Is this the bottom?

[ira s]

Not everyone will choose to confront blatant fraud.

Or even the more prevalent not quite fraud but not quite kosher?
How many appraisers were being threatened and cajoled by lenders into raising their appraisals in order to keep working?
I know one appraiser who found it so frustrating that he gave up lender appraisals entirely and now mostly does divorces and teaches real estate fraud.
But I think the vast majority just went along.

[sniglet]

[davidlosh@davidlosh.com]

I'll step up and say that I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I did three rehab projects that I had only dreamed of being able to do. One project was a place I vultured for twenty years, another for almost eight, and the best was a stucco house I bought in 1986.

I never entered into a multiple offer situation with a client and have never made a full price offer on a property for a client. As a matter of fact most clients bought below market.

From 2000 on I concentrated on my own stuff and getting rid of it. I felt fortunate to be able to. I also told any one and every one to get rid of thier properties.

I made this point to the Board of Realtors rep; it's hard to be telling a client the truth as you know it when the Board of Realtors has a National ad campaign telling people just the opposite. I told the guy the Board of Realtors should have been issueing warnings as the market over heated.

All in all though I never saw what is happening today. A correction to me would have been back to 2001 to 2003 levels. Today I know better.

[rose-colored-coolaid]

[sniglet]

I just published a podcast contemplating why "bad" decisions often make sense (on a personal level, at least).

[rose-colored-coolaid]

It's been a while since I've updated this. The short answer is no this is not the bottom. The longer answer?

So, what's changed. Public opinion has taken a violent shift from "we really don't like bailouts to banks while real people are *suffering" to "you #$%@ #^%$ #$%@ fat cat bankers can suck my #@#% %#@ $#%# if you think we're going to fund your bonuses." There has now been more outrage over $165M in bonuses than there was in $1.5T of TARP/stimulus, and the AIG bonus outrage is still chock full of steam. AIG is one more bad quarter (or month maybe) away from being nationalized. The chorus to nationalize AIG is growing stronger, and frankly they are right. For those who freak at such terms, this does not mean the US Government will be in the insurance business; rather it means that we'll seize AIG, immediately reprivatize every profitable aspect (real insurance) and any outstanding collateralized debt derivatives will be put into a bad bank where they can be sorted out with full government control. When this happens, it will reek havoc on the stock market for about two weeks.

Two positive weeks on Wall Street. Well, technically it was more like 7 consecutive positive days. I guess the recession is over - NOT. Evidently all the problems at Citibank and Bank of America have been solved - NOT. Oh yeah, US auto is doing fine as well - NOT. In other words, a lot of false optimism is suddenly hanging in the air, mostly because we have had two weeks without a lot of hard economic news (nobody's announcing quarterly profits and such). The general outlook is still positive if you put people in a vacuum. Seems to me like that means we haven't had enough of a crash yet, and fear hasn't really run its course.

[WestSideBilly]

Pretty much how I see it, RCC. This last week and change was a delusional rally - "no bad news, everything must be peachy!"


I'm waiting for C, AIG, and a few others to start the reverse splits to try and keep their stock price out of penny stock territory.

[perfectfire]

Many of you have been wondering what the "the bottom" will look like. After a hasty image search on google of "the bottom" and an even hastier "Clear Private Data" in my browser I have found the answer.

BEHOLD!


Duh, totally obvious. You see, The Tim. You aren't so special. Anybody can do this numbers stuff.

[Alan]

Recently closed short sale around the corner from Microsoft's main campus:

http://www.redfin.com/WA/Redmond/6618-1 ... ome/516723

1840 square feet
$295k
$160/sqft

C'mon, that has got to be a bottom. Are places going to sell in Redmond right next to Microsoft for less than $160 a square foot?

[biliruben]

If feet keep getting bigger, they will.

You know what bigger feet means, don't you?

[rose-colored-coolaid]