaller volcanoes in central Oregon that are much more quiet. And there has been a "bulge" in the area, along with earthquakes for quite some time:
http://tinyurl.com/58qq3s
Yeah, it could be "The Big One" building up, but more than likely it's nothing.
Seattle and the local government is full of themselves because they believe that Microsoft will always be there to keep everyone employed and buying overpriced real estate.
Seattle/Bellevue has been in a luxury condo building spree the past couple years and a massive condo glut is looming.
They are just late to the game as places like Cali and Florida have already been hit with big corrections.
No argument here about Seattle housing being on the slippery slope downhill, but wait a sec…$942/mo AVERAGE rental cost in Seattle? That is incorrect.
I rented out my ‘built-in-1959’ 3 BR, 1 BA house for $1080/mo in 2001, and held that price until last summer, when the tenants moved out. (This house is in the ‘burbs north of Seattle.)
Thank goodness I sold the house in October!
But anyway, I don’t know where this list came from, but it is wrong for Seattle.
-Mammoth
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