Asianautica, I thought your debate with sdrealtor was skilled and polite.
Please don’t let his comments about your decision to rent mean anything to you. Just as he implies that owning a home provides security, comfort, love, and probably better sex in his view, that is the opinion of a man wearing realtor-colored glasses. I am as passionate about mopping my floors as he is about homeownership. Both passions are purely emotional, and not backed up by any facts or statistics that their pursuit leads to a healthier longer or more passionate life.
Second, I’d like to make a personal request that we refrain from condescending remarks. Things like “I do think it will be difficult to continue saving $12K a year until you are age 86” and thinly veiled advice that you may not be able to keep saving if bad stuff happens, and telling Boston_OC that his boss’ expectations will be raised to unattainable heights due to his stellar sales record, are just unpleasant. I’d like to request that we refrain from giving unpleasant or condescending personal advice to people, and stick to exchanging ideas. Compliments are always appreciated for all sides.
I think sdr feels defensive at times, so he attacks people, and we need to be careful on attacking realtors in this forum. There are plenty of professional knowledgeable realtors, and there are many bad ones. We can’t be prejudiced against realtors just because we’ve encountered a few bad ones. For all we know, sdr could be one of the good ones. He’s operating on the info given him by the NAR, and believes we’ll see a 20% correction, and then continued appreciation. As a salesman, he owns what he sells, and is highly defensive of it. Who can blame him? And he does have guts for coming back on a website where most peole housing is going bust.
Anyway, I hope we can continue exchanging ideas without the personal poking…
