Nov. 30, 2006 - What I've Learned from the Bubbleheads |
Thanks to Jonathan Miller at the Matrix, I came across this post in Media Shift focusing on the public obsession with real estate. A large portion of the article dealt with the real estate bubble blogs and the motivations of those behind the sites. What struck me as amazingly ironic is that more than one bubble blog is generating revenue for its owner - yet these same blogs are held by their reading audiences as free of any sort of capitalist taint, like the taint that all real-estate agents must carry simply because we do this for a living.
One of the comments to the Media Shift post dealt with everything the reader has "learned" from the bubble blogs that presumably the reader never would have learned from us mere Realtors. And so I thought I'd briefly share what I have learned from the bubble set ...
- I've learned that attacking the messenger while you accuse the messenger of personal attacks apparently is treated as discourse.
- I've learned blanket generalizations are completely unacceptable when the bubble theorists are involved but are perfectly fine when the target is one of those evil real-estate agents.
- I've learned the mainstream media apparently is in NAR's hip pocket - quite surprising when you read the sheer volume of anti-Realtor "news" that passes through the daily papers.
- I've learned that statistics when presented by a real-estate agent have been twisted to fit an argument. But when out-of-context statistics are presented by a member of the bubble set, said statistics are as divine as the Holy Gospel.
- I've learned there is no end to the public's willingness to belief in mass paranoia prognostications.
- I've learned that many people don't know what they don't know - the public STILL believes the MLS is an all-powerful tool which will sell a home and demand access, yet they refuse to acknowledge the one piece - compensation to cooperating agents - that hold it all together.
- I've learned that I have no interest in wasting my time working with people who think I'd sell them out and talk them into buying a house for $10,000 more than they should ... especially when that extra $10,000 spent, after broker's fees and taxes works out to a $180 net gain for me.
- I've learned those bubble blogs actively seeking donations (another word for income) are no more clear of ulterior motive than those of us who spend far more of our time dealing with the real estate market.
- I've learned combinations of profanity I never even heard in a baseball clubhouse - again, when no logical argument exists, lash out and hope your target cowers.
There are some in the bubble community who actually are capable of presenting logical arguments and add to the general real estate arguments. I've enjoyed conversations with more than one as at least these are the folks who take the time to read the other side of the debate, even if they don't agree.
There are others so busy basking in their blog-generated fame that they forget their irrelevance to the industry as a whole and would rather blame real-estate agents for everything up to and including acid rain. They lack the sense to know the difference between a Realtor and a lender, for example, and rant rather than educate their disciples. And should they turn out to be wrong? What will happen to those who blindly followed them? Frankly, my dear, I doubt any of them will give a damn.
(c) Jonathan Dalton, 2006 / Jonathan Dalton's Arizona Homes
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