Email from Shelley Rossi, Lennox Scott's PR Director
Got this email this afternoon from Shelley Rossi, J. Lennox Scott's PR Director:
My reply:Shelley Rossi wrote:Tim,
If you ever find yourself questioning why Lennox will not do an interview with you, today's blog posting regarding the IREM breakfast event should provide your answer. I support and even encourage people to question those who serve as "industry experts", but your derisive tone is entirely disrespectful. I actually feel that you have valid points at times, but the mocking manner in which you deliver that information nullifies your message and underscores your lack of professionalism. This is your right, but don't play victim or act surprised when respected business professionals, such as Lennox, decline your interview requests.
Regards,
SHELLEY ROSSI
The Tim wrote:Hi Shelley,
You and Mr. Scott are certainly entitled to hold whatever opinion you want and accept or decline interviews with whomever you choose. The way I see it, it's completely fair to point out when professionals make bold predictions that fly in the face of the available data, which later turn out to be way off base.
I get that your boss is only really interested in presenting his message to friendly audiences that won't point out how incorrect his past predictions have been. That's fine. But nobody else is calling attention to the incorrect rosy predictions professionals like Mr. Scott were making just last year, and I think real estate consumers should be able to weigh these past statements when determining whether they should trust future predictions from these same individuals.
I feel it is unfortunate that you choose to characterize my pointing out of the facts as "mocking" and displaying a "lack of professionalism," but again, I respect your right to see things however you choose to see them.
Respectfully,
-Tim
Comments
"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
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
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...
I don't know if this is a true/false statement, but figured somebody could figure it out (I'm an idiot in math terms)
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.
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.
I can't help it if the facts are disrespectful.
Not to be overly analytical, but you should base your % decline from 2007 when he said this, rather than the 2005 peak.
Not saying it's unfair, but 2007 was still a frenzy market. But by 2007 a lot of people (*ahem* mostly the idiots floating around here
Of course, the more interesting aspect is that 2005-2007 dropoff was 10-15%, so he was clearly saying we had reached the bottom. So an even more accurate depiction would include the 2005 -> 2007 drop, then the 2007 - 2008 drop.
Minor detail.
Just eyeballing it, but all those 2007-->2008 drops look significantly greater than 10-15% anyway
Q1 - 32%
Q2 - 36%
Q3 - 31%
Q4 - 30% (est.)