My problem with you has been stated on this blog before. You are an extremist.
Sdrealtor, I agree with your posts, and will add myself to the list of lurkers silently agreeing with your reasonable posts. You’ve certainly been guilty of biting here and there, but who hasn’t? We’re only human after all…
I personally am in the same camp as many on this forum. I believe that prices will (and are) correcting to some extent. To what extent, I don’t know. I’m following this closely from the sidelines so that I can buy when I feel the right time has come, even though I know this could take years.
Powayseller’s comments are so definite, so confident, and quite frankly so *frequent*, that it sometimes seems a little excessive. Comments like “SD real estate will go down 50%”. “Will” they? I find the posts based on good research and often tempered with “can’t be sure” and comments like that. But they start so strong. “Will” and “will not”, as opposed to “may” and “perhaps not”. It’s hard to take that kind of extremism so seriously and the strong desire to make EVERYONE believe those statements reminds me distantly of religous fanaticism. After all, it’s much easier to believe something if everyone else around you believes it too.
I also want to believe that the real estate market in SD will go down significantly. I couldn’t imagine anything better than a 50% decrease in real estate, but at the same time I’m not sure I’ll still a job when that occurs, and I’m wondering who will lend me money at what interest rate! Beware of what you wish for…
On the topic of real estate agents. It’s certainly the case that if you don’t have a real estate agent for a friend, then you probably don’t have many friends! There are good ones and there are bad ones. I would guess (because I don’t know for sure, so I don’t say “I KNOW”) that there are a lot of RE agents that started in recent years, are chasing a quick buck, and will probably go back to their old job in the coming years. But there are also many good agents out there. I had the pleasure of working with one in my old town of Seattle.
All this crap I’ve seen about “You MUST have a website to be an agent” and “80% of whatevers are found on the internet”. So what? Yes, people research a lot on the internet. If 80% research on the Internet then 20% don’t! (yes, I can say that for a fact!) So why should 100% of agents have pretty little websites? That would neglect 20% of buyers, who prefer references, phone calls, or whatever they did in the “dark ages” of real estate. 20% of buyers is a substantial market. Besides, putting your house in the MLS is just one step to market a home. There are a ton of others, which I don’t want to comment definitively on because I’m not a real estate professional and will defer to those that are experienced in this area (what a concept).
