‘The Exuberance Couldn’t Last Forever’
CNN reports on the realtor boom. “There wasn’t just a boom in real estate over the past decade, there was also a big boom in real estate agents. But the exuberance couldn’t last forever. Agents, who work on commission, are already beginning to feel the bite.”
“‘We’ve seen a big softening in Florida, there are fewer sales to be spread around more sales people,’ Richard Fryer, President of a Florida school that offers a variety of real estate courses. ‘Obviously there are some people who are not generating a lot of income in this market.’”
“‘You’ve got a lot of people who got into the business in the last two to three years who never really had to do the hardest work of an agent, people who were basically picking low-hanging fruit,’ said Fryer. ‘Now they’re suffering the most.’”
“Some realtors are beginning to look to other professions for an income to sustain them during the tightening. ‘Many agents in my local community are really crying the blues,’ said Geri DeWitt Ruby, an agent in upstate New York. ‘They’re very pessimistic, and they’re even talking about finding other employment.’”
“Said Gayle Henderson, an agent in Phoenix: ‘Our realtor population had swelled to over 70,000 in a population of 3.6 million. Now people are talking about getting another job or leaving the business altogether.’”
“The cornerstone of the whole boom was the real estate license, seen by many as the easy ticket to wealth. Apparently a whole lot fewer people see it that way now. ‘I’m absolutely encountering fewer new agents in the field,’ said Neil Brooks, an agent in Phoenix.”
“‘In the frenzied market we just came out of, there were plenty of brokers that were just acting as order takers,’ said Pamela Liebman, CEO of Corcoran in New York City. ‘Now they really need to work hard to sell these properties.’”
“And so it is that the end of irrational exuberance doesn’t trouble most long-time brokers. ‘You can’t just expect to stick a sign in someone’s front yard and have the house sell,’ said Brooks.”
The New York Times. “If ‘Million Dollar Listing’ had a disclaimer at the beginning of each episode, it might read something like this: The scenes depicted in this television show were filmed at the height of an overheated real estate market. They are not reflective of current economic conditions.”
“Consider the following scene. A Hollywood real estate agent, Ray Schuldenfrei, implores his wife and business partner, Dia, to list a two-bedroom Hollywood Hills home for $949,000, about $25,000 higher than she thinks is fair. ‘This is a crazy market right now. People aren’t buying from here,’ he says, pointing to his head. He then taps his chest. ‘They’re buying from here.’”
“These programs are being broadcast on television as the real estate boom they depict is a fading memory. ‘It was hot, hot, hot,’ Mrs. Schuldenfrei said last week, reflecting fondly on the Southern California boom days. ‘All you had to do was put a sign up.’”
“Without a white-hot market to drive the plot, the producers of ‘Million Dollar Listing’ and other shows about real estate now have to rethink their formats. And a handful of real estate agents may start to wonder whether their careers as reality TV stars are over.”
Look out McDonalds, lots of new applicants coming your way!
I worked in my grandfather’s Beverly Hills real estate office after school and during the summer while I was in high school and college. This was back in the Housing Bust of the 1970s, and let me tell you, these agents are much more interesting when they have to actually work for their supper. They’ll stab anybody’s back to get ahead…none of this lovey-dovey office camaraderie. If this were a full-on slowdown instead of a boom, that 24 year old would be taking it up the you-know-what from Chris Cortazzo just to make the paltry $1600 commission on leasing his beach house. And you can just imagine the panic these plastic-surgery victims get into when boob job number 8 is out of their price range…
I hope Bravo keeps renewing this series!
I’m pretty sure the 24 year-old is already taking it up the you-know-what from Chris Cortazzo. Just sayin’.
That was my assumption too, how else does a young, cute gay guy generate 17M in sales his first six months out? Then I saw him working for an older, cute gay guy, with 200M in sales, and I got my answer.
