But this is just too funny. The "truth". Right. More like "what we want you to believe; pay no attention to anyone else but us". I smell desperation.
MAR Launches Speakers Bureau to Discuss the Truth About Marin Real EstateIf any of you readers attend any one of these MAR propaganda-love-ins, please take notes (or better yet, make recordings) and share them with me so that I can post them. If you need the contact info provided in this blurb, just email me and I will give it to you. But if you do attend, be prepared for the MAR's lereahing of the public.
The Marin Association of REALTORS® has launched a new speakers bureau to talk about the realities of Marin real estate with community and business leaders across the county. MAR President Valerie Castellana, joined by other association officers and current and past board members, are scheduled to speak to more than a dozen chambers of commerce, Rotary Clubs, and other organizations in coming weeks.
“Recent scary headlines about real estate trends do not accurately reflect the insights and perspectives of real estate experts, the realities of the marketplace, or the unique nature of Marin. Our speakers bureau will enable local leaders to hear directly from their local REALTORS® about the realities of real estate in Marin County,” Castellana.
The REALTORS® will share their insights and perspectives on “the truth about real estate in Marin.” Their presentations will cover topics including current market trends, the future of the housing market, how to avoid common mistakes when buying or selling homes, and the differences between real estate agents and REALTORS®. Members of the speakers bureau include Valerie Castellana, Kathy Schlegel, Job Zeiter, Kate Hamilton, Roberta DiPrete, Kay Moore, Margaret Deedy, and Justine Fairey, and Ron Parks.
The members of the bureau can be scheduled to speak at membership or community meetings or take part in panel discussions, seminars and workshops...
17 comments:
D-bags all around.
Welcome to California. Leave your brain at the border, but be sure you packed extra credit cards.
John Doe
I feel dirty just reading about this.
The only reason they do this is to keep luring more suckers into the pool.
The leaches are fearing that the blood supply is thinning.
Potential buyers....... Beware!
This is the time to wait!
I'm serious, if you don't need to buy now, you will be greatly rewarded by waiting.
If this is the time to wait, when is the time to buy? How long do you think it will last? Will you tell us?
Will someone on this site post something that says, "THIS is the time to buy"?
Because, as I've been listening to people on this site tell me to wait for over a year now, I don't see any major changes in the market.
It's flat now. Prices are flat or modestly appreciating. Sales are down but prices aren't. Interest rates appear to be stable.
If I'm planning on keeping this house for 5 to 10 years, when SHOULD I buy? And how much do you think I'm going to save by waiting? 5%? 10%?
Does anyone on here have anything more instructive to say than "wait"? What EXACTLY am I waiting for?
Realtors have been telling me to "Buy Now" for over 10 years. I can't help but think that I SHOULD HAVE each and every time.
I am waiting for the Active/Pending ratio to be between 3 and 4. It is about 7 right now and climbing. It should hit about 8-9 this summer. When Act/Pend ratio is around 3.5, again, prices will revert to the mean which is about 2.5-3 times the average annual income.
You should buy when you pay as much for a house as you do for renting the equivalent. If the rental is 1500$ and the mortgage is 3000$ then rent and put the 'extra' 1500$ into a 5% CD every month, you'll be better off....
If you have no patience (YOU JUST GOTTA HAVE IT) then just buy like the rest of the sheeple. Then in "5 to 10" years you can sell it for less than you paid....but make sure you've got a good chunk saved up cause you're gonna have to bring some money to the table at closing...:}
...and about the Realtors telling you to "buy now"....what are they supposed to say?
If you went to a car dealership do you think they'd tell you to keep driving your old car, and a new one depreciates immediately and that you're going to get tired of it after a couple of years but you'll still be making payments?
Don't take advice from someone that is going to make money off you.
"Will someone on this site post something that says, 'THIS is the time to buy'?"
That's a question best answered by doing your own research and coming to your own conclusions. It takes perhaps a dozen evenings of solid research to get an upper hand on the "insights and perspectives" of your average realtor. By then, realtor industry spin takes on a familiar odor, and their talk of the "unique" Marin market and a 2007 rally sound very hollow in light of long-term trends. Down cycles in real take take years to play out.
Take everything with a healthy dose of skepticism--especially from anyone who stands to profit from their own analyses. I reached my own conclusions after looking into real estate and seeing a level of unchecked enthusiasm and speculation that rivaled the dot-com boom. These two events have their exceptions, but some notable parallels are well-documented by Robert Shiller and other independent analysts.
Dear Anonymous,
If you want to buy, then you should buy. Ten years is a long time to sit on the fence, for someone who knows the real estate market so well... Yes, realtors, I know it is a frustrating time, but antics like this do not put money in the bank or food on the table.
Grace under pressure.
Anonymous Too
anonymous # 359,818 (2/04/2007 05:58:09 AM):
I have a question for you. And never mind the realtors - just think for yourself.
