Hey Mack! As I've noted previously on this blog, I salute your judgement in reducing your real estate exposure by selling your house and buying a condo at the top of the market. Very astute of you...
Man, it's a regular circle jerk over there. I'm afraid all that bravado isn't very convincing. But it's yet another example of why I won't be using a realtor.
You know, it's funny. When I started seriously considering buying a home a while ago, I actually had a lot of respect for real estate agents. But that has all completely gone -- not because of what anyone has said about them, but because of their own words and attitudes.
I am continually amazed at how readily many of them look down their noses at renters and/or those who disagree with the party line, and even more so by the vitrol and outright condescension we see spouted regularly here and on other sites on the Internet. Don't they realize how many potential clients they are alienating, particuarly if they are agents for first-time buyers? It almost seems like they are more interested in impressing other agents than actually attracting clients.
Hey Mack! As I've noted previously on this blog, I salute your judgement in reducing your real estate exposure by selling your house and buying a condo at the top of the market. Very astute of you...
And at the Matae!
I wouldn't even rent there let alone buy into that building.
Oh. I see. We should behave a certain way to attract clients. And you know what it is, even if we don't. Oh - and if we don't behave that way, we don't get your business.
Boo freaking hoo.
IQ test: you can take the advice of someone on the sidelines, or someone who's been in the game for fifteen years, done hundreds of deals worth tens of millions of dollars.l
I'm just curious, when you're a licensed real estate professional and you put real estate advice on a blog is it legally binding?
Meaning if I took your public advice, used you as a realtor, bought that home and it lost 20K next year instead of the 20K you indicated on your post...
are you legally liable for the inaccuracy of your advice or will you be telling me how real estate is unpredictable, except when you guess it right...
would I then be able to take you to court for my losses for misleading professional (and documented) advice?
btw this is rhetorical since I already rent from a bank... and actually used a realtor who gave me sound realistic advice last year, when the market was still steaming... he wasn't the most productive realtor around, but he was honest from what I could tell...
IQ test: you can take the advice of someone on the sidelines, or someone who's been in the game for fifteen years, done hundreds of deals worth tens of millions of dollars.
I'm sure that you have enormous expertise in the mechanics of doing real estate transactions; but I doubt that your expertise extends to the theory of finance, or the history of financial bubbles, of which the current real estate situation is a classic example. For example, do you share your collegue's opinion on the P-I blog that:
I will see you in March when the bubble bloggers are all kicking themselves for having stood on the sidelines
LOL.
I'd write more, but Mom says that I have to take out the garbage before I can post again. Good luck with that big, big wallet!
[Note to other readers - the reference to Mom refers to a comment on the P-I blog.]
Tell me who you are and how you know what you know, and if you've got some game, I'll play with you.
Otherwise, you're just the screen equivalent of lips flappin' in the breeze.
What Mack seems to be saying is that your insights, observations and research about real estate are meaningless unless you are in a profession related to real estate, or have recently bought or sold real estate.
- When receiving advice, consider the qualifications of the giver;
- If you're shopping for ratification of your opinion, save yourself time and effort by staying home.
- Be wary of telling people what you know about their field of expertise.
SLTO, whoever that is, asked - I'm presuming - me,
would I then be able to take you to court for my losses for misleading professional (and documented) advice?
As I am not an attorney, I cannot advise you on whether you could take me to court or not. I am curious as to what you would tell the judge.
Lookit: for the most part, y'all have been swell. You give it as good as you take it, and many of you have shown that you, too, are responsible adults.
I don't think you'll go wrong taking my advice posted above. I truly don't have much time to devote to blogging, and I'm not a regular on this site, although I did want to give those of you I ripped a chance to get back at me. If you haven't gotten around to telling me off, and you'd like me to actually read it, please come over to the PI site where I first posted that tasty little ditty, so I can read what you have to say.
And if you're gonna talk trash at me behind my back, then I'm right - you is a scrub!
"October 2007:
Back To Normal!
Which means, the stock market is back to record highs, the credit crisis has been averted, and the market falls into its typical autumn slumber."
IQ test: you can take the advice of someone on the sidelines, or someone who's been in the game for fifteen years, done hundreds of deals worth tens of millions of dollars.
I choose neither and/or both. I consider all sources of information and then come to my own conclusions. In other words, I think for myself.
The value of your opinion based on your involvement in the real estate market is offset by your lack of objectivity due to the financial gain you hope to archive from your involvement in the real estate market. I think we all know what's most important to you, it has something to do with that wallet you so desperately want to whip out and show everybody.