So THAT’S what they meant by “mentor”. Okay, so I’ll rephrase this…once the bubble pops, that 24 year old gay guy will be banging that Jocelyn Wildenstein horror show for listings…
the old gay guard is pretty big in LA- I’m just saying - and lots of income too…
I WOULD like to see catwoman actually getting the attention she so horribly must be wanting
..or Angelyne
-
I’m not gay, but I thought that Chris Cortazzo was one smooth dude. He had a real laid back California cool about him. But I knew something was up when I saw he was a big donor to PETA and he never once checked out that hot blonde Cortes’s a$$. His $6M Malibu beach bungalow is SWEEEET though. It looks like it’s for sale NOW:
http://chriscortazzo.com/listing.cfm?LID=125
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Downtown Scotty Brown
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=50275990
That place is way, way, WAY overpriced! Almost $6 mil for 1250 square feet? I don’t care where it is. That is a joke.
They’ll stab anybody’s back to get ahead
Hey, we’ll roger that one, good buddy!!!!!!!!
McDs is already having trouble with language issues. Too many recent hires cannot parse “no pickles.” Add realtors and instead of “would you like fries with that?” they ask “we have an introductory rate of 4.75% and a balloon due 5 years from now… “
LOL. Think of all the supersizing you could do using IO financing.
This is no joke. People who I recognize from the part of town where illegals live are now working in McDs kitchens in rural Kentucky. These people do not speak a word of english, and most of them are from Central America (El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala), some from Mexico.
I know through my Mexican workers that a bunch of them are moving to N. Carolina and Florida. Steady construction work, especially after hurricanes, and cheap housing, is what they’re following.
This realtor goes into McDonald’s, desperate for any job. He fills out the application. The manager looks it over, and says, “I’m sorry, all our realtors have Master’s and Ph.D.s.”
What was the name of the movie where the realtor worked at the fast food joint? Kevin Kline. Roses something…
American Beauty
Right, but he wasn’t a Realtor, his wife was (Annette Bening).
He was just a middle aged guy looking for the least amount of responsibility, which is very similar to many Realtors!!
And it was Kevin Spacey.
dang! Beat me to it. Kevin Spacey and American Beauty. I watch it once a year. I like his lacadaisical attitude about his telemarketing job, kind of the way the office space main character did not give a rat’s *ss about his.
I always thought the most amusing part of that movie was the KS character working himself up in the shower thinking about the young woman. It was the high point of his otherwise dreary day at age 42.
This happens every cycle as regular as clockwork. Everyone quits their jobs to cash in on the ‘easy money’, then has to go back to the real world. When I was in the restaurant biz, you could keep track of the cycle by the job apps. None of the newbies has a clue how much work is involved in Real Estate…Mention ‘farming’ and get a blank stare. Prospecting? Cold Calling?
The upside is that maybe customer service in some retail and restaurants will improve, though…probably not…that would mean working.
Also the show with the asian gal - Suazzane Wong (how can something so wong seem so wright). All of those episodes are tagged as 2004 and 2005 and appear to take place in SD.
house HATERs 2007 should be a hit
yup. waiting to see the new 2006 episodes myself.
so far I’ve seen two 06 episodes of “Flip this house”. The people didn’t get hosed, but you’re left with the impression of “is it really worth it?”
I can’t help it — I think Suzaanne Whang is hot. Especially when she wears those bright neon shirts.
jar jar binks
my sister notices I have the hots for that Asian gal. She said the culture is different, no matter what generation American. I am like, who cares! Susanne Wong is hot and I had Asian girlfriends before!
Sorry OT continued — Susanne has two hairstyles - bangs down and bangs up. I have the occasional hots for the Asian gal, but being a banana (white inside, yellow outside), I can’t get along with any of them, any generation. And banana gals tend to go for non-Asian guys. So I married a Texas gal instead.
I can honestly say I have never heard the term “banana” used as an ethnic reference. Learn something new all the time.
An agent calling the market last year “Irrational Exuberance”… wow we finally have a realtor on record actually calling this pig a pig. Another milestone and indicator of how bad things really are now.
