Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Opportunities For Those Who Can See Through The Fog

The Present Real Estate Market represents a FOGGY environment. The consumers, the investors, and the wonna be investors are bombarded every day with conflicting information about the condition and the direction of the real estate market. An interview with a so-called expert or real estate guru on CBS will present one opinion about the market just to be contradicted by another guru on ABC later on the same day. It is frustrating, who is correct?! The average consumer is left in the middle of the FOG on a super highway. My advice, do not listen to any of the gurus on any of the TV station, including ABC, CBS, FOX, CNN, Bloomberg, etc. These gurus do not say what they practice, also, they try to be MEDIA MISSION CORRECT, which is creating confusion and keeping the subject news worthy. I believe that the media, especially the TV, is responsible for creating the mass blunder in the real estate market, they misinform, misrepresent, and exaggerate the positive and negative situations. We saw this happening time and time again. Remember the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s (commonly referred to as the S&L crisis), The hype of the internet potential and the exaggeration of the capability and performance of the virtual companies with virtual products (the wise fought the temptation and watched the chaos from the sideline, i.e. Warren Buffet, while the majority fall victims to the hype and fortunes were made and many more just evaporated in a flash). The roll of the media in the real estate market is no different from their roll during the other economic crises. They exaggerate and they are alwys LATE.

With temptation to take advantage of the current real estate market condition comes the fear of regret if things do not work out the way expected. No doubt, it is a risky situation, like driving on a highway on a FOGGY morning. The possibility of fatal accident is real.