We get it, you've got a big wallet. Consider us impressed.
I don't think you'll go wrong taking my advice posted above. I truly don't have much time to devote to blogging, and I'm not a regular on this site, although I did want to give those of you I ripped a chance to get back at me. If you haven't gotten around to telling me off, and you'd like me to actually read it, please come over to the PI site where I first posted that tasty little ditty, so I can read what you have to say.
And if you're gonna talk trash at me behind my back, then I'm right - you is a scrub!
He's really persistent at trying to frame the conversation -- if you aren't a "professional" you aren't worth listening to; if you don't post your name and contact information, you're not worth talking to; if you don't post where I want you to post, you're a scrub.
It all seems a convenient way to dismiss contrqary opinions to me, or a way just to drum up blog hits and maybe get contact information for marketing. Either way, real discourse is apparently not on the menu. Shame, because underneath the veneer of condescention, he seems like he might be a smart and witty person.
This is the one I find ironic, from the P-I post comments:
I've been telling you and everybody who'll listen, I don't know what the future holds. This is what's happened in the past. And I've been doing it since 1988.
I've been right every day. Sometimes, it's better to confront what you don't know, than to run around pretending that you know something you don't.
If he's been right, then he made a prediction and it was correct. Making a prediction means he thinks he knows what the future holds. So either he really does think he knows what will happen, or he he hasn't made any predictions and thus can't be right about it. Can't be both.
So Mack said: I'm rich. I'm smart. I got game. I'm experienced in selling used homes which I tell you is harder to understand than string theory and digital communications put together. We use Excel to make charts! Charts, I tell you, charts! We also decides what data we charts! Listen to me or my Realtor friends cuz we here to play. Come to my blog where I'm a rock star. No, really, I am. If you don't believe me, ask my Realtor friendz. They always right. If you don't listen to me, yo livin' with yo mama. If you have a user name, you don't have no money and are scum. If you wanna talk to me, tell me your name and send me your resume. My ditties are so funny, I protect them by copyright. I even tell everyone that my ditties are funny. Hee Hee. Lawdy Lawdy Lawdy. I make fun behind yo back, but if you do, "you is a scrub". Did I tell you I rich? I rich. And you're not. I made three hundred thou, jus' like that. And I got game. So there.
I presume you've spent more time on SeattleBubble than I have; do you know of any professional - they get paid as - economists specializing in real estate analysis there?
More raising of the bar - it is not enough merely to be trained and work as an economist or finance specialist - you have to be paid as an economist specializing in real estate analysis.
Here is a clue for the RE types - figuring out that there is a real estate bubble really isn't that hard, if you know anything about financial bubbles (and requires no knowledge of the mechanics of selling a house). Absurdly easy access to credit was the driver that escalated RE prices nationwide, and removal of that absurdly easy access is going to cause a substantial reduction in RE prices towards historical income/house price norms. It's not complicated.
Why is this so difficult for RE types to grasp? Well, Upton Sinclair said it best:
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
I think the Mack's posts are a pretty effective way to get some attention to the P-I blog. It's not like the blog was the most happening place before he started taunting anyone who did not accept their pearls of wisdom at face value. Since most of the folks here (myself included) are unlikely to use Realtors when we do buy, I guess they don't care about how shrill they sound. Note to self: ignore links to the P-I blog.
Here's the deal: I stand behind my statements; you know where to find me on the web, you know who I am. I am not anonymous.
All you invisible sock puppets, talkin' up a lame game where nobody knows your name, in-credible.
Tell me who you are and how you know what you know, and if you've got some game, I'll play with you.
Otherwise, you're just the screen equivalent of lips flappin' in the breeze.
I got game. Do you?
I am completely confused here. Mack claims to be a 15 year professional in Real Estate. But on the other hand, he writes like he's 14. So did he start hawking condos in the womb? Or is Mack way older than that and just desperately trying to be hip?
When your not sounding 14, you are calling people out because they have less money than you do. Good lord that's a disappointing and childish game. I suppose Bill Gates calls you up and brags that he has way more money than you and as a 25 year pro in computing he can tell you to just start up an operating system and office suite company. Oh? He doesn't? Maybe that's because it's childish. You come off sounding like a junior higher bragging about who's is bigger or that you could pwn anyone on WoW.
Let me fill you in Mack. The majority of people don't come here looking for advice (at least not most of the time). What they are looking for are additional varying opinions which they can use as leads for their own research. I wouldn't come on this board, post a house and say 'should I buy?'.
What I might do is come on post a house and say 'does anyone see anything wrong with this.' People would add if they could and I would weigh the opinions against my own. I guess that level of discourse and independent decision making is just so far beyond anything you can imaging that it's better if you just make fun of people.
