Perhaps foreshadowing my later career as a trial lawyer, this quote from "Duck Soup" (not by Groucho, as I remembered, but by Chico disguised as Groucho - see link above) was one of my favorites when I was a kid. It's still a good one. I have been chastised over the past year or so by some of my fellow Realtors for telling readers, first in my column and later on this blog that sales are way down and will probably continue that sorry decline for the foreseeable future. In fact, although the specific reason for my column being terminated was my daring to report on the financial woes of Realogy, parent company of Coldwell Banker and Soetheby's, I'd generated a deep reservoir of ill will in the real estate community by telling the truth.
I don't know what these "keep it quiet" folks think they're up to; if their clients' houses aren't selling, or selling at discounted prices, who is left to be fooled? Regardless,even the Greenwich Time has finally admitted today what the industry has known for at least the past two years:
Update 2:05 PM Here's what I wrote before I was so rudely edited by Blogger.
house sales are falling. At least 30% this year. GT finds a ray of hope in the number of sales (condos) under $500K but that number only increased from last year because prices have fallen below last year's levels. For those who like anecdotal evidence in addition to statistics, there's this: I called my plumber yesterday for a quick repair job. In years past he, and most plumbers in town, were so busy with new construction that non-emergency response time was 2-3 days. yesterday, he had someone at the house in 15 minutes. If the plumbers aren't busy because the builders aren't busy, things are slow.
Friday, August 08, 2008
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5 comments:
Chris,
Not to add to your conspiracy bent, but I noticed that the CT Association of Realtors no longer provides sales data on their webpage, which they historically have done. I guess the NAR figures what you (the consumer) don’t know (i.e. deterioration of the market) can’t hurt them. Pretty pathetic.
I am convinced that your approach of integrity and honesty toward the marketplace will prosper; and those realtors that pursue disinformation will lose customers.
Retired IB’er
For those of us without ready access to the Greenwich Times - could you put a link or a quote from the article?
Keep up the good work. Honesty about the market is a service to your clients - being positive in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary never struck me as a way to get and keep business.
Drat! There was supposed to be both a link to the Greenwich Time article and a continuation of the discussion. I can get the link back but I don't know about recreating whatever I was thinking about this morning. I like Blogger's software, but it does pull tricks like this every now and then, and it's frustrating - especially when the relevant text and links disappear between "preview" when I see the all that I've written, and "publish" when it all disappears.
Missing statistics. No comment on what the state realtors are (not) up to but at least two local firms make recent stats available. Try Raveis.com or liveingreenwich.com (Shore and Country's website) and poke around.
Article comments great...but let's get down to business..What's the plumber's name? and is he still charging 2005 rates?
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