“Some realtors are beginning to look to other professions for an income to sustain them during the tightening. ‘Many agents in my local community are really crying the blues,’ said Geri DeWitt Ruby, an agent in upstate New York. ‘They’re very pessimistic, and they’re even talking about finding other employment.’”
let’s look back to 2001…
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/01/28/BU167352.DTL
“I got caught up in the Internet craze. I figured I had nothing to lose. I was young, and the thought was you could make millions with these (stock) options,” said Pombar, 27.
“My attitude was, ‘I’m going to run with this Internet opportunity, and if this works out, I may not need my MBA.’ ”
Now, laid off in December from his New York job at the flagging dot-com with his dreams of riches unrealized, he is back in a Kaplan Inc. test preparation course and reviving his business school applications.
What amazes me is this RE mania came right on the heels of the internet mania and bust. Dont we learn from our mistakes? You know-fool me once …
Umm…this was by design of Alan “I love myself” Greenspan.
If you cannot save in money and get ahead what do you do?This was engineered by the fed to bail out the dot -com bust For Chrisakes, Greenspan told people to go out and get home equity loans. You had negative real interest rates which means if you had money in the bank your were losing money while housing was going to the stratosphere. Most people were trying to save for a down payment soon got priced out of the market. Next comes creative financing and the greed at the margins. The real question is where the next bubble is going to be.
TG
“Said Gayle Henderson, an agent in Phoenix: ‘Our realtor population had swelled to over 70,000 in a population of 3.6 million. Now people are talking about getting another job or leaving the business altogether.’”
December 2005—
The boom didnt evade Phoenix, Ariz., but local experts such as Gayle Henderson, an associate with RE/MAX Excalibur in Scottsdale, Ariz., anticipate even more sales, based on strong fundamentals such as projected long-term population and job growth.
A most excellent find.
AnonyRuss
Nice research. What a 180 for one year. This is happening all over.
DOC
HAH! She wen’t from “local expert” in 2005 to “an agent” in 2006.
WOW, what a promotion.
They could tweak the title a bit to “A million one-dollar listings.”
Just a thought.
This is a crazy market right now. People aren’t buying from here,’ he says, pointing to his head. He then taps his chest. ‘They’re buying from here.’”
Yeah, and pointing to his ass, were going to stick it to them there.
LOL Absolutely!!! Why did my Realtor just call me BEN DOVER!!
I look for most of these get rich quickie assclowns to try their hands at the next easy job that yields the “low lying fruit”……but what that job is will be a mystery. I think Real Estate will prove to be the end of the raod for most.
Now that the credit crunch is on and the easy money is gone, just what can a ex-”Model Agent” with a GlamorShot(tm) do ?
Sell cars ? Sell insurance ? Go into porn ? Bartend ? Teach schoolkids ?
What ?
Most of these people have no skills whatsoever…as in Working Skill. I would wager that most don’t have a four-year college degree.These shills aren’t trainable as computer programmers, engineers, trade workers, brain surgeons, etc. They have no background in anything whatsoever. Chit chat skills, youth and beauty will only get you so far.
Realtors(tm) and their ilk are a worthless bunch. They have drank long and hard at the Free Money Punchbowl and now it’s time to sober up and figger out what to do.
A lot of these freeloaders are in for a major hurtin’ and a big attitude adjustment.
I imagine prescription Xanax will be in great demand ,in the coming months and years ahead for these folks….
Les Pendens,
Well what should we expect. There are virtually NO barriers to entry and the 22 yr. old that cuts my wife’s hair has a hell of a lot more formal training the nearly all realtors. Unlike investment banking where you start out at the bottom (regardless of school) and work your way up, realtors take a week long course, take a test and “boom” you’re a realtor! What’s sad though is that they put these people in a an environment where they’re being beaten to death by the inter-office competition before they even realize there IS a competition! Mostly it’s a “feeder system” where they get newbies on board and when they get frustrated and inevitably quit the “senior” brokers will get to work over all of their relatives and referrals. Great system huh?
