Right on. The bubble created the absurd perception that RRE is a liquid asset, practically cash. I exaggerate only a little. Now, between credit tightening, loss of household net worth, unemployment, consumer deleveraging, and an overshoot sentiment change with aversion to RRE as an investment … The NAR spin is unreal, and probably targeting retail investors and PPIP speculators to come back into the water.

Sorry, this probably looks strange — supposed to be a joke since so many people have very little equity in their current houses.

Say 436,000 units sold in July 2008 @ $250,000. That’s $109 billion in gross sales.

One year later, 460,000 units sold at, say, an average of -15% from July 2008 price, say $212,500. That’s $97.75 billion in gross sales — for +24,000 units sold.

Did you get that last italicized part? That means lower gross on more volume. Cuz that’s how we roll in math skillz class, yo.

Perhaps from the myopic viewpoint of brokers collecting commissions on units changing hands, that’s an average drop of “only” $1300 per unit. ($250,000 @ 3.5% = $8750 commission; $212,500 @3.5% = $7437 commission) . Honestly, I don’t know WTF the RE/NAR types are thinking. I suspect that, as long as units are moving, they’re getting paid and could give a crap about such irrelevant matters as how and whether future buyers are going to have 10% or 20% to put down. Maybe if folks buy houses priced 10% to 20% less than their current homes (provided they can actually sell their current houses first).

Times are now hard for brokers who came to believe that slapping a sign on the side of a property and waiting for the phone calls to start pouring in was how you found a ready, willing and able buyer.

Welcome to Days on Zillow: 367.

Anyone remember way back in the days before borrowing from 1000 years into the future made billions seem trivial, when it used to be a big deal to talk about losses in the tens of billions in a single sector of the economy?