Scottacus wrote:
Quote:

Yeah, that'd be a great way to bury the information so no potential suckers...errr, I mean RE buyers, might read current news on the RE crash

Or maybe it would just be a way so that people who aren't obsessed with real estate can carry on other discussions on JCList without having to wade though 90 real estate related threads. It's not like this board is primarily focused on real estate.

Threads exist for a reason -- so that people who are interested in a topic can find it and those who aren't don't have to wade through irrelevant messages.

Scottacus wrote:
I think the name thing was more of a play on words than a non sequitur.

I do agree with skwirriking that since there is already a (quite long) thread on the health of the RE market, it would probably be nice to keep posts on that subject in that thread.

injcsince81 wrote:
Kannekt is an absolute joke.

They delete real estate posts critical of the developers who sponsor Kannekt.

They are a mouthpiece of RE agents, flippers, and RE developers trying to prop up the flattening RE bubble.

Avoid them like a plague.

The two shills for the Real Estate Industry could not possibly come across any more sleazy, wormlike, and disgusting. Not only is their analysis incredibly stupid, their unprofessional behavior is embarrassing. This is who the RE industry trots out as their "economists". Pathetic.

Major hat-tip to Diana Olick at CNBC for doing five questions with HP. It's gotta be tough to do her job folks - by reporting the truth about housing, she's now being shunned by some of the REIC top dogs, and as she calls herself in the HP interview, is the "Usama Bin Laden of real estate" to the REIC.

But in the end, what do reporters get paid to do? You got it - report the damn truth. And the truth of this housing crash doesn't allow for sugar coating and spin anymore - well, unless you're the NAR and Lawrence Yun of course.

Check out her CNBC real estate blog for more insights into the housing market, and also her role as a reporter for America's leading business news station. Good stuff, good blog.

Here's the HP interview, in its entirety. I hope you join me HP'ers in welcoming Diana to the blog, and thanking her for her hard-edged reporting.

______________________

HP: Do you feel the Real Estate Industrial Complex attacks on the media's role in popping the housing bubble are fair?

DO: Absolutely not. I can't speak for everyone, but I report numbers, facts, statistics and on-the-street evidence.

I find that the REIC is ready to blame me no matter what I say. Last year I was "a shill for the Realtors, helping to pump up the market." This year I'm the Usama Bin Laden of real estate, blowing the housing market to bits with my reports.

CEO's of the major public home builders who were jumping at the chance to get on our air 18 months ago, are now shirking us with force, and when I argue, they say I make them all look like fools. This, after I did several pieces on all their buyer incentives...which one could argue is better than a commercial.

HP: Many in the media were cheerleading the bubble on the way up (remember the infamous Time Magazine housing cover?), and quoted NAR press releases as news. Just as many in the media jumped on tanks and ra-ra'ed the Iraq war. How would you rate the media's performance during the housing bubble and crash?

DO: I do my best, but look, the overall media jumps on whatever the hype-du-jour is. They have to because that's what the bosses want.

I have read some stuff out there about housing that is just positively false. During the subprime meltdown I watched a lot of material from local reporters and even network correspondents who clearly didn't fully understand the issue.

To be fair, the mainstream media is just that, mainstream, and having been one of those for many years, I know it's very hard to jump into a complex issue, often given one day to do it, and not just follow the hype.

The mortgage market is extremely complex. I have the advantage of being a specialist at a business channel, so I have more time to learn as much as I can about the sector.

HP: Many "analysts" are predicting the housing crash will finish up this year. What do you think?

DO: I think housing is a tricky storm and a slow moving one at that. Housing will recover of course, but it will do it locally and anecdotally at first. There is still a lot more fallout from readjusting ARMs and subprime loans.

I expect things to look better in 2008, but I wouldn't look for any dramatic improvements, overall nationwide, this year.

HP: What do you think about the housing bubble blogs? Do you read them yourself? Do you think they've played a role in deflating housing expectations and the bubble?

DO: I think blogs are wonderful. I have one myself (http://realtycheck.cnbc.com/), but the fact is that blogs are opinion and just that.

Many blogs include data and can be very informative, but as with anything, check the source, consider the blogger, and be careful.

I've learned a lot from blogs, I've also found some blogs to be wildly inaccurate. I don't, however, think that blogs are mainstream enough in the real estate market yet to have a profound effect on current sales. I say yet.

