Email from Shelley Rossi, Lennox Scott's PR Director

[The Tim]

[cheapseats]

Hmm, well she can sure pick em..

"I took my chance. I did my risky thing," says Rossi, a former Web site editor who turned down an offer at a second Internet company for a more stable job in real estate.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/dotcoms05.shtml

[The Tim]

For the record, I don't really think Ms. Rossi's personal career decisions are relevant to the topic at hand.

[cheapseats]

Probably true. I just found the, stability in real estate, comment timely.

[WestSideBilly]

Somewhat tangential to Tim's comments on Mr Scott, but one of my pet peeves is with sports commentators who make these elaborate pre-season predictions about who is going to win and who is going to be playing for good draft picks. These guys are professionals whose job it is to analyze a particular sport, but they're almost always WAY off the mark. Year after year. Nobody ever points out how inaccurate they are.

Mr Scott continues to attempt to influence the market and he most certainly should be getting called out on his past predictions which were way off the mark. I know from conversations in the past few weeks that these comments DO have an impact on potential buyers, who haven't invested the time to fully understand the market. In years past, realtors controlled the flow of information so whatever they said went. Some people haven't changed from that mindset.

Ref:
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/preview08 ... id=3552727
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football ... icks_N.htm

[The Tim]

[Kittitas]

Nice reply to her email Tim.

[Civil Servant]

This e-mail reminds me of that infamous recent anti-Tim blog post by Marlow Harris. There is some subtext to both of them, I would wager.

[TheHulk]

I think there is another dynamic at work here. These Realtors or "professionals" or "experts" are really really scared. I think they strongly believed that things really would turn around in 08 in Seattle. After all prices dipped barely thru summer (between 5 and 10 % down) and they were really hoping for a turn around in fall with prices holding if not dropping.

And then of course Lehman went down and took everything down the hole. (They still choose to ignore that hyper inflated housing and all the shenanigans associated with the MBS's are the real reason why the financial stocks tanked). With last months stats out, it is clear that we are heading down the cliff just like the 20 other cities that were ahead of us on the way up.

I think we have just seen the switch from denial to anger (these days mostly directed at Tim/the irresponsible govt for not bailing out mortgages/the fed for not giving 4.5% to new buyers/any other convenient scapegoat that will come along).

Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance yet to follow...

[buyStocks]

[jillayne]

"I think there is another dynamic at work here. These Realtors or "professionals" or "experts" are really really scared."

I can confirm this based on my daily interactions. The fear is there. It's in the background, permeating into conversations. The conversation takes place as if the situation were happening to someone else, but you know they are talking about themselves.

Mind you, homes are still selling. First time homebuyers are tired of waiting for the bottom, but there is still lots of inventory out there and many agents ave already found other part time or full time work out of necessity for their own mortgage payments.

This *must* also be affecting real estate broker/owners.

I don't think it's disrespectful to point out what Lennox has said in the past.

For the record, I've met him on several occasions.

I would expect him to continue to be a cheerleader for the industry. His role is to keep folks pumped up and motivated. I would not expect him to be quoted as saying that now is not a good time to buy or sell.

To not interview with Tim is to ignore hundreds of potential buyers who read SB and who might chose his company to list/sell with someday.

That's the real loss. For us as well as for JLS, the company.

Lennox, if you're reading this, I want to encourage you to do the interview with Tim.

There are MANY homebuyers who read this blog.

[los]

Wow.

Sometimes Tim's articles do have a snarky edge to the commentary that could reasonably be considered "disrespectful." In this case, there is virtually no commentary at all, and nothing remotely snarky. Yet it's still considered disrespectful. I guess Tim didn't suck up enough.

[The Tim]

[WestSideBilly]

[The Tim]