At least I post with an alias, so you can pick on that. But if you think that matters, you're proving that you don't really understand the power of the internet. So good luck bossing people around. Let us know how that turns out for you.
Who should people believe, a real estate professional or a bubble blogger?
Well, I bet all those who listened to David Leareh in 2005/2006 in most parts of the country wish they had listened to the bubble bloggers instead of the real estate professional... The same will be true in Seattle by this time next year (or sooner).
So you've made lots of money selling homes? Even morons and shoe shine boys think they're a genius in a bubble.
I should listen to you about where the housing market is heading and not those bubble bloggers because you're a professional and have done so many real estate transactions? Well, my bank teller does lots of monetary transactions but I don't ask her the future of global economic growth or upcoming Fed policy. Face it - you sell houses - you're a salesman not an economist. I suspect many people on this blog know more about economics than you.
"Sugar futures a good bet says local candy store owner"
"GM to Beat Toyota in 2015 predicts Seattle's best used car salesman"
"Plasma TV Repairman Sees Evidence of 5th Dimension"
and
Well, my bank teller does lots of monetary transactions but I don't ask her the future of global economic growth or upcoming Fed policy. Face it - you sell houses - you're a salesman not an economist.
Moss: What's your name?
Blake: F!@# YOU, that's my name!! You know why, Mister? 'Cause you drove a Hyundai to get here tonight, I drove a eighty thousand dollar BMW. That's my name!!
I love that scene. RE at its finest.
Comments
Well, we know that the song for Seattle real estate "professionals" for the next couple of years is "Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?"
You know where to find me.
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/realestate/
You know, it's funny. When I started seriously considering buying a home a while ago, I actually had a lot of respect for real estate agents. But that has all completely gone -- not because of what anyone has said about them, but because of their own words and attitudes.
I am continually amazed at how readily many of them look down their noses at renters and/or those who disagree with the party line, and even more so by the vitrol and outright condescension we see spouted regularly here and on other sites on the Internet. Don't they realize how many potential clients they are alienating, particuarly if they are agents for first-time buyers? It almost seems like they are more interested in impressing other agents than actually attracting clients.
And at the Matae!
I wouldn't even rent there let alone buy into that building.
Boo freaking hoo.
IQ test: you can take the advice of someone on the sidelines, or someone who's been in the game for fifteen years, done hundreds of deals worth tens of millions of dollars.l
Oh. Good call. You'll stay on the sidelines.
Meaning if I took your public advice, used you as a realtor, bought that home and it lost 20K next year instead of the 20K you indicated on your post...
are you legally liable for the inaccuracy of your advice or will you be telling me how real estate is unpredictable, except when you guess it right...
would I then be able to take you to court for my losses for misleading professional (and documented) advice?
btw this is rhetorical since I already rent from a bank... and actually used a realtor who gave me sound realistic advice last year, when the market was still steaming... he wasn't the most productive realtor around, but he was honest from what I could tell...
I'm sure that you have enormous expertise in the mechanics of doing real estate transactions; but I doubt that your expertise extends to the theory of finance, or the history of financial bubbles, of which the current real estate situation is a classic example. For example, do you share your collegue's opinion on the P-I blog that: LOL.
I'd write more, but Mom says that I have to take out the garbage before I can post again. Good luck with that big, big wallet!
[Note to other readers - the reference to Mom refers to a comment on the P-I blog.]
All you invisible sock puppets, talkin' up a lame game where nobody knows your name, in-credible.
Tell me who you are and how you know what you know, and if you've got some game, I'll play with you.
Otherwise, you're just the screen equivalent of lips flappin' in the breeze.
I got game. Do you?
What Mack seems to be saying is that your insights, observations and research about real estate are meaningless unless you are in a profession related to real estate, or have recently bought or sold real estate.
Here's my message:
- When receiving advice, consider the qualifications of the giver;
- If you're shopping for ratification of your opinion, save yourself time and effort by staying home.
- Be wary of telling people what you know about their field of expertise.
You can come by the PI website, http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/realestate/, look at my profile, decide for yourself if I'm qualified to speak on the topic of real estate.
A beach-ball could have made a ton 'o jack in Seattle in the boom-boom market that we've seen since then.
You know about as much as that beach-ball about how to negotiate a down-market; or even what one looks like.
I'd invest some of that wad in your wallet in something besides RE if I were you.
would I then be able to take you to court for my losses for misleading professional (and documented) advice?
