The Pesky Reality (LA home prices):
The Ignorant REIC Quote:
"I think we will see months of gains and then maybe retreat a little bit. I think we will be bouncing along a bottom for a while"
- Leslie Appleton-Young, the shockingly still-employed chief economist for the California Association of Realtors, June 2008
(So, how many months or years will the realtors keep calling bottom until they realize they have absolutely no credibility left?)
Isn't it funny, and yet kinda sad, when idiot realtors-on-commission try to call "bottom" on the US housing market by pointing at TRANSACTIONS, versus PRICES?
Bottom line: REALTORS don't care about you. REALTORS don't care about real people suffering real financial pain due in part to the horrific advice offered by REALTORS.
All they care about is their f*cking commission check.
Shameful.
And never to be trusted again.
Chicago -10.0%
Detroit -17.9%
Larry Murphy's Las Vegas -25.9%
Connie De Groot's LA -21.7%
Miami -24.6%
Minneapolis -14.1%
Greg Swann's Phoenix -23.0%
Leslie Appleton Young's San Diego -20.5%
San Fran -20.2%
Kendra Todd's Tampa -19.6%
Lawrence Yun's Wash DC -14.7%
I wish David Lereah could be jailed.
I wish David Lereah could be sued.
I wish he could be taken out back and tarred and feathered.
But alas, he can't. He, the NAR and the 1.2 million realtors lied, America got screwed, commissions got pocketed, and they all get off scott free. David Lereah, Lawrence Yun, Nicholas Retsinas, Kendra Todd, Mike Norman, Greg Swann, Blanche Evans, the list goes on and on...
Sure, they'll have to live the rest of their lives knowing they screwed their fellow man for a commission. Sure, Lereah and Yun are unhireable as forecasters or economists, and sure, realtors will NEVER be trusted again. But there's still something missing - some punishment, some retribution, some penalty.
I guess we'll just have to go with the public flogging by blog, and be done with it.
Here's Blanche, poor, poor Blanche, finding herself in a massive gaping historic obvious hole, and digging like a crazed fox.
Come on Blanche, "blame the media" or "pretend there is no housing crash" is sooooooooo 2007. Ya gotta come up with a new schtick babe. You're embarrassing yourself. Maybe do a Lereah, and come clean. More lies won't make the bad truth go away hon.
Her great advice HP'ers? (after being so so so so wrong these past couple of years) "Stop listening to the media. Go buy a home." To which HP says "Never trust Blanche Evans, Realty Times or any realtor on commission ever again."
Why Buy Now? Media Is Wrong About Housing Slump
Why buy a house now? You've been getting bad information. Here's why.
The financial press is worried that they might have gone too far -- paralyzing the nation into recession by piling on housing. So they're finally beginning to question the indexes where they get their data, and whether the news is really as bad as it seems. Slowly but surely, headlines are changing from Don't Buy A Home Now to Is It Time To Buy?
Stop listening to the media. Go buy a home.
Here's the video from realtor-scam central Phoenix Arizona
Any realtor who took or takes any under-the-table bonus commission for steering any sheeple into any house or for pressuring the buyer into any certain price should be sued by the buyer, even if the bonus commission was sneakily inserted into the fine print of the closing documents.
If the six percenter didn't actively, clearly and upfront let the homedebtor know they were being bribed by the seller, they should forfeit the bonus to the buyer, they should have their realtor license pulled, and they should be sued for damages.
realtors are snakes folks. Dirty, rotten, unethical, sneaky, deceptive snakes. Never to be trusted again. Never to be used again.
Nice job Doom for being on top this ongoing scandal. I hope to see the MSM make more of a stink with this issue.
Note the how the scam works in Arizona - the realtors set it up so the bribe is shown in the secret "realtor comments" section of the listing, but NOT SEEN by the homedebtor (or their lawyer)
Sick. Just sick.
"Lying" as a marketing strategy is soooooo 2005. Come on realtors - if it's not working, and you know it's not working - change direction
If realtors EVER want to eat again, they're gonna have to change the message. They need to understand that sales aren't going to pick up until prices come down - way down - and this kind of happy talk and spin is gonna keep getting them (and the market) nowhere.
There's no "pent up demand". Americans don't believe "we've hit bottom". And people aren't going to start buying again until they can buy with confidence. And confidence won't return until prices have dropped back to or below their historical mean, until it's cheaper to 'buy' than rent, and until houses feel almost 'cheap'. 50% off is a starting point.
So, anyone want to predict RE/MAX's drop in revenue and attrition rate for 2008? Or how many RE/MAX offices will close in the next three years? They have/had 120,000 ramen eaters and 6,000 offices. And whether they know it or not, they're f*cked.
(Cheers to patrick.net from HP as well.. great blog, inspired the start of this one)
Seriously, I don't get the little critters. If I was a realtor,
(oh, man, I just had a vision of hell)
Anyway, IF I was a realtor
(seriously, hell)
But IF I was a realtor, I wouldn't be running around saying 'HEY, NOW'S A GREAT TIME TO BUY!" as my one and only marketing message. That BS just makes them look stupid at best and like corrupt commission-hungry ramen-eating liars at worst.
The right message for realtors, if they'd pull their heads out of their asses is this:
"Home prices are crashing, and a massive nationwide financial mania and Ponzi Scheme is imploding. If you own a home, sell now, sell at any price and get out. And if you're looking to buy, there's a sea of foreclosures and desperate sellers out there, let us help you find a screaming deal"
Now that would get the houses sellin' and the commissions flowin'. Instead, we get more of the same BS like this (thanks Ty):
Tom Adkins is the long haired realtor freak who Peter Schiff always sends to school. I've wondered why such a fool is given airtime. I mean, what exactly are the criteria for becoming an "expert" on Fox News and the Fox Business Channel.