Watching these people die on the vine will be most enjoyable. In spite of what the articles shared RE is basically “hit and run” sales so you’re only as good as your last sale. With the breadth of this unprecedented sell off it won’t really matter how long you’ve been in the business. In fact w/all of their clients under water it could well work against them. Good luck in your new career!
Actually in California it is harder then that to become a broker. A salesperson takes 2 classes and a test and they can work for a broker. A broker requires a college degree, 8 classes then the State exam or one can substitute 2 years working for a broker as a salesperson for the college degree. I am taking these courses to become a broker. Not so I can be a Realtor but it only cost me $450 for the courses. I am educating myself on the principles, practices, and rules for which the profession is supposed to follow and by being a licensed broker I will get a kickback on my next property that I purchase (at 3% on 500k= $15,000) so my education will quickly pay for itself. I see it as a win win deal for myself!!! I am smarter because of it and I pay less for my next home. Those who became a Realtor because it was easy money will be flushed out over the next 2-3 years and the ones who are professionals will be the only ones who remain (for the most part).
I was in Oakland downtown around June or So of 2004…
Huge line of young and old …. Extemes only … few in between getting ready to take test at the convention center…. I can see the older people getting into this…
But these really young kids just blew 3-4 years down the toliet .. would have been better off getting a degree.
What do you value your time at?
Not quite sure what you are asking but I have excess time that I choose to spend it by educating myself on economics, finances and Real Estate. I know I will buy a house in the next 4 years, so I might as well be better informed and pay less for a home (net cost). My time is extremely valuable if it takes away from the things I want to do, but not very valuable if I spend it doing what I want to do. I guess the value of my time depends on the activity.
We can always use more porn; and I have a few RE agents I know who would do well in that business.
They already understand the model, if you get my meaning.
We can film Porn in open houses!
We can film Porn in open houses!
How about REALTWHORES GONE WILD!
Chit chat skills, youth and beauty will only get you so far
Chit chat skills, the new service economy PHD.
Professions with the possibility for pyramid schemes, like weight loss, exercise control, Mary Kay, or politics and religion. The businesses of door-to-door political canvassing or supplication to Jesus Christ have salvaged many a career.
Somewhat OT, but while we’re talking alternative careers: If he had chosen to get into religion instead of politics, Bill Clinton would have been the most successful televangelist ever. Bet he would have been a top realtor as well.
yup, or scAmway.
I can’t help it, I’ve never liked realtors. I’ve always associated them with being liars, stupid, flashy, superficial, can’t find a job doing anything else types. And this was even before the Bubble.
Forgot to add, Bulls* Warriors to the list.
The same people who want to be real estate agents are the same people who flunk out of Pharmacy Tech school or think that the University Of Phoenix degree is actually worth something
Hey, my UOP degree was worth something! In fact, I daresay it was more cost- and time-effective than going to, say, UC Irvine (especially at my age). All any of my employers wanted to see was a diploma.
Now, National University, on the other hand…
UofP is pretty good actually. My wife got an
mba their and I thought the course material was equal to, if not better than mine IMO. The proffesors also had a lot of real world experience.
Oh, and by the way, realtors are not going to go broke anytime soon provided they do their jobs properly and provide good advice to sellers. They need to step up, tell the sellers they missed the boat, and tell them what will actually sell in the current market. Once they do that, they will continue to get commissions on sales. Yes, the commissions will be lower, but not by much. A 3% commission (assuming 6% split) on $600,000.00 is $18,000.00 while the same commission on $500,000.00 is $15,000.00. They should be leading the downtrend, not trying to huff and puff and re-inflate a sagging market.
I have wondered this myself. Why talk up the market. The current stall in sales volumes is only killing those that rely on the transactional volumes to survive.
They want to talk up the market because they have alot of FB’s that don’t have enough equity to sell but they need to.
They also want to talk up the market so folks keep buying.
They also talk up the market because they’ve drunk deep of the KoolAid and they need high prices to keep their OWN RE portfolio above water.
