I’m Calling Bullsh*t
≡ by the Mysterious Flying Miser ≡
This morning I turned on my computer, cranked up the Google, and prepared myself to download a shmear of articles and frustrated comments from Realtors gone bust, decrying their new-found poverty, looking for new careers, and encouraging the rest to take similar flight. Alas, I was once again hit upon the noggin by one of the heaviest isotopes of human foolery: misplaced Realtor optimism.
I could feel the disgruntle settle in as I downloaded and scanned page after page of Realtor pep talk. “Only the top 10% will survive in a down market, and YOU are a winner, which means YOU will survive”. “It only takes a change of pace and a few innovative ideas to continue earning a phenomenal salary during a real estate down cycle”. Oh, and the most mind-numbing mantra of all — “Quitters never prosper”.
So I decided to write this myself. I’m calling Bullsh*t. For those still wandering the scorched and barren landscape like so many scarecrows, for those whose inner voice derides and betrays the desire to quit, I offer my advice: You gotta know when to fold em.
Realtors of the world, you are being had. My hour-long search of today’s internet provided all the evidence I need that the NAR has launched a new campaign; I call it “Operation Cannibalism”. This is the part where they turn on each other. NAR is spending gobs of effort just trying to keep its members paying their dues. Never mind that these members will probably go bankrupt competing to sell increasingly fewer homes. Never mind that quite a few of these members are on the hook for several mortgages of their own. Never mind that these people are unable to think for themselves and need the NAR to guide them.
The Realtors who will survive this market will be those who get another job. Perhaps the day will come when these prudent other-job-getters may re-enter the real-estate career scene, but that day is a long way off. Those who can’t get with the program and find something productive to do will probably starve to death, or else be kidnapped by other Realtors who will keep them in meat lockers and eat them little by little, keeping them alive until the limbs are finally gone and the vital organs must be made into soup. I kid you not.
I won’t bore my readership with statistics on recent declines in house prices, house sales, and Realtor income. I won’t go into the bromidic underpinnings of the internet and the obsolete used-house salesperson. Forsooth, I will leave the obvious to idle and the comments to soothe my bothered soul.