Well, now we know.
You just have to do one of their reporters.
What's most shameful is that Fox News doesn't disclose it when Adkins is on the air, or especially when he's being interviewed by or sitting on the same panel AS HIS WIFE, Fox reporter Brenda Buttner, the anchor for the Bulls & Bears segment where Adkins spouts his bullsh*t.
America deserves more from its media. It's conflicts like these that created the housing bubble (where reporters didn't disclose their real estate holdings when reporting on real estate), and Iraq (where reporters where rewarded with access if they kept to the Bush line)
Adkins shouldn't be on Fox simply because he's been proven so completely wrong. There should at least be a disclaimer - IF YOU FOLLOW THE RECOMMENDATIONS OF THIS REALTOR YOU WILL LOSE EVERYTHING. TOM ADKINS HAS SCREWED ANYONE WHO LISTENED TO HIM, AND HE'S ALSO SCREWING OUR ANCHOR.
And damn, that Buttner sure has bad taste in men. She lets him out of the house looking like that?
I love this video from 2006. Adkins and Norman are so completely and arrogantly wrong, I don't know why anyone would EVER go to them for financial advice again. Their careers should be over, but I would guess that's already been taken care of.
A special note for Mike Norman: Sir, not only are you an as*hole, blowhard and a jerk, but you're a discredited hack who should never work in the financial realm ever again. You're toast.
A special note for Tom Adkins: Nice hair.
And to Peter Schiff - thank you, you are a man of patience and class to go up against ignorant yahoo's like these two and keep your cool.
I hope the likes of Greg Swann, Kendra Todd, Connie De Groot, and all the other cheerleader realtors who gave terrible advice and screwed homedebtors for a commission are a bit nervous tonight.
Here come the lawyers HP'ers. But what took so long?
The 1.3 million six-percenters had a fiduciary responsibility to their suckers (oops, I mean "clients"). Spouting off the NAR's anti-bubble talking points or giving 21 reasons to buy including "year round golf" was not fulfilling a fiduciary responsibility - it was obscuring and spinning so that the sucker would buy the damn house and they could earn their damn commission.
Unfortunately, you can't sue people for just being stupid, and I think most realtors were just being stupid (since there are no job qualifications after all and any stupid person can be one). But when buyers and lawyers can prove a realtor hid facts (like comps or market conditions) or took under-the-table bribes (like the bonus commissions we all know the builders were offering) or kickbacks (from the corrupt appraisers and mortgage brokers) then hell yes, the lawyers are gonna kill 'em. And rightly so.
Feeling Misled on Home Price, Buyers Are Suing Their Agent
Marty Ummel feels she paid too much for her house. So do millions of other people who bought at the peak of the housing boom. What makes Ms. Ummel different is that she is suing her agent, saying it was all his fault.
Ms. Ummel claims that the agent hid the information that similar homes in the neighborhood were selling for less because he feared she would back out and he would lose his $30,000 commission.
Real estate lawyers and brokers say the case, which goes to trial in North County Superior Court on Monday, is likely to be the first of many in which regretful or resentful buyers seek redress from the agents who found them a home and arranged its purchase.
“Agents have a lot of fiduciary duties, but they don’t make money unless they close the sale,” said Joel Ruben, a real estate lawyer in Manhattan Beach, Calif. “In an inflated market, there are built-in temptations to cut corners.”
You just have to laugh. And laugh and laugh and laugh some more.
She says prices aren't coming down and that she's "not seeing any price adjustment at all". Yet just check the listings on her own website - "JUST REDUCED $200,000!", "REDUCED $250,000!", and I'm sure there's more where that came from. Bottom line - as always, realtors are liars. And not smart ones at that.
Memo to all potential home buyers, even those in the 90210 zip code - IT IS YOUR JOB TO OFFEND THE SELLER AND MAKE THEM AND THEIR STUPID REALTOR NOT LIKE YOU. THIS IS WAR - SO DROP BOMBS AND DON'T WORRY ABOUT COLLATERAL DAMAGE!!!
Realtors - doing more to kill their profession every day than we ever could. (and Connie - might want to switch to decaf before going on live TV... and by "coke" I mean Coca-Cola of course)
Freak realtor who might be on coke: "I'm not going to bore you with all of these numbers. It's a terrific time to buy! A new home is going to cost so much more in a couple years!"
Schiff: "This is a terrible time to buy a house. It's a great time to sell one - IF you can find a buyer!"
Freak realtor who might be on coke (now yelling): "I completely disagree. You're misleading people - you spend too much time on Wall Street and not enough time on Main Street"
Schiff (barely able to contain his laughter): "Ma'am, I'm the only person who's not misled people on real estate over the years. I'm one of the few people who told people to ignore the cheerleading of realtors"
At this point, the show ends. And I'm sure the freak realtor who might be on coke made a beeline straight to the ladies room if ya know what I mean.
HILARIOUS! But sad in a way to witness the desperate behavior of ramen eating realtors as it all caves in around them. Sad.
Go Schiff! HP f*cking loves ya man! (and of course by "coke" I mean Coca-Cola! What were you thinking?)
Real Estate Commissions to Hit $55 Billion By Year's End
Real estate agents and brokers will collect $55 billion in commissions during 2007, a $19 billion increase from 2000 figures, according to industry data collected by ForSaleByOwner.com.
With an average commission in 2007 of $13,900 and cost-consciousness a rising concern among home sellers across the country, ForSaleByOwner.com predicts that in 2008 more consumers will choose non-traditional methods to sell their homes in order to save money on commissions."
This one's a beauty. Nice to see the REIC turn on each other. Finally.
(thanks a51 for the link)
"The one thing I can tell about you Realtors is that you're all liars"
-Joseph Anfuso, president of Florsheim Homes
