Some of our commenters in today's "Bits Bucket" find the Post's "Real Estate Live" editors:
"impossibly smug"?
"smug and annoying"?
Nahh . . .
Friday, February 20, 2009; 1:00 PMOh, now I get it-- we all got sick, and our incomes didn't improve. So obviously, not our faults. Shew!
Re: Banking: I am not nearly as burned by the small number of bankers as I am by the massive number of people who intentionally bought houses they couldn't afford without using common sense. Now I (as a renter who was bright enough not to buy something I couldn't afford) am supposed to put my tax dollars into bailing them out of their irresponsible behavior so they can build equity. This effect me far more than whether some executive I will never meet get a couple of extra million from a 800 billion package.
Maryann Haggerty: I think back 4 or 5 years ago, to these same chats, and I don't recall a lot of people saying, "whoopee!! I'm going to irresponsibly buy a house I know I can't afford!" What I recall are a lot of people saying, "I know this house is a stretch, but I think I can make it as long as my health holds up. And with luck, my income will improve as I move along in my career."
Elizabeth Razzi: And I'm assuming you're not one of those renters who ends up getting booted from your place because the landlord lost it to foreclosure.
I seem to recall there wasn't a problem with prices. Oh yes, here it is:
Friday, July 20, 2007
Washington, D.C.: Short or long-term, do you think D.C. or it's suburban areas will come back down to earth with real estate prices of those seven to ten years ago?
Elizabeth Razzi: The prices of seven to ten years ago? That would be a whopping price decline, and I think we'd have to see a lot of job loss to get there. So far, that's not happening.
Maryann Haggerty: For prices to roll back seven or 10 years, we would need an economic cataclysm, I suspect. What's more common is for prices to stagnate or fall somewhat as incomes continue to grow, so things get back in line.
9 comments:
Wow, nice hunting, Harriet!
An economic cataclysm, you say. Well, we got one. 1999 prices here we come!
Of course you saw her claiming DC is still immune because of the vast gentrification efforts. And she's right, there are neighborhoods that have significantly changed for the better, and those will retain some of their gains. You know why? Because the incomes in those neighborhoods have gone up. And gee, what could that be called as well? Mmmm fundamental price to income ratio?? Anybody?
And here we see why there's the ra-ra slant...
Elizabeth Razzi: No, I have never been a real estate agent, lender, etc. I have bought homes twice, sold once, remodeled a couple of times. Never owned an investment property or vacation home, though I don't see that there would be anything wrong with that. I have been a journalist since the early '80s, which did include four years (1984-88 to be precise) writing for a newspaper that was published by the National Association of Realtors for its members.
What continues to irk me is that we lost so many great writers during the post buy-out and these two continue to be there.
I worked in real estate during the boom and I swear I could have been doing their jobs so much better this entire time. I used to read the chat back then (when anyone with an ounce of logic could tell there was a massive bubble that was unsustainable) and just shook my head at their stupidity.
Now, I just can't believe they still haven't admitted that they don't know anything.
What I found funny the last few years was reading the Realtestate section of WaPo and comparing those articles to those in the special Business section on housing.
The Realestate section was all ra-ra (gotta sell those ads!), whereas the special business section was telling it like it really was.
I am just glad their are now blogs, as recently as a few years ago nobody anywhere would be around to call these two out for their consistently terrible advice.
Year after year their advice has been some variation of either:
"Well of course prices are going up! DC is just such a special place!"
Then once it became too obvious to deny there was a bubble...
"Well, nobody can predict the future! Lets not talk about what might happen and instead focus on buying houses!"
They are cheerleaders, worse than useless.
Harriet, I would love to see more of what people were saying back then. Since we moved here in 2006, we missed all the excitement. I am very curious as to what people sounded like.
I remember looking at a house "for sale or rent" by Ft. Belvoir in spring 2006. It was an ugly split-level shack on an alley full of worse shacks with rotting cars on every lawn. He was asking $2200/rent, $500K to sell.
Wonder if he ever got his half million.
Funny- I was searching for some old Real Estate Live's from 2006 for Tabitha and found this...
Elizabeth Razzi: The prices of seven to ten years ago? That would be a whopping price decline, and I think we'd have to see a lot of job loss to get there. So far, that's not happening.
Maryann Haggerty: For prices to roll back seven or 10 years, we would need an economic cataclysm, I suspect. What's more common is for prices to stagnate or fall somewhat as incomes continue to grow, so things get back in line.
It was from a discussion July 20, 2007. I wonder if she's even there anymore or if they just cut and paste together phrases of hers.
Those ladies are a mess, I read the chat every 2 weeks just to be appalled. Liz had the nerve today to ask a renter if they'd ever been displaced due to a house be foreclosed, well what about all the renters who were displaced due to the speculative bubble? Also their whole gentrification argument doesn't hold water, yes Arlington looks different now than it did 10 years ago, but guess what, it looked a lot different 10 years before that. And a lot of the development that occured due to the boom isn't necessarily sustainable.
Jason said...
...Liz had the nerve today to ask a renter if they'd ever been displaced due to a house be foreclosed...
well i had. but i'm not sure what to make of her response. would i have wanted some gov't help when we were kicked out? yeah absolutely. but does that mean i woulda wanted the gov't to use tax money to bail out investors so i could stay put? no, thank you. if anything i'd love to see my last landlord bankrupted or even charged with fraud. i'd love just an extra two or three months (many banks are doing this now) to find the next home (or allow school children to complete the semester, or at the maximum stay till end of lease), and maybe legal advice from the county/state would be nice.
but really, us unlucky folks are really the minority. there're bigger problems to be solved.
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