The Seattle Times will be hosting a “Live Q&A on residential real estate” with Elizabeth Rhodes (real estate cheerleader) and Matthew Gardner (local economist) tomorrow from noon to one o’clock. Presumably this is some sort of online chat thing, although the announcement isn’t clear.
You can ask a question in advance via a web form, although I’m sure there’s no guarantee that they will choose to address your question.
I’ll try to take lunch during that time so I can maybe get in a question. Any advice on what would be best to ask?
Lake Hills Renter » May 21, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Seems to me you should bring up what you said in the last post — are they really saying that we’ll “grow into” the current home prices, i.e. stagnant prices for 20 years, and what is their data/hypothesis to support that rather than falling prices? I expect you’re going to get the stock answers and platitudes you’ve debunked a million times in whatever you ask, though.
Would be cool if you could work “pink ponies” into it somehow. ;)
Grivetti » May 21, 2007 at 3:02 pm
I’d ask her if she reads the blog
MisterBubble » May 21, 2007 at 4:07 pm
A more aggresive question: how much revenue does the Times derive from real-estate advertising, and how can it be considered an unbiased source of information on the local real-estate market, given the potential conflict of interest?
Newspaper types love to fancy themselves as objective, so they might even try to answer this, despite the fact that it will make them squirm…
Matthew » May 21, 2007 at 4:37 pm
Gardner and Rhodes are a couple of kool-aid drinking shills whose lively-hood is dependent upon the RE market.
Expect the same inane talking points and arguments.
Joel » May 21, 2007 at 5:11 pm
If affordability is in the gutter, lending standards are tighter, inventory is way way up, jobs no better than other areas that are in the throes major downturn, how can Seattle possibly avoid a significant decline real home prices?
george » May 21, 2007 at 8:39 pm
Why do you so often quote real estate industry insiders like Lawrence Yun of the NAR who believes prices nationally are poised to go back up, but never well-known bearish experts like Professor Robert Schiller of Yale University?
MisterBubble » May 22, 2007 at 10:48 am
I just posted my question to the forum (the one about the conflict of interest).
By all means, I encourage the rest of you to post the same thing! They might be able to ignore one post, but it’s going to be harder to ignore ten!
Shawn » May 22, 2007 at 11:34 am
Joel,
what you don’t understand is that this is Seattle we are talking about. In Seattle things are special. So, given what you said, you are still missing the point that a zillion jobs will be created each year, and those jobs pay a zillion more dollars a year than last year. And you know, the supply is limited. They don’t make land anymore.
Grivetti » May 22, 2007 at 12:39 pm
I just read Tim’s post on the Rhodes forum… I’m going to cry ’shenanigans’ on the whole separate advertisement/no influence over our journalistic credentials… for this very reason: access.
For starters, its a lot lazier to ask realtors(TM) what’s going on then hiring statisticians and economists for an unbiased local/national view of real estate. Realtors are salesmen… which leads to the next arguement.
If the Rhodester started bring the bad news, do you thing those salesmen would be more likely to talk to her? Doubt it. I wouldn’t. If a rag started printing bad news about my product, I’d be less likely to give them the time of day.
Its not so cut and dired when it comes to advertising vs. journalism. Just because the adveritisng end of the paper and the journalism end of the paper are in separate buildings doesn’t mean dook when it comes to conflict of interests.
That was a bogus answer, I don’t buy it.
tlw » May 22, 2007 at 12:46 pm
I posted this question:
Do you have any information on the percentage of home buyers in the past 3 years who are investors? I image that this would be easy to find out when you have access to real estate sale transaction database and credit report database. There would be two cross-reference queries: first query the buyers, then query amongst these buyers to see who has more than one active mortgage account. There certainly are investors who bought under LLC or other types of entities, but this will give some ballpark figure.
I have no hope that this will be answered, but can someone on thie blog please:
– point out any flaw in this logic? Is is possible to perform these queries?
– if so, is it legal for someone working in, say escrow or mortgage industry, to do that?
The Tim » May 22, 2007 at 1:37 pm
Nice, Mr.Bubble.
I stupidly forgot to copy my question before sending it into the æther, and surprise surprise it didn’t get answered, but I asked something along these lines:
Joel » May 22, 2007 at 2:02 pm
I beg to differ.
David » May 22, 2007 at 2:30 pm
A typically depressing Q&A with the media. I like the question Tim posted here better than the one about “conflict of interest”–which got the only kind of answer media people will give (I should know; I’m in the business).
Lake Hills Renter » May 22, 2007 at 2:33 pm
Since when did Ms Rhodes become an expert on real estate? Asking realtors what they think doesn’t make one an expert.
Shawn » May 22, 2007 at 2:53 pm
Joel,
“they” make land, just not in Seattle.
Shawn » May 22, 2007 at 2:55 pm
What is interesting is to take some phrases Rhodes and the Realtors use, put them in google, and amazingly you find others said those same things a while back about Florida, Arizona, etc.
Joel » May 22, 2007 at 3:23 pm
How’s this for a business idea then:
Mandmade island in Puget Sound
Build condos on islands
???
Profit!
Joel » May 22, 2007 at 3:24 pm
I guess wordpress didn’t like my ordered list tags. What html markup is allowed in wordpress comments?
MisterBubble » May 22, 2007 at 3:45 pm
David,
I honestly didn’t expect the Rhodester to answer that question any differently than she did (heck, I gave it only a 50/50 shot that she would even address the question, since I was attacking her integrity (politely) ).
In any case, the question wasn’t really about her answer — anyone can see that there’s an obvious conflict of interest here, and as far as I’m concerned, any discussion that makes people more skeptical of the Times’ reporting is a good thing.
That said, I hope she didn’t take my question because she thought I was “the” Tim. That would be sad — there are plenty of Tims to go around!
MisterBubble » May 22, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Incidentally: I find it interesting that Lizzie’s answer was a non-sequitur; I asked her why the Times’ doesn’t report double-digit growth rates in inventory, and she told me (essentially) that growth rate isn’t important when it’s rebounding from all-time lows. Shades of Meshugy….
uptown » May 22, 2007 at 4:59 pm
Shawn-
They aren’t making any more land in Manhattan either; but they still go thru some nasty ups and downs in their real estate market.
Seattle Bubble » Blog Archive » Jul 20, 2007 at 9:34 am
[...] of you may recall the Rhodes / Gardner real estate Q & A a few months ago in which the following question was asked by a Seattle Bubble reader: I [...]
Seattle Bubble » Blog Archive » Newspaper Earnings Sink with Housing Market » Jul 20, 2007 at 9:36 am
[...] of you may recall the Rhodes / Gardner real estate Q & A a few months ago in which the following question was asked by a Seattle Bubble reader: I [...]