Rustico,
It looks like a couple posters took your points out of context. Reading your post, it seems to me we conduct our business much the same way. While I dont think any of us can say our clients “will never be upside down”, I cant imagine any of my clients losing their homes based upon what they spent relative to their financial status. This goes for wealthy and not so wealthy. To me, extraordinary people can be so without being wealthy just as wealthy people can average. I don’t know where you got your ideas about me but I am anything but a marketing whore. Most of my business comes to via referals, my social network or people i simply run into who appreciate my honest straight forward approach. I have NEVER put commissions ahead of my clients interests and the day I am asked to is the day i leave the business which like you is far from my soul source of income. I try to help my clients make decisions for themselves the way I do for myself and I am very very fiscally conservative. My vehicle is modest/paid off and I wear my shoes until there are holes in the soles. The pseudonym was chosen so people would immendiately know who the comments were coming from and has never been an attempt to gain business. Our approach to adding clients is actually identical.
To me something special, is the best possible home someone can get for their money at that point in time. It is a home that will meet their needs well beyond the time they expect to live. It is a home purchased with the eye of seller in that you never know what type of market you will be selling into so you better have one that will sell relatively quickly even in bad times.
Hang around and contribute. You will find we are very similar in our beliefs.
BTW, I am an idealist also. I do not blame our industry because I have worked in enough industries to understand what happened here happens everywhere in a capitalist society.