Ben has succeeded. He is in the process of reflating the bubbles that helped cause all of our messes in the first place. A carefully constructed combination of government stimulus and low interest rates is bringing the bubble back to American real estate. Jim the Realtor is dumbfounded at what he is seeing in the markets over the last few weeks. This video is a must see:
CNBC’s Diana Olick is also reporting similar stories in Las Vegas where a full blown real estate depression is occurring. No longer! Houses are moving like hot cakes:
But back to Katie. Her Realtor, who is also an old friend, emailed Katie the following warnings before her arrival on the Vegas strip:
– This market is crazy and many things are just not going to make any sense.
– I can guarantee you 99.99% of the listings emailed to you will no longer be available by the time you get here.
– Properties are selling in the blink of an eye.
– Properties are getting multiple offers within a few days of being on the market, the most offers I’ve heard a house had recently was 44 offers (I know, crazy).
– This market is crazy and many things are just not going to make any sense.
– 40% of all transactions are cash purchases, which makes it harder for the buyers who are financing to get their offers accepted.
– We have 1/2 the inventory we had a year ago and 4 times as many buyers as we did a year ago.
– Chances are we will have to submit several offers to have the chance of getting 1 accepted.
– This market is crazy and many things are just not going to make any sense.
– You will probably leave not knowing if you have a house or not because banks take 2 to 3 weeks to respond, because this market is crazy… you know the rest.
I’m guessing you noted the crazy part. Katie is looking in the $150-200,000 price range. Despite the warnings, Katie was completely unprepared for what she found. In seven days, she saw 50 homes. All but one were foreclosures.
Make no mistake – the boom/bust cycle is alive and well. Ride it up and pray you step off the train at the top because if you don’t….well, Lord help you.
* Special thanks to Calculated Risk for pointing us in the direction of Jim The Realtor.
Mr. Roche is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Discipline Funds.Discipline Funds is a low fee financial advisory firm with a focus on helping people be more disciplined with their finances.
He is also the author of Pragmatic Capitalism: What Every Investor Needs to Understand About Money and Finance, Understanding the Modern Monetary System and Understanding Modern Portfolio Construction.
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