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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Chen who wrote (947)	10/25/2001 1:20:07 PM
From: Tradelite	Respond to of 306849

John, I know every trick in the book to dress up a listing. However, the modern MLS systems in use in many (now most) areas of the country have solved the tricks that agents can play with "time on market" in listings. All records are available for how many times the home has been listed, contracts that fell thru, plus much more information that would boggle the mind if anyone was even interested in knowing it. When we first got our "modern" whiz-bang MLS system in my area, I and a few others learned--just for fun-- how to defeat the technology....but the management got wise, found a computer programmer who was a bit more advanced, and fixed the problem. At any rate, the phrase "an X-month inventory" supply doesn't actually refer to the type of data you are talking about. It simply measures the sheer number of homes for sale (not for how long they are for sale) and the sheer number of buyers currently buying. It measures the pace of sales, not the number.

To: John Chen who wrote (947)	10/25/2001 2:14:39 PM
From: Tradelite	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

John, that Houston problem was a true bubble built on speculation. As I've posted on this thread before, I'm still trying to unload some junk land that was sold back then as "luxury home sites" outside of Houston. Back then, the oil thing caused everyone to think and act irrationally. We have not had a real estate bubble in the U.S. over the past few years, and I would argue to the death on that point. Our last real estate bubble was during the late 1980s.....Commercial real estate went bust, savings & loans needed a bailout from the government, people stopped churning houses two or three times a year for ridiculous profits (primarily because incomes weren't keeping pace with escalating prices), and builders went bankrupt holding huge inventories of spec-built houses. Those subdivisions grew up in weeds with unfinished buildings on them, while lawyers made a killing settling mechanics liens, doing mortgage workouts, yada yada. If you see this happening today, you will know what a bubble is. Where is the bubble?