Decreasing prices you would think would cause realtors to be happy so they can move more product, however I think all the B?S that set record home sales will basically reverse causing even further decline in home sales, which will equal less homes sold per realtor, which will equal more realtors saying do you want fry’s with that.
Assuming there is a 6% split. My next “buying agent” will be a discount over the internet. Let’s face it, if I find the home, what does the agent really do to earn that money?
But I agree, they should be leading it down to keep up the volume. The problem is, enough sellers are hitting their “lowest price” and thus just driving up inventory.
Realtors should wise up and dump sellers who won’t work the price.
Neil
Why it’s different this time. ‘Enough sellers hitting their lowest price’ is at a price level far above the true market floor. HELOC’d, IO’d and consumered to death, their credit margins will not survive a sellable price. There is simply no support floor for their wishes, and this sinking tide will carry all the boats lower.
After I get my Real Estate Brokers License in California it is my plan to only buy property for myself and for family and friends. I am going to give half of all my commisions back to them- why because I think that is all it is worth!!! I refuse to take advantage of good people because of a piece of paper gives me the power to negotiate beween buyers and sellers. I also do not plan on helping anyone into buying a property until about 2008. I couldn’t live with myself!!
I know a Chinese immigrant who does this. She charges her friends a flat rate $500 fee for the transaction (in the Bay Area). She’s well on her way to becoming a millionaire in a few years and has builtup an incredible amount of goodwill.
Damn. I’m a Chinese immigrant myself, and I went to school for six years to get a Master’s only to end up in a mediocre paying government job and student loans half the amount of my annual income. But goodwill I do have.
One common denominator, watching the BRAVO realtor reality series: every agent promises his seller a sky-high price, then talks the unsuspecting fool into reducing, reducing, reducing the price, AFTER obtaining a signed listing contract.
Just following realtwhore SOP: get da sale done (no matter who I %^&%^ over) so I gets my commission!
That’s because they don’t actually care about their clients’ bottom lines. What they care about is their own commissions, and those are contingent on maximum turnover, which is best served by closing the deal at any reasonable price rather than waiting a few more weeks for the higher price.
If you read the book Freakonomics they address the issue of real estate agents. Agents are much more willing to hold out the few weeks for a few thou when selling their own house vs another person’s house…hmmmm.
Freakonomics does have a good spot on RE agents and their incentives. People act based upon the incentive they see and RE agents incentive is to ensure they make the sale!! The Sale at whatever cost the indiviual is willing to undertake!! It may even mean feeding the squarrils or adopting practices of other professions in order to receive their commision check.
Freakonomics… bought the book because I liked the picture of the orapple on the cover. Great anecdotes throughout. Enjoyed the chapter about names… “Shithead (sha-teed)”… haha, great.
Playing devil’s advocate here, but maybe they know that the agent that promises the highest sales price will be the one who gets the listing, whereas the honest agent who quotes the seller a lower, more realistic price, will lose out, due to greediness of sellers.
Does anybody still charge 6%? I thought 4-5% was SOP these days, and I’m dealing in the low $ stuff.
5% always available from the best and most successful agents in North Orange County.
Yes and when they tell the seller to lower his price by $150k, after they pick themselves off the floor, the seller will list with the guy down the street after lowering it by $135k. Been there, done that.Agents won’t .
Costco and Sam’s club have been flooded with applications for aisle finger food servers.
A friend of mine who works at Costco human resources says most of these applicants are from out of work Real Estate agents.
Really?
lmao!!!
A family member of mine works for a cosmetic company. She was filling 5 or 6 positions and had a little over 20 applicants. OVER half of them were from agents. The funny thing is due to their past experience with hiring RE agents, they won’t even consider them, she doesn’t even call them back.
Just last week my wife accepted applications for an entry level dispatch job ($ 12.50 hr). She said half of the apps listed real estate or R/E related references. She interviewed one Bambi type that rolled hers eyes as she explained the job attributes.
She basically said the same thing as your family friend…
If I had to work retail, I’d totally work at Costco - higher paid than most retail. If I had to work fast food, I’d do In’ n’ Out - can’t beat $9 bucks an hour starting for flipping burgers.
