Doom and Gloom Win Again: Real Estate Is Dead

by Mike Farmer

Real Estate Broker

Author website

It is now pervasive, whether fact, fiction, miscalculation or a misunderstanding of economic adjustments — doom and gloom has colored our lexicon and everyone’s on board. The “realists” are merely pointing out facts, the politicians are merely offering a big hand to help all the little people in this troubling time, the agents are merely accepting fate, the lenders are merely going broke, the pundits are merely predicting a dour future — it’s over, real estate is dead.

If you don’t believe it you are an idiot, a Koolaid drinker, a liar, a naive babe in denial or an unscrupulous player preying on the unsuspecting. When someone asks you about the real estate market, tell them it’s dead and getting worse. Tell them there is nothing positive in sight, that it might go for years, decades, a century, who knows, just tell them it’s dead.

We’re doomed, and gloom is our tomorrow and the next day and many after that. Close your doors, lock up shop, sell the Mercedes, real estate is dead. Foreclosures will climb, and after the sub-prime, the leveraged will crumble and then the middle will fold and the highest of the high will fall like tin men one and all. No one will be spared, real estate is dead.

The builders will watch their half-built McMansions sit like bones in a graveyard; realtors will be playing guitars in the park for nickels and dimes; a huge swooshing sound will be heard as the last of the ill winds blow over the rubble that was once a great industry and renters will rule the world and lord over those who once were lords of land. Real estate is dead.

Brokers and lenders will flip burgers or work as city clerks while builders cut grass and investors shine shoes and players of all stripes sing the blues — real estate is dead.

Obama will help the least fortunate, but the ones who rode high will meet their just rewards, for, afterall, it was greed that brought us low. In the wasteland of RE web 2.0 there will be blogs written by the depressed and dispossessed, mashups showing a combination of sorrow, charts showing the declining lines leading to destitution — there will be sites that show the whole sordid mess drawing traffic from voyuers attracted to massacres with targeted ads to debt relief schemes, bankruptcy lawyers and do-it-yourself guides to homeless living. The ranks of the homeless will climb, but this time the ranks will be filled with professionals while the former homeless are placed in subsidized housing bought by the government on the cheap from the million plus vacancies. Real estate is dead.

I know this is true because I just read five articles saying so, and a hundred before that, and I heard it on the news, in the barber shop, whispered a little too loudly in restaurants — everywhere, everywhere, real estate is dead. The sad part is that nothing can be done to stop the spread to every village and hamlet in the good ‘ol US. This type of doom and gloom is ubiquitous, undeniable, unstoppable — it’s down right inevitable. Is there any bright side? Well, the election will be held shortly, and there’s a chance the government can turn it all around — all we can do is wait and hope — I’m sure they have a plan, and if Obabma wins he might even have mercy on us all– at least there will be change. Even McCain is thinking about a solution. Let’s keep our collective fingers crossed.