Are you saying, sdrealtor, that a San Diegan wanting to move-up should go ahead and make the move, since a decline will hit you the same, whether you live in your current house or in the new house?

I’m sure sdrealtor and others who are bearish are having a difficult time reconciling the conflicting obligations of earning a living and telling people that this is the worst time in the history of the US to buy a house.

Personally, I felt somewhat guilty selling my house. My buyers were basically clueless, and I felt I deceived them by giving them the opportunity to buy my house. Free markets, yes, but I’m the one who socked it to them. My big windfall will be paid for by them. They’ll have to work many years to pay my windfall. They may end up in bankruptcy. They took a 5/1 ARM, 100% financing. But I had no fiduciary duty to these folks. A realtor does, or so the ethics state.

Honorable realtors convinced themselves of one of many denial points, so they can live with themselves and keep making the sales pitch. They say the market can never go down, that it is softening but will pick back up, that you can lose money by staying put as well as by moving so you might as well move, etc. If you didn’t mislead yourself, you would have to get out of the business. So denial is the easier way.

Realtors must know they are leading every new homeowner toward potential bankruptcy. That’s an enormous burden. Personally, I’d have to change jobs. I couldn’t do that to people.