I haven’t had an In and Out Burger in almost 7 months it one of the things I miss most back home!!! The first week back I am going to grab my daughter (she can eat one quicker the I can) and have one THEY ROCK!!!!
Shakes,
That just makes me so sad (how long you’ve been gone). It must be amazingly difficult to be away from your family for so long. God bless you & all the others over there. Take care of yourself.
Part of the bubble aftermath will be an increase in the licensing standards for real estate agents. The barrier to entry is much too low.
In fact, in many areas it’s more difficult to become a hair stylist..
Harder To Become A Hair Stylist In New Jersey
Ever wonder why it’s more difficult to become a hair stylist than a real estate agent in New Jersey? So do I. Do New Jersey homebuyers even realize that their barber needed more hours of education than the person brokering a hundred thousand dollar transaction? Now, I’m not trying to say that cosmetology and hairstyling aren’t difficult. Having received a bad haircut or two in my day, I’m glad with the licensure requirements where they are, it’s the requirements for a real estate license that scare me.
The reason for licensing requirements are twofold. First, to ensure that the applicant has had appropriate training in the profession, and second to provide a barrier to entry. Why would you want a barrier to entry? It’s simply, it provides a level of consumer protection by ensuring the candidate is serious about the profession.
So is it harder to become a hair stylist or a real estate agent/broker in NJ? Let’s explore.
James Bednar,
LOL! We must have been “cross posting” there. The link puts it into real perspective. Oh and btw, the stylist doesn’t charge you 18K either! Hopefully as this “correction” drags on the disparity in their qualifications (and fees) will be brought more into the light.
So which is more likely to result in a bad haircut — a hairstylist, or a realtor who convinces you Real Estate Only Goes Up?
Funny!
State licensing boards have created the sleazepit which is the real estate game today.
Low entry standards created a glut for both agents and appraiser’s alike.
While we bash and paint with a wide bush, there are decent, honest hardworking people in both professions who have had their livelihoods virtually destroyed by the onslaught of johnny-come-lately lemmings who poured into the field in the last 4 years.
So we shouldn’t all be too sanctimonious.
This wash-out will ripple thru-out the economy.
The next job loss industry might be your own.
Is There a Realtor Bubble?
http://bubblemeter.blogspot.com/2006/09/is-there-realtor-bubble.html
David
Bubble Meter Blog
We bought our house 13 years ago. Back then, and as far back as I can recall before this boom, most real estate agents were the wives of dentists and doctors and such. It wasn’t the primary household income because it just didn’t pay that well or reliably. Houses didn’t sell that often and there was just not enough income in the game to make a reliable living off of it. The bubble changed all that, but like the prices, the volume, and everything else, this too will revert to the mean. All the newbies dreaming of riches will be puked out as the housing market heaves what it can not support. The lucky ones made a pile of cash. I hope they understood it for it what it was, a transient occurrence.
ric,
Well exactly. It was a great way for empty nesters to supplement their income. Retired teachers etc. The reason though that houses didn’t sell all that often 13 years back is b/c there was at the time only a ONE TIME exemption that allowed people over 55 to sell their now mostly empty home without capital gains consequences! Well hell, now that it’s every 2 years we’ve created a velocity of money (and easy access to it) that was bound to create sales volumes and ultimately made NAR one of the most powerful lobby groups in D.C. It didn’t always used to be that way as you point out.
True story: When I was growing up, a neighbor went into real estate. It was the only job she was allowed to have by her husband. He would have had a nervous breakdown if word got out that his wife was actually working for a living, and, gasp, making money at it.
She went to work for an agency run by an elderly couple who were, shall we say, considered to be among the more socially acceptable people in our town. I don’t know if my neighbor ever made any money in real estate, but she did manage to keep up appearances of having a fashionable thing to do.
There are two shows.. I thought there was only one..
