Tomorrow's Washington Post will contain an interesting article. The author has tracked a local broker's prognostications on the real estate market over the past couple of years.

While the broker in question has been consistently wrong and consistently overly optimistic and may deserve some scorn it's probably fair to point out that there were economists on both sides of the fence on this.  This broker has lots of company across a wide range of professions.

But it does raise an issue of when does dogged optimism become a disservice to your clients? While I can't tell you what the answer is, I can tell you it's something I wrestle with on a regular basis. If you're not optimistic by nature you probably won't last long in this business. But that may mean that we need to work harder at taking off the rose-colored glasses in order to serve our clients by giving them a true picture of current conditions.

Read the article for yourself.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/08/AR2006120801682.html?referrer=emailarticlepg

What do you think? Should the broker be run out of town on a rail? If you're an agent, how do you balance optimism and realism when trying to give your clients the best advice?