As I am not an attorney, I cannot advise you on whether you could take me to court or not. I am curious as to what you would tell the judge.
Lookit: for the most part, y'all have been swell. You give it as good as you take it, and many of you have shown that you, too, are responsible adults.
I don't think you'll go wrong taking my advice posted above. I truly don't have much time to devote to blogging, and I'm not a regular on this site, although I did want to give those of you I ripped a chance to get back at me. If you haven't gotten around to telling me off, and you'd like me to actually read it, please come over to the PI site where I first posted that tasty little ditty, so I can read what you have to say.
And if you're gonna talk trash at me behind my back, then I'm right - you is a scrub!
My wallet is brown FWIW.
Oh...and I love the comment from your website...
"October 2007:
Back To Normal!
Which means, the stock market is back to record highs, the credit crisis has been averted, and the market falls into its typical autumn slumber."
The value of your opinion based on your involvement in the real estate market is offset by your lack of objectivity due to the financial gain you hope to archive from your involvement in the real estate market. I think we all know what's most important to you, it has something to do with that wallet you so desperately want to whip out and show everybody.
We get it, you've got a big wallet. Consider us impressed.
Am I the only one finding this statement ironic?
It all seems a convenient way to dismiss contrqary opinions to me, or a way just to drum up blog hits and maybe get contact information for marketing. Either way, real discourse is apparently not on the menu. Shame, because underneath the veneer of condescention, he seems like he might be a smart and witty person.
This is the one I find ironic, from the P-I post comments:
If he's been right, then he made a prediction and it was correct. Making a prediction means he thinks he knows what the future holds. So either he really does think he knows what will happen, or he he hasn't made any predictions and thus can't be right about it. Can't be both.
Did I miss anything in his posts?
More raising of the bar - it is not enough merely to be trained and work as an economist or finance specialist - you have to be paid as an economist specializing in real estate analysis.
Here is a clue for the RE types - figuring out that there is a real estate bubble really isn't that hard, if you know anything about financial bubbles (and requires no knowledge of the mechanics of selling a house). Absurdly easy access to credit was the driver that escalated RE prices nationwide, and removal of that absurdly easy access is going to cause a substantial reduction in RE prices towards historical income/house price norms. It's not complicated.
Why is this so difficult for RE types to grasp? Well, Upton Sinclair said it best:
I am completely confused here. Mack claims to be a 15 year professional in Real Estate. But on the other hand, he writes like he's 14. So did he start hawking condos in the womb? Or is Mack way older than that and just desperately trying to be hip?
When your not sounding 14, you are calling people out because they have less money than you do. Good lord that's a disappointing and childish game. I suppose Bill Gates calls you up and brags that he has way more money than you and as a 25 year pro in computing he can tell you to just start up an operating system and office suite company. Oh? He doesn't? Maybe that's because it's childish. You come off sounding like a junior higher bragging about who's is bigger or that you could pwn anyone on WoW.
Let me fill you in Mack. The majority of people don't come here looking for advice (at least not most of the time). What they are looking for are additional varying opinions which they can use as leads for their own research. I wouldn't come on this board, post a house and say 'should I buy?'.
What I might do is come on post a house and say 'does anyone see anything wrong with this.' People would add if they could and I would weigh the opinions against my own. I guess that level of discourse and independent decision making is just so far beyond anything you can imaging that it's better if you just make fun of people.
At least I post with an alias, so you can pick on that. But if you think that matters, you're proving that you don't really understand the power of the internet. So good luck bossing people around. Let us know how that turns out for you.
Who should people believe, a real estate professional or a bubble blogger?
Well, I bet all those who listened to David Leareh in 2005/2006 in most parts of the country wish they had listened to the bubble bloggers instead of the real estate professional... The same will be true in Seattle by this time next year (or sooner).
So you've made lots of money selling homes? Even morons and shoe shine boys think they're a genius in a bubble.
I should listen to you about where the housing market is heading and not those bubble bloggers because you're a professional and have done so many real estate transactions? Well, my bank teller does lots of monetary transactions but I don't ask her the future of global economic growth or upcoming Fed policy. Face it - you sell houses - you're a salesman not an economist. I suspect many people on this blog know more about economics than you.
"GM to Beat Toyota in 2015 predicts Seattle's best used car salesman"
"Plasma TV Repairman Sees Evidence of 5th Dimension"
The reply: buying toilet paper and selling bricks...
Blake: F!@# YOU, that's my name!! You know why, Mister? 'Cause you drove a Hyundai to get here tonight, I drove a eighty thousand dollar BMW. That's my name!!
I love that scene. RE at its finest.