1)Flip that house. This one shows you what happens @ the end. Sells or not
2)Flip this house. This one has realtors say how much they would list it for with no conclusion.
I like seeing them get burnt. I get like a warm fuzzy feeling..
One show has a profesional flipper for 10 years giving guidence … Kirsten somethimg and she is HOT… much nicer then Mrs Suzi Wong…
The one with Kirsten is “Property Ladder.”
Also check out “Buy Me” on HGTV every Tuesday night.
It follows the sellers around as the offers come in. Seeing lowballs roll in, and watching the greedy sellers choke under double mortgage payments make my week.
Yes, Kirsten is uber hot.
Yep, all warm and tingly.
There’s a huge amount of inventory for sale out there. That’s a lot of potential commissions. The brokers have to get the prices down to where the buyers are. Trying to scare buyers into overpaying isn’t going to work anymore. It’s time they started giving sellers a reality check. If they didn’t sell last year, they missed the peak and the longer they wait, to drop prices, the worse it’s going to get for the seller. Sellers will be lucky to see last years prices again in ten years.
Amen. If they want to make money they need to stop blowin hot air up the sellers asses and tell them their house ain’t worth what it used to be, not even close. No more wishful thinking. And, if they don’t get on it and price agressively, it will be worth even less still. Wait ’til this equity bleed picks up momentum. But again, realtors do need to give their clients a reality check and tell them that it isn’t different this time. You are on the down side of a real estate cycle…..get used to it!
What buyers? 40% of the market was flippers and vacations homes: gone; 45% of the reminder was liar loans, soon to be history, so who are these NEW buyers?
1. conventional 20% down? how many at 600K
2. no liar loans: how many make 180K without any debt.
3. trading up from selling their current home?
It was obvious to me that “real people” weren’t buying homes in florida…it was all folks buying a second home/condo as a way of getting rich quick. Someone told me with a straight face that they picked up a property in Lake County (FL) to flip because they needed to pay for their kids upcoming college years…
That’s why there were all these articles in Florida papers about new schools–build on the projections based on new housing–with far fewer students enrolling than anticipated (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06270/725458-30.stm for instance).
There won’t be buyers at a lower price. There are no buyers at all!
I agree with you Reuven . In 2005 ,40% wer investor purchases driving up Florida by around 39% over all appreciation . About the same thing happened in Arizona .
The locust buyers are not buying now and the inventory continues to skyrocket . This goofs really thought this appreciation money was going to continue for another 5 years .
Strange. A relative just closed the sale on a house in St. Pete today. I guess they must have sold it to someone other than a “buyer.”
BTW, they got a price above the current median of listings for their neighborhood, sold it through a co-op realtor (2.5%) and had it on the market just a couple of days before getting a contract.
But, there are no buyers at all.
Did your relative bake cupcakes? Sometimes that works.
Looking forward to “Million Dollar Foreclosures.”
But it’s good that realtor parasites are broadcast in all their glory — leaching off the wealth of others, and picking up $100K+ checks for 5-6 hours of “work.”
It was obvious before that realtors didn’t deserve 5-6%, and now the masses can see first hand the parasitic greed.
My sister told me of a girl she knows who went from a $25k per year job as a parts girl. , to making over $80k in one month, as a realtor. Cute girl, great personality, hideously overpaid.
I hope she was a good saver.
She’ll be selling her parts again, soon!
ROTFL.
http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/ap/2006/10/03/ap3063743.html
“Housing prices, slumping after a five-year boom, are projected to decline in half of the nation’s metropolitan areas, with the Northeast, Florida and California among the areas hardest hit.
The forecast by Moody’s Economy.com, a private research firm, presents one of the starkest views yet of the housing slowdown that has been gathering force in recent months.
The West Chester, Pa., forecasting firm projects that the median sales price for an existing home will decline in 2007 by 3.6 percent, which would be the first decline for an entire year in home prices since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
The forecast is included in a 195-page report, “Housing at the Tipping Point,” which The Associated Press obtained before its general release on Wednesday.”
