by ira s » Mon May 26, 2008 4:40 pm
Ben,
I think a lot of real estate agents are counting on people's short memories. There are a few professions where wrong predictions have no consequences, such as stock market predictions and weather forecasting. You can be wrong all the time and it won't matter.
Most real estate agents have swallowed the Kool-Aid and it serves them well to swallow the NAR crap. If you make your living selling houses, and prices are going down and nobody knows when it'll stop, the safest policy is to just smile and say " It's a great time to buy!"
I think people are smarter than that. I'm not going to tell people " Don't buy!", after all, I'm a real estate agent, but I'm also not going to do that song and dance routine telling them they'd better buy now because prices are going to go up any day now.
About predictions: I love to make them and I'm usually wrong. I see a home price bottom around the fall of '09 and flatness till about 2012. In politics, I see Barack Obama getting elected President with Jim Webb as his running mate. Weather: we'll see sunshine forever!