The Ol’ Perfesser Glenn Reynolds has some choice bits on real estate follies nationwide. He links to a show called Real Estate Intervention that sounds fascinating.
THE HOUSING COLLAPSE: As far as I can tell, it’s caused in no small part by idiots. At both ends.
I’ve learned this by watching HGTV. On the one hand, I saw a rerun of a show on people buying their first house the other night. It was from 2007. The buying couple paid pretty much the asking price for an overpriced home. (Wife: “I think we’re getting ripped off, but I really like the house.”) Then at the closing they did a 100% loan.
Meanwhile, today on Real Estate Intervention, we see people who want way too much for their houses resisting any suggestion that they should drop the price, and hence having trouble selling. Watching them argue with the expert is simultaneously hilarious and infuriating.
People who paid too much for irrational reasons. People who ask too much for irrational reasons. Not surprising that things aren’t going well.
1 Comment
July 4, 2009 at 3:35 pm
RE is simply another Ponzi scheme like Bernie’s, w/equally moronic, greedy “victims”
Notion of a used house not depreciating down to land value is absurd, much like Bernie’s trivial “fees” for miraculous “returns”
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