Man, that is some hilarious sh*t.
I wonder if they'll ever realize how desperate and crazed they make themselves out to be. It's like they don't understand a "market". Supply *and* demand create pricing. There seems to be some unspoken attitude that pricing is a random, uncontrollable phenomenon that will creep up regardless of the buyer pool, financing options, or the economy.
[Actually, I believe that most people who derive their income from the REIC realize that they need to make hay while the sun shines, and that the sun might be dimming for any of a variety of reasons, soon. I believe their behavior is cynical, even if not consciously so.]
The other somewhat sickening thing is the attitude that anyone who would, you know, try to find a *bargain* from a distressed seller who never should have bought is some sort of parasite or abuser. To the contrary, that rational behavior from buyers is the *only* thing that makes a market WORK! The definition of "market" isn't a bunch of people scratching each other's backs and never lowballing a seller. A market is a device to find the correct price of an asset.
I guess that since they can't understand markets, this explains why they are unable to understand market failure.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_failure
LHR: I love Ardell's crack-smoking assertion that a sensible way to save for a real estate purchase is... to buy real estate. Sorry, homegirl... CASH can be exchanged for goods and services, it doesn't need to be converted into 'housing tokens' in the form of condos or sh*tbox ballard ramblers to enter the market. And some of us are sitting on plenty of cash, and feeling sorry for the people who jumped on the Equity Train (to the tune of a $2000 monthly mortgage payment and hundreds of dollars in association fees, or taxes, or fees+PMI).
Not a perfect analogy, but a fun jab: Did realtors, who often drive "status" cars such as BMW, cadillacs, or Lexuses (Lexii?) get on the automotive-equity-rocketship by buying every intermediate model of car from the low end all the way up, so they could "get in the market"? No. They skimmed off precious dollars from owners who in many cases didn't realize that when they financed their American Dream, they were also taking a loan out to partially pay for the Realtor-Mobile(R). IE, they bilked someone out of CASH for it.