So... 10 years or so ago, right about the time Marin's real estate turned up significantly for the first time in 6 or 7 years (as in "SIX or SEVEN YEARS"), you had the means and an opportunity to buy - and you didn't?
No wonder no one wants to "listen" to you around here.
" the unique nature of Marin."
If I hear that one more time from the RE industry, I'll puke. It's ALWAYS different ______....fill in the blank.
I certainly hope, at this point, nobody is buying any of the pressure sales tactics that were used to lure many buyers into the market over the past few years. Please, lets be real. Even the most clever Realtor cannot provide a reasonable explanation as to why prices should continue to climb. All the risk, and I mean all of it, is to the downside right now. Yes, even in Marin risk is all to the downside. Go for a long walk, take a few classes, take a vacation or two, pick up yoga and watch this house of cards built on greed, fear and lies tumble and crash.
I'm living in Marin and I love it.
I stay away from the Stepford folks.
I'm renting a wonderful place.
It would cost 3x as much to buy it.
I'm saving my pennies and waiting for reason.
I'm no fool.
These prices will drop.
Duh!
extra' 1500$ into a 5% CD every month, you'll be better off.."
That's what I'm doing. Anyone else noticed how amazingly easy it is to get at least a 5.5% return on a CD? Seems that while everyone else is chasing housing, You can actually make some nice pocket change in CDs. I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that everyone has all their money tied up in RE and not leaving anything over for savings. That's possibly why banks need cash.
Anyhow, this whole "scary stuff the media reports" is so ridiculous. Every single day I listen to the radio on the way home. There is this ad for some book. I think it is called:" Equitty happens". The authors go on and on about how they can tell you what REALLY is going on in Real estate... and how you can profit from it- in VEGAS!
better yet- there's another ad. Some guy named AD Kessler or something. His ad was obviously made during the height of the bubble and blubbers on with examples of people who have bought 10 houses and now have portfolios worth over a million bucks. Anyhow, it goes on and on, then suddenly there is a obviously newer tacked on portion of the ad where Mr kessler says that "Find out how you can profit from the recent downturn than ever before!"
The best part of these ads come at the end. " Get the money YOU DESERVE." I love it.
To play the devil's advocate for a moment ...
Interest from CD: Taxable at top marginal rate, which for the typical single Bay Area renter is pretty brutal.
Interest paid on purchase mortgage: Tax deductible.
Interest paid on HELOC: Tax deductible.
Capital gains from sale of primary residence: Tax-free.
I'm not a permabull -- far from it. I'm just pointing out (for the umpteenth time on this blog, I'm sure) just how fubared the tax code has become.
And the banking industry. It's darn near criminal for WaMu, B of A, et al. to pimp savings accounts that pay like 1% interest (if that) and loan it back out at 15%. "Keep the change" my ass.
True, you get taxed for CDs. But you have a guaranteed income from it without the risk of losing money. You will always gain, even if its less from taxation. That versus a house that can easily go up and down like a roller coaster.
At the end of the day, I think that I as a renter am likely doing much better than the average recent mortgage payer. I am paying 1/4th the cost to live.Plus the more recent homeowners of the last few years will be losing lots of money for who knows how long and be paying down non-existent value. Might as well go to the bank, request 1-300k and burn it because that's what those " investments" are going to do .
Besides, if you buy a house, what would you gain from selling unless you planned on moving to another state? If you are buying just to sell, then why buy at all? If home buying is an "investment" then it is a really risky one at that. No thanks. I'll keep putting money away for now.
I'm really tired of MAR,and the susie brightsmiles i run into in the business.I had one tell me that prices never go down in sebastopol,they just "flatten out" for short periods.I suggested she complain to dataquick,which has reported declines in the median price for 7 months in a row...she told me i didn't know what i was talking about,and she didn't appreciate negativity...put me in my place,by golly.being reality based is just so 20th century,i guess.BTW the subprime $ is getting tighter,and will be pretty much unobtainable in a few more months.(at anything less than 15% anyway,which is where it should have been a year ago,based on risk)
MAR Launches Speakers Bureau to Discuss the Truth About Marin Real Estate
Would that be yesterdays truth, todays truth, tomorrows truth, or the perpetual truth which is
This is a great time to buy!
It seems odd to me that all these people have so much free time to spend at community meetings and so forth. I would have thought that they would be out closing 2 or 3 deals a week?
05:58:09 AM said:
"Realtors have been telling me to Buy Now for over 10 years."
10 years ago would have been a good time buy.
"Does anyone on here have anything more instructive to say than "wait"?"
Yes, wait until price to rent = price to buy as it did 10 years or so ago at roughly the end of the last res. real estate downturn which took what 5 years?
2006 was the first year of the current downturn. Realtors spin it as the third best year in real estate ever, compared with 2004 and 2005. DUH. What else could the first year of lower prices be after the most insane run up of prices we will ever see in our lifetimes.
Its hard to say how long the current downturn will last. But about 5 years is probably about right, but with a much greater price % reduction then last time.
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