Eyeball 2009 is our holiday gift to you: Two weeks-plus of outlooks on local real estate conditions! A new vision every day of the week at noon through Jan. 6! Our 17th guest is …
Steve Thomas is president of Altera Real Estate in Aliso Viejo and produced a biweekly O.C. market report that this blog tracks regularly!
Eyeball: What’s the O.C. housing outlook for 2009?
Steve: The Federal Reserve announced this week that they were willing to employ “all available tools” to battle the current economic recession. They cannot reduce the federal fund rate any further, so now they are going to embark on a road of “quantitative easing.” The Federal Reserve is going to do whatever it takes to get the frozen financial markets free flowing again and are willing to buy “pools” of loans to make sure that there is liquidity. We have already seen an appreciable drop in interest rates by their actions over the past couple of weeks and with this latest announcement, rates dropped further. Interest rates are starting to drop below 5%. All of the ingredients for a market recovery are there: low interest rates, lower prices, the reemergence of the first time home buyer, FHA financing up to $625,500 with smaller
downpayment requirements. Demand will be stronger in 2009.
Eyeball: What’s the chance we bottom in 2009? What might it look like?
Steve: With the Federal Reserve, the new Obama Administration and Congress working in unison to tackle the recession, the housing market and the general economy is going to receive a lot of stimulus. After our new
president is sworn in, there will most likely be foreclosure abatement with real teeth (thus far no teeth) embedded in what is being coined as the “New, New Deal” with tones from President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
With all of this stimulus, there is a high potential for a bottom in Orange County real estate by mid-2009.
[ More Eyeball '09 HERE | Eyeball '08 | '07 ]
Eyeball: What do you fear the most about the real estate market?
• Click to vote on '09 pricing!
Steve: I think President Roosevelt said it best, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” We have moved passed the “information age” to the “over-information age.” PDA’s, emails, Internet, cable news, blogs, etc., have made it all too easy to spread the flames of negativity. We have also moved onto the “herd mentality” within our economy, where swings up and down are over exaggerated. Take a look at the Internet bubble, the housing bubble, the Wall Street bubble and the international
financial bubble, all great examples of the “herd” moving markets too swiftly. Where’s the stock market today… you will have to wait until the last half hour to see which way the herd moved. So, my biggest fear for housing and the rest of the economy is fear itself.
Eyeball: What gives you hope?
Steve: The first-time home buyer who now looks at homeownership as fulfilling a dream and not at all as a short-term buy on Wall Street gives me hope. The good news, almost every one of our agents has a first-time homebuyer, or two, or three, that they are working with. They will invest knowing that real estate is a great “long term” investment, especially right here in Orange County.
Eyeball: What surprise or surprises will we be talking about a year from now?
Steve: The surprise for 2009 will be the higher volume of sales in Orange County compared to prior years. That will be the end result of over-stimulation.
And you’ll want to come back …
- NEXT UP: Lender Norm Bour
- THEN, OUR FINALE: Realtor Gary Watts
- All of Eyeball 2009 to published date is HERE
Here comes the herd!
“All of the ingredients for a market recovery are there”
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=captain%20assclown
Hey Steve, what about the fear of JOBS?
I thought last summer was the bottom
Fundamentals. Not one word about economic fundamentals.
I will agree that the communist policies of the federal reserve have changed the fundamental equations, but that won’t last forever.
You just know Jon has a sense of humor…this interview might send Bubbs and rantsid over the edge…watch out Jon, rants just might get his 10 year old after you for this one…
steve thomas says there was a housing bubble?!?! lllooolll@ribsplitter
damn this guy is using FDR great depression comments
and claiming that the lowly first time home buyer
will save the OC housing market
you can’t make this stuff up
maybe the OC register should get some TARP money
so they don’t need to take payments from hacks like this
and lets face it, the OC register will need TARP money to survive
great depression?
not to worry our government learned
from the “mistakes” of the 1930s and 1990s japan
there is no way our government
will raise taxes to balance the budget….
the chronies in DC
better tell all 50 states… cuz it looks like
state taxes are about to start heading UP UP UP
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/01/44-states-face-huge-budget-shortfalls.html
there is no way the real mistakes
were in the 1920s or 2000s…..
nope, no way, no how, lllooolll@ribsplitter
Well I’ll have to admit anything is possible at this point!
