Great post. Here's the actual article that hit the NY Times a few days ago.
I think this is the straw that broke the camel's back. I think there needs to be a call for sweeping reforms of standards within the real estate industry. From a standardized, publicly-available property listing service to generally accepted accounting practices when it comes to properly listing and recording the sale of a property. Propping up the price in this sneaky way will only serve to get us in more economic trouble in the long run. I hope the Fed, other key financial players, and we the people demand this change. It is frightening to know that the Fed is making huge financial decisions based on false property sale data.
GF, that’s a good point. I think that we should take advantage of the coming crisis to press for legislation that mandates transparency and fully-disclosed property listing information online. I’m not saying that realtors should follow the fate of travel agents, but a lot of the business could be made online by sellers and buyers. There’s still a role for realtors assisting with legal and compliance issues. When things get ugly in the coming years we can’t let the NAR lobby for bailouts and/or more regulation to save their skin at the expense of the consumer.
Many articles in the press now are full of anecdotal evidence of sellers having a hard time, and they also include a couple of blurbs from ‘experts’. Unfortunaly, often such experts are nothing but spokepersons for the industry. What I like about the Fool.com article above is that it presents the whole picture in the proper context, and it shows Lereah and company for what they really are. And it’s written in a compelling language.
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