{"id":1166,"date":"2007-10-10T21:30:15","date_gmt":"2007-10-11T04:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/2007\/10\/10\/a-request-for-clarity\/"},"modified":"2010-01-18T19:56:46","modified_gmt":"2010-01-19T03:56:46","slug":"a-request-for-clarity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/2007\/10\/10\/a-request-for-clarity\/","title":{"rendered":"A request for clarity."},"content":{"rendered":"

Rather than place a lengthy remark, I thought I’d place it as a post. Hope you don’t mind. I’m going to type as I think, so I get a free pass on typo’s.<\/em><\/p>\n

Regarding the Steve Tytler’s Everett Herald piece:<\/p>\n

Steve & fellow bubble believers,<\/p>\n

In the spirit of your article, I don’t disagree with your observations. But, as one of the folks that you reference as working in the marketplace or real world, I believe that if the Puget Sound area and Snohomish Co. where our office is located, experiences a 10-20% drop in housing prices, many clients of ours in which we closed their purchase transactions are going to be in a world of hurt. Many people in general will be in a world of hurt. I think of all the folks with piggyback\/100% transactions and the countless “serial refinance” people who closed their transactions all across the country. It’s staggering to be honest.<\/p>\n

A 10-20% drop in housing prices will put people into a major pickle to say the least. A less severe drop in the single digits will reach out and touch many as well. My belief is that homeowners who are selling need to hear that the market has changed in a meaningful way.<\/p>\n

The key element that is absent in the comments from those in real estate leadership positions locally is this:<\/p>\n

Our local region and more broadly, the country as a whole, has NEVER experienced the rate, scale and level of housing price inflation as we have over the last three years or so. There is no benchmark. The previous local correction in Spring of 1990 forward does not compare. In my opinion, those who suggest that this current correction will mimic corrections in the past may be underestimating the euphoria that drove our market to unbelievable heights. The recent lending absurdity was not present in our last correction. There was no better seat in the house to experience the market than being in the escrow business.<\/p>\n

Look, I’m not in favor of the market changing gears as it affects our small business too, but it tires me to no end in hearing and reading local and national professionals in leadership positions (Lawrence Yun among many others) continually spin the “rates are great, economy is doing well and job growth is good.” Tell that to the thousands who will lose their homes across the country, the scores of people who can’t refinance because lenders are gone or standards have tightened enough that refinacing is not an option. Tell that to the thousands of honest, ethical loan officers who have no jobs because of the bull crap lending and behavior<\/a> that enabled this market frenzy and subsequent and inevitable correction.<\/p>\n

The idea of the “normal market” garbage rhetoric is meaningless to markets across the country experiencing severe corrections. What happened mid-August was not a “normal” event in the financial markets. I humbly ask as a small business owner in the real estate business that the real estate community start building their credibility back in a positive manner by discussing the market for what it is. True, currently the local market is not crashing and the sky is not falling, but housing prices are softening. We only started to hear no-nonsense analysis after the evidence was so obvious that those in leadership positions were seen publicly as foolish or worse.<\/p>\n

The sooner everyone calls the market as it is, the sooner our correction will be over. People will continue to buy and sell homes in any market, but they won’t be buying because “real estate always” goes up. They will buy because it’s a place to call home, establish roots in and become part of the fabric of a community.<\/p>\n

When people sitting across the table from me signing their paperwork to buy a home talk about everything BUT how much money they will make in “perceived equity”, I’ll let you know we are back to a “normal” market. When loan officers sitting across the table from escrow staff in offices across the country stop telling their clients “we can just refinance you again after your pre-payment penalty expires” in a year or three, then I’ll tell you we are back to a “normal” market.<\/p>\n

Tim Kane
\nCo-owner
\nLegacy Escrow Service, Inc.
\nBlog Handle, “S-Crow”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rather than place a lengthy remark, I thought I’d place it as a post. Hope you don’t mind. I’m going to type as I think, so I get a free pass on typo’s. Regarding the Steve Tytler’s Everett Herald piece: Steve & fellow bubble believers, In the spirit of your article, I don’t disagree with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[199,198],"tags":[11,28,1115,36,61,30,74],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-1166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","category-news","tag-advice","tag-affordability","tag-economy","tag-everett_herald","tag-fundamentals","tag-lending","tag-s-crow"],"yoast_head":"\nA request for clarity. \u2022 Seattle Bubble<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/2007\/10\/10\/a-request-for-clarity\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"A request for clarity. \u2022 Seattle Bubble\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Rather than place a lengthy remark, I thought I’d place it as a post. 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