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Strategies & Market Trends : The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble Laboratory -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SeaViewer who wrote (31774)	5/5/2005 3:44:25 AM
From: Elroy Jetson	Respond to of 110194

During major downturns well capitalized real estate brokerage owners, like Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, buy other firms at a discount price. Many successful Realtors maintain their primary job as the wife of a senior partner in a law firm or a well known television actor. Others follow the cycle and move from mortgage broker, to real estate agent, to their holiday homes in Italy or Tahiti. Those agents who have been less successful move into easier jobs with more security. The number of licensed agents in California declines by 30 to 50% during a downturn. The sad ones are those who believed that real estate never goes down, and leveraged their commissions into a large number of "investment properties" - all of which they promptly lose during the first 18 months of the downturn along with their home. For consultants and others in real estate related jobs, which do not depend on transaction volume, real estate is eternal. Real estate downturns are like neutron bombs which kill the developer, the lender, and the sales agent while leaving the building intact and unaffected. The remaining buildings must be maintained, managed, sent through bankruptcy, litigated, recapitalized, redesigned for a better use and resold. .