Curtain Call (Th-Th-Th-That's All, Folks!)

The news came out today that severely slashed new home prices have spurred surprising sales gains, and it cemented something that's been brewing for me: That it's time to put this aside for a while.

I mean, for two years now I've been saying that the only way to get people buying homes is to slash prices and reduce inventory. While it's gratifying in an egotistical way, it's also depressing to see how long it's taken the market to catch up to what the blogerati knew back in '05.

I'm very proud of the fact that I got to stand shoulder to shoulder with people like Bubble Meter/David, the Marinite, Keith, and many others as we discussed the dismal state of modern real estate. I'd like to think I helped a few people get better advice about their mortgages, and not fall into the trap of interest-only loans and million-year deals.

But this seems like a good time to call it a day. Lereah is gone, Nardelli is out to pasture, Casey Serin's turning his flipping into a media empire, and there's only so many times you can parse Bernanke's nonsense before it just becomes tiresome.

It's been a real honor to do this. I've learned a lot and hopefully taught a bit as well. Now the best thing we can do is ride this accelerating rollercoaster all the way to the end, dust ourselves off, and prepare for a (hopefully) better, saner, stronger real estate market. Maybe I'll pick this up again down the line....you never know.

So, peace to one and all, and watch out for specuvestors!

Posted at May 24, 2007 02:20 PM

digg this story

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://weblog.housing.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/389

The news came out today that severely slashed new home prices have spurred surprising sales gains, and it cemented something that's been brewing for me: That it's time to put this aside for a while. I mean, for two years now I've been saying that the only way to get people buying homes is to slash prices and reduce inventory. While it's gratifying in an egotistical way, it's also depressing to see how long it's taken the market to catch up to what the blogerati knew back in '05. I'm very proud of the fact that I got to stand shoulder to shoulder with people like Bubble Meter/David, the Marinite, Keith, and many others as we discussed the dismal state of modern real estate. I'd like to think I helped a few people get better advice about their mortgages, and not fall into the trap of interest-only loans and million-year deals. But this seems like a good time to call it a day. Lereah is gone, Nardelli is out to pasture, Casey Serin's turning his flipping into a media empire, and there's only so many times you can parse Bernanke's nonsense before it just becomes tiresome. It's been a real honor to do this. I've learned a lot and hopefully taught a bit as well. Now the best thing we can do is ride this accelerating rollercoaster all the way to the end, dust ourselves off, and prepare for a (hopefully) better, saner, stronger real estate market. Maybe I'll pick this up again down the line....you never know. So, peace to one and all, and watch out for specuvestors!