Things could get better or worse.
But the prices have not come down enough for me to buy what I want
so I guess save more money and wait. If things improve I’ll have to settle for less. If they don’t I guess I’ll benefit!
Wanting to buy but still feel things are over priced and the average JOE don’t make the kind of cash reports I’ve seen indicate.
Steve - Are you refunding the $100,000+ each of your customers lost in the past year by following your advice?
Didn’t think so. Perhaps that’s why you are no longer with ReMax?
Not one mention of the ‘I’ word. Income and the ratio to prices is what matters. Prices are nowhere near being cheap.
By the way, predicting higher sales volume this year is not a surprise. Sales volume will get back to normal eventually (which it hasn’t reached yet), and this will precede the price bottom by a year or two (i.e. prices will continue to drop for a year or two after sales volume returns to normal).
ReMax = Altera
http://www.alteraproperties.com/Pages/Company%20History.html
Blah Blah Blah
Realtor = Liar
For anyone thinking house prices will stop falling this year, one has to know how they reached this range in the first place.
“As a supervisor at a Washington Mutual mortgage processing center, John Parsons oversaw a team screening mortgage applications, he was snorting methamphetamine daily, he said”
“I’d lie if I said every piece of documentation was properly signed and dated,” said Parsons, speaking through wire-reinforced glass at a California prison near San Diego”
“It was a disgrace,” said Dana Zweibel, a former financial representative. “We were giving loans to people that never should have had loans.”
And this is just one of the many reasons you can kiss these prices goodbye!
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/nation/12/28/1228wamu.html
An overly simplistic, overly optimistic analysis - you can tell that econ 101 is not required to become a realtor. He is not in touch with the true causes of this recession and is overly optimistic of the Feds’ ability to dig us out of it. The US and Calif. is BANKRUPT. They will have to print more money which will cause stagflation; or increase taxation which will deepen the recession. We are already a trillion dollars in debt. - but don’t worry the Almighty Fed. Gov. will save you in 6 mo. time. Yeah, right.
OMG steve recites FDR’S- the only thing we have to fear spiel-
figures– no steve we have lots of things to fear- one is
the government getting involved and really screwing things up-
have you ever heard the phrase FREE MARKET- I didnt think so-
if all we have to fear is fear- why is the government even getting
involved? duhhh yeah right– typical realtor- absolutely clueless
wheres the outrage from the public who allowed these realtors to
dupe them into buying overpriced houses that have lost over
a quarter of their value in one year- why doesnt that subject come
up? why does blogger avoid the real questions that need asked?
anyone who still listens to these guys DESERVES what they get
Steve Thomas looks a lot older than I expected. This is the first time I see a picture of him. I’ll go easy on him from now on.
Interesting he mentions nothing about unemployment in OC being the highest in the past 10 years and that nothing over 700K (which is most of the inventory in desirable areas like the beaches) is selling. He says nothing about jumbo conforming limits going down from 729K to 625K and its impact on the high end market.
Well, now that I think about it, Steve sells the homely areas like Lake Forest, Santa Ana, or Mission Viejo where Mulliganville lives so he doesn’t care about the jumbo loans.
Eyeball: What do you fear the most about the real estate market?
Didn’t President Roosevelt say: “the only thing we have to fear is realtors and their ability to lie”?
Maybe not.
Steve Thomas: “We have moved passed the “information age” to the “over-information age.” PDA’s, emails, Internet, cable news, blogs, etc., have made it all too easy to spread the flames of negativity. ”
Yes, sure folks. Don’t read the newspapers or get informed. Just trust Steve Thomas, who has been telling you to buy homes for the past 2 years.
If you just lost your job, don’t pay attention. It’s just your imagination. The economy is doing great. Don’t listen to those negative bloggers. Just show up for work on Monday like nothing happened and again, don’t read the newspaper or watch the news.
Sale volume will not return to historical norms - but a new norm will be set and we may already be seeing it.
Many here complain that the bubble was driven by easy money and speculation (aka greed). Now people seem to be buying for a long term place to live that will give them a hedge against inflation (fixed cost of living) and over the 10-15 year time span a return of their initial down, and most likely more.
So