Mitt Readers

With purchase volume in steep decline, in a marketplace laden with challenges, real estate agents and financial services people are doing what they do best--rationalizing.

Many are championing the slowdown, with delusory party chatter such as, "I didn't care for that frenzied market, it was neither grounded nor compassionate"; or, "that time was unsupportable, bad for the industry, I'm better suited to a normalized market". Still others praise the current market conditions as,"clearing the gold rushers, returning quality and service to the marketplace, like a fire that reseeds the forest."

What a bunch of malarchy. "Absolutely," I want to respond dryly, "who needed all those quick-moving transactions and expense-less commissions--I sure didn't. Shoot, I'm not even sure if I cashed all those checks."

Of course, I mostly represented buyers before the last two years, so I didn't get to partake fully in the salad days. Now my representation is split more 60/40, buyers/sellers. Humorously some of the frightfully condescending listing agents (as in, "I handle only listings ahem"), conveniently remember me now, and my varied group of clients . "You always had buyers," their grovel begins, en route to a description of their 59 junker pieces of inventory.

Of course the prophets, sibyls, and gurus are full of hooey too. Some were predicting a market collapse as early as 2002. Now that the storm clouds have finally amassed, the new headline grabbing targets the market nadir. Housing horoscopists, harnessing the shock factor, and pandering to media's extremist impulses, offer absurdly wide-ranging value loss predictions.
Some augurs are trying to redeem their horrid handicapping, with righteous claims of vindication. As if predicting change is any big deal. Things always change, it's about knowing when.

Just ask a bookie.