I wrote this letter to Mr Chamberlin about his August 12th article in the NC Times. It got bounced bad as undeliverable. Apparently the editorial staff was a bit lazy in checking his email address. Article
First let me say Mr Chamberlin that I have never written you or any local columnist before. I got a link to your August 12th article from Ben’s blog, also known as the housing bubble blog. I hope you are sincere that you truly love a good debate, because from everything I have ever read from you, or heard about you, that is simply not true. You have been anything but honest in your writings about San Diego’s economy in general, or RE in particular. Lets look at a few examples.
“Let me begin by passing along my congratulations to the many people who are celebrating the current situation in the housing market.” This is a total straw man argument. Most people are not celebrating the current state of the market. They are anxious and fear laden. Mostly because they are starting to come out of their RE induced stupor and realize that yes, real estate does come down. There are a few people, still precious few, who know what has to happen to return to sanity and we are not celebrating yet. However we will be shortly.
“I also said that I couldn’t quite grasp the unbridled joy that the doom-and-gloomers seemed to have about the possibility that many families might lose their homes in a downturn.” Again, unbnridled joy? Those of us with educations, good paying jobs and a bright futur have had our place in the social hierachy pre-empted by the get rick quick credit fueled orgy of the last few years; yet you can’t grasp why we might feel joy at its coming to an end. You have no right to lay claim to anything other than an ill-advised opinion if this level of analysis is beyond you.
I love a good debate, and there are many sides to the real estate argument. The is precisely the opposite of the tone and tenor of anything I have ever heard from you. I have heard you yell at people ON AIR for having facts and or figures to contradict your opinions, but never have I heard of you having an open and honest debate about the state of RE.
“One of the biggest bears is David Rosenberg of Merrill Lynch, who said there is an additional 5 percent downside to housing prices” This is double lie. Not only is Mr Rosenberg not very bearish if he claims a possible 5% downside to RE, he’s not even a bear considering we have fallen farther than that locally already. The second part of the lie is you plucked a national statistic to defend your opinion about San Diego, one of the most over inflated markets by any reckoning.
“But never mind what a couple of Wall Streeters think about the housing market. I refer everyone to a new report, “California’s Deepening Housing Crisis.” Never mind what I just wrote, pay attention to what I’m writing now! Well actually we agree on this, Ca is in the midst of a housing crisis, though it is one of affordability. This boom and its false sense of wealth creation gave birth to Carmel Valley, SEH, and Otay Lakes. Not exactly the kind of housing we needed, hence the shortage.
“There is little land left for development, and that will indeed create a crisis in housing availability.” This is easily the most tired and debukable myth of them all. San Diego has never had much land compared to say Phoenix or Dallas. Each and every time there is a boom the same arguments get trotted out. Each and every bust they go away. At least you didn’t say 1000 people are moving here a day.
I don’t hate you, I just think you are an incompetant shill who does more damage than good. Why don’t you report real numbers on real estate. Like median price to median family income? How about the percentage of mortgages taken out in the last 3 years that are not FRM? The coming reset wave would be a great subject for you to discuss. Of course none of these has the short term positive prices only go up spin you are so well known for. If you’ve made it this far Mr Chamberlin, good for you. Its not easy to have an entire piece of writing debunked but I’d be glad and willing to have an open debate about the future of RE in any publicly available online forum of your choice.
Funny how several of us posted on this at the same time. That article is just terrible, though it seems about as well written as anything else in the NC times.
Funny how several of us posted on this at the same time. That article is just terrible, though it seems about as well written as anything else in the NC times.
Funny how several of us posted on this at the same time. That article is just terrible, though it seems about as well written as anything else in the NC times.
In my opinion, Mr. Chamberlin will be out of a job by the end of this year. I don’t know how the NC Times can continue to support his idiocy in the face of unrelenting evidence to the contrary of everything he has been espousing on the airwaves and in print.
In my opinion, Mr. Chamberlin will be out of a job by the end of this year. I don’t know how the NC Times can continue to support his idiocy in the face of unrelenting evidence to the contrary of everything he has been espousing on the airwaves and in print.
In my opinion, Mr. Chamberlin will be out of a job by the end of this year. I don’t know how the NC Times can continue to support his idiocy in the face of unrelenting evidence to the contrary of everything he has been espousing on the airwaves and in print.
