Charleston Real Estate Blog

Bubble blogs

There is some very interesting blogging going on around the country regarding the housing bubble. You'll find links to 3 articles below, the first article is quite lengthy but important to read and you'll have to click on the read the entire article link. Then you'll find 2 additional blogs commenting on the original article.

My take: 1st, we need to remember the stock market "bubble" when Nasdaq peaked at 5000+ in March,2000. Blogging didn't exist at the time and the media, mass or specialty such as CNBC kept feeding the frenzy for more than 2 years while stocks kept coming down. I bought Cisco all the way down to $13.50 averaging my investment at $28 and all these years later, Cisco is close to $27 so even if I still owned it rather than just taking my loss and moving on, I still wouldn't be at break even while the stock market has "soared". 

It seems to me that sometime in 2002 or 2003, they finally gave up and because they missed the stock market bubble, they had to prove their credibility and find a new bubble which became real estate. Of course, if you persist long enough, everything will come true so 3 or so years later, housing has finally hit a stumbling block and now we're told, see, we were right all along.

The bubble bloggers generally seem to think that the traditional media has ignored the housing fervor and subsequent cool down and that all realtors are "scumbags". I believe they are wrong regarding the traditional media, all one has to do is watch CNBC on any day of the week or just about every other television, newspaper and internet news source. As far as all realtors being "scumbags", while I'm sure there are more than a handful, all might be an overstatement.

The ranting seems to be coming from 2 groups, investors and first time home buyers. An unlikley duo since the investors basically drove up the cost of real estate making it more difficult for the first time homebuyer to afford to buy. Shall we pity the investor who can't get out from his/her last flip using creative mortgage financing? Was the boom fine when they could flip but now it was a horrible mistake?

I don't know about you but I'm glad to have ridden the market up and so if my house doesn't go up another 15% this year, that's ok. I'm not paying rent and throwing $12,000 away at the end of the year. Most of my mortgage payment results in a tax deduction for interest and property tax. I have a conventional loan. The appreciation when and if I sell is the icing. 

Like Jonathan Dalton who mentions the 9 things he's learned (really outstanding!), I've learned a great deal reading different perspectives from across the country on real estate and other subjects I'm interested in. I'm glad to be able to participate in the community that is being built every day and I encourage everyone to spend some time with this new media but I caution you to check your sources, just because you're reading it, it isn't 100% correct all of the time.

Newspaper, Bubble Blogs Feed the Real Estate Obsession

by Mark Glaser

Have you ever gone to an open house even though you weren’t interested in buying the property? Have you ever pored over housing price data on Zillow or read through housing ads on Craigslist just for fun? You are not alone. There seems to be a growing obsession with real estate in the U.S., as home prices have soared in the past few years, only to come back to earth a bit in the past year.

But during that boom — and the current correction/bust — blogs of all stripes have sprung up to feed the need for instant real estate information, photos of noteworthy homes for sale, Read the entire article first and then read these excellent comments by Jonathan Miller and Jonathan Dalton who comment on the article.