New Hate Mail

From newquest:

Are you really a Long Beach native? I ask this because your claim that it is not such a good time to purchase there shows to anyone with a brain that you really have no idea what your [sic] are talking about. Your ignorance of the market place combined with your arrogance vis-à-vis the “commission earners” tell me that you probably are not a sales person and just another employee of some firm that has to pay you to blog because their business model is failing massively in this market while the seasoned and traditional brokers are actually prospering and growing! Having a 9 to 5 job is probably a good thing for someone like you but remember that everything that you are writing is putting you deeper and deeper in a hole. Your [sic] building a case against yourself with every post you write.



My Response:

Again with the gross assumptions and personal attacks. The last bastion of someone on the wrong side of a debate.

For the record, I write these posts on my own time.

I’m still waiting for the housing bulls posting rude comments on this site to address the issues at hand—the featured properties—and explain how buying a property according to market fundamentals is a bad idea. Trying to discredit the messenger instead of confronting the message is an obvious sign of someone afraid to debate the facts.

Although I strongly disagree, I honor your opinion that now is a fantastic time to purchase a home. My respect for your opinion is evidenced by my decision to post your invective comment in its entirety. However, I’m mature and civil enough to spare you personal insults.

In response to your position that now is a great time to buy, nearly every property I’ve featured here has dropped its price…to no avail. What does that tell you? A reasonable person would conclude home values ARE DECLINING, and unless you enjoy paying full price for an asset that will depreciate the day you buy it, that means it is most assuredly a bad time to buy.

I would like to point out some recent media coverage of the ongoing housing mess:

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080116/earns_wells_fargo.html

http://www.forbes.com/2008/01/15/citigroup-merrill-closer-markets-equity-cx_er_ra_0115markets45.html?feed=rss_news

"Prospering and growing" eh? Wells Fargo and Citigroup sure seem pretty "seasoned and traditional" to me and I can't remember rampant layoffs ever being considered "prospering."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080116/ap_on_bi_ge/bank_earns

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080116/economy.html?.v=8

http://search.forbes.com/search/find?MT=layoffs

Those took me about 55 seconds to find. I look forward to your supporting evidence demonstrating I (and Forbes) am wrong in concluding housing in Long Beach is in for a nasty spill.

Frankly, it’s AMAZING to me how much of a threat returning to simple investment fundamentals is to some of you! If I’m such a discredited source of information, or have “no idea what [I’m] talking about,” then why are you spending time here bothering to insult someone digging "a deeper and deeper" hole for themselves? Seems to me if my opinion is "ignorant," then someone like you who claims to be in possession of a stronger understanding of the market would have more productive things to do.

If the information and investing principles I discuss here are unsound, then please feel free to challenge them and explain how $450+ per square foot at 1533 East Broadway makes any kind of financial sense. As a prospective buyer, I want to be convinced.

I’m waiting.

Further, if now is such a great time to buy, as an expert like yourself suggested, then the numbers should speak for themselves right? Are prices going up in most areas of LB, are lending standards loosening, is there a positive outlook for the local and national economy, are there low days on market?

I look forward to you posting these figures in support of your claims.

Or, if that takes too much energy, please just dismiss my “misinformed” opinions entirely and erase my blog out of your Favorites. I sense the reason you are here venting your anger is because I’ve struck a very sensitive nerve, and deep down you know the fundamentals don't lie. And judging by your failure to disprove my evaluations, and decision to instead resort to insults, I sense you’re actually quite concerned about the implications of an informed home-buying public and are lashing out at me for daring to present a different viewpoint.

The condescending “you don’t know anything, leave this to the experts” attitude from the bulls posting here is exactly why I started this site. Armed with expanding media coverage, numerous informed housing blogs, and alternative property listing sites, buyers have never had more avenues to evaluate for themselves what’s really going on and to hear from unbiased sources with ZERO financial stake in the repression or sharing of information.

I respect those who work on commission and I'm not denigrating them whatsoever. I'm simply stating the obvious: someone whose livelihood depends on whether they can get someone else to buy something is clearly not an unbiased source.

You imply a person who is not in sales or real estate is not qualified to have data-supported opinions about the real estate market. By that logic, are people who are “just another employee of some firm” or not "a sales person" qualified to purchase a home?

I didn’t start this site to make enemies; I started it to spur discussion. But clearly not many of you are interested in the latter.

I do not claim that this site is the bible of real estate investing, or that my current analysis will apply to the future (when the market finally returns to fundamentals, I will purchase LB property and delete this blog). However, I strongly assert that home buyers, including me, need to encounter information and perspectives from ALL SIDES and process it for themselves before making the largest single investment of their lifetime.

Do you disagree with that statement?