[Ray] Schuldenfrei? You must be joking! That means “Free from debt” in German (I think it could mean innocent as well?). They must have made it up!
I had a giggle over that one as well! I think they typo’d that name.
His real name is Ray Schuldenmacher.
Rename them “flop this house” or “Housing bladder” ?
I’m watching an episode right now where a home in a neighborhood of $1.2 - $2 Million homes has the lady trying to sell the house for $2.95 Million. She rejects an offer for $2.39 Million because she won’t accept less than $2.6 million. I just checked realtor.com and the house is, of course, still listed but now at $2.49 Million! Good luck! LMAO, especially when you consider how long this house has been on the market!!!
http://www.realtor.com/FindHome/HomeListing.asp?frm=byxmls&xlid=1048245021&lnksrc=00045&poe=realtor
BTW, at $2.95 Million she was going to make $1.2 Million in profit. At this rate, she’ll be lucky if she makes any profit in the current market. And she still seems to not understand the hot market has gone cold.
what about those hideous Montelongos in San Antonio on Flip that House? The four of them get me ill. The one guy is abusive and the women are bimbos. They use illegal labor too. For shame
OMG!!! I just posted a message about them. It never showed up but, yes, they made me feel dirty. How ’bout that Rotweiller that was his character screener. If that was the case, it should have turned on him and bitten out his throat.
I love this board. You guys are so funny. I watch all those real estate shows and I just can’t help feeling dirty afterwards. There was this one flipper show on the other day with this Hispanic family from Texas. The dominant brother referred to a flip as “lipstick on a pig” (oddly, the same reference used to describe that poor fat realtor draped in an American flag that someone on here posted a link to). What a dick and a sleeze. He made my skin crawl. I wouldn’t have bought a house from him in a million years. And I felt sorry for his wife and sister-in-law that acted like the sun rose and set in his sphincter. Stupid biatches.
“Without a white-hot market to drive the plot, the producers of ‘Million Dollar Listing’ and other shows about real estate now have to rethink their formats. And a handful of real estate agents may start to wonder whether their careers as reality TV stars are over.”
I bet they film the dark side of the RE bust and do just as well as filming the boom times. It will be like when the media filmed the war in Kuwait, real time missle shots, etc. very exciting.
And then like the present war the filming will be prohibited or controlled as the US enters a deflationary depression.
It was very exciting unless one of those missiles came through your window and killed your children.
One of the things I found most interesting about million dollar listing is that buying and selling RE is very emotional, and is really boils down to an ego clash. The buyer wants to pay X, the seller wants Y. The agents mitigate that - craft a compromise. To normal, rational humans, the agents are not needed for this. They have removed their ego, estimate the value, and negotiate. In the tv show it seems like some of these morons just pull a number out of the air or cling to a number their agent told them at the beginning like a lifesaver in the middle of the ocean. They refuse to be rational, to see reality and compromise and hence, no sale. There was the one guy who wanted to sell but would not accept some of the costs of repairs, or the one mom who said she could wait a few years to get her price. Damn straight she’ll be waiting a few years! The show is an a interesting study in human psychology.
On Million Dollar Listing the sellers are so greedy and the enablers (buyers) so ignorant I can’t watch the show without my blood pressure rising. I hope these types with their foolish behavior are burned in the process. Profitting so greatly with the initials offers but no, that’s not enough I deserve more more more!!! I am such a financial genius. ugh
I actually took a sales persons exam and got a paper two years ago but didn’t do anything I was hoping they could teach me how to interact with people but they (re people) were like “What are we supposed to hold your hand?” I spent about 4 or 5 days there and left cause it was toxic. I’m in NYC btw.
There is a wonderful paper that came out in the ST.Louis fed reserve. (about housing) wheelkock or wheelock was the guy. It shows the buble and non-accrual loans in the bubles in 80’s and 90’s in U.S. very wonderful paper. There is about a year after the peak falling off and then non-accruals become foreclosures and freefall occurs. Page 10 massachusets illustrates it well.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/review/06/09/Wheelock.pdf