Wednesday, August 08, 2007

trolling for suckers

A story relayed to me today from from Mrs. Monkey In Chief (Mrs. MiC):

A woman rings the doorbell and introduces herself and invites Mrs. MiC to seminar for first home buyers. Mrs MiC says Mr MiC has run the numbers and we are better off renting to which the realtor replies, "well, if you are satisfied with that." Mrs MiC does like the realtor's snotty retort and proceeds to tell her that encouraging people to buy overpriced houses when they already have a decent place to live is not a very nice thing to do. To which, the realtor replays, "It's better than when I was lending industry." At this point, I'm laughing out loud.

This realtor almost certainly was a loan broker who sold tons of buyers on toxic loans. The buyers are responsible for looking out for themselves but nonetheless selling toxic loans is not professional for upstanding people. I'm guessing she lost that loan gig in the lender implosion so now she's recast herself as a realtor and roaming the neighborhoods trolling for suckers so she make a commission selling them a home just as prices begin their long slide.

Mrs MiC also noted that realtors trolling for suckers is what exactly what happened in the early 90's housing bust in Southern California. Lots of desperate realtors going door to door to try to find people dumb enough to buy before prices have bottomed out.

The housing bubble is bursting and its going to be bad ride for people who took on more debt than they can afford.

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