HP: What's the chatter at CNBC? I assume almost everyone there owns a home - are you getting any pressure to lighten up on the real estate crash, since it's costing everyone there some money? And do you think reporters like yourself should have to disclose whether they have real estate investments when they do a real estate article, just as they do with stocks?

DO: Well thanks for the compliment, but I don't think anyone truly believes that I can move the real estate market.

No, nobody at CNBC has told me to dial up or down on anything. As I said before, I report data, I interview experts, industry professionals and corporate leaders. I chat it all up in my blog, but on TV I am a reporter, and I do my best not to skew anything any specific way.

Look, I own a house. Do you think I want the value to go down? No, but I also don't think my reporting of real national and local numbers are going to change any values out there. There are far greater forces than me moving the housing market.

I do not have any real estate investments, other than my own home, and I, like all CNBC reporters, am not allowed to own any individual stocks, so I could not invest in a public home builder even if I wanted to.

I don't think the downturn in housing is "costing" regular homeowners any money, unless they are about to sell their homes. Investor, speculator, flipper-types are a different story.

Scottacus wrote:
Also, not to accuse anyone unfairly, but Tazmanio and Stratocaster seem an awful lot like the same person. Like eerily so.

Don't want to start anything, but a certain user did get temporarily banned for what was initially thought to be having 2 screen names.

JSQ wrote:
Quote:

So, what's happening on Wall St. (you know, the people that employ 99% of the immigrants in JC)?

Did you actually mean it? Because the Afghan hashish sellers didn't seem to work on Wall St, nor the girls at C-Town....

No immigrant will go home and return, pay 5000 (do you know how much is that for these people?), and live on a visa that doesn't change their lives in any way for 8 years. OK, they can go home and get back safely, but how many illegal immigrants from NJ afforded home travels anyway?

Almost no illegal immigrant has the money for a cheap house in, e.g., Camden. This law will have zero effect on RE.

In practice that RARELY ever happens because responsible municipalities would typically have to go through a revaluation at least once every real estate cycle. In Jersey City, we are all still waiting, waiting, and waiting for the pols to do the responsible thing and reset the taxes - or go to the State for sweeping property tax reform like they did in California 30 years ago (Proposition 13).

nugnfutz wrote:
Market forces not logic will decide. My bet, downtown JC prices will double over the next 3-4 years.

The COLOSSAL number of housing units that are nearing completion on the Jersey Waterfront, presumably rental and condo will come into a market that will probably be both entering a recession (if even the recession of 2001-2002 was ever LEFT,) facing an EXTREME oversupply situation, and a nationally bursting real estate bubble. I remember in the 70's recessions where New York took over building after building and converted them to Mitchell Lama housing and I also remember the Daddy Bush recession and housing bubble burst where co-op apartments were selling at auction all over the City for $5,000 or less becasue the maintenance charges were far higher than market rents. People were finding situations of negative equity in their 80's purchases right and left. At least THEN bankruptcy was a viable option. THe last Congress has made such bankruptcies MUCH harder and more expensive to pull off unless you're an airline. (Imagine the concept of an EXPENSIVE BANKRUPTCY...an oxym oron that might be better even than MILITARY INTELLIGENCE) To address the question, why not refinance before an onerous mortgage becomes more onerous with a reset? Because the person who settled for the catastrophic conditions did so not because he was stupid (well maybe) but rather because that was the only way he could qualify for as much house as he wanted. If his financial condition has not improved or God forbid gotten WORSE, there is no way he can qualify for a good refinancing rate...he's STUCK! A person who needed a "no-money-down" mortgage 3 years ago is unlikely to be able to cough up a couple hundred G's down payment now and a pile of extra points in origination fees without a lottery win. Some poor Schmuck making 60 G's a year and no savings wants a $500,000 house. THe way this is going to work for him is for him to buy it "nothing down...low rate," and then find another schmuck (or refinancing bank) who will pay (or value at) $600,000 next year, hoping to get $700K soon! By some definitions that is a PONZI SCHEME...it ends when the last schmuck comes to his senses and says "Nuh..UHHH" THat's the way the TULIP BUBBLE burst in 1637 and that's the way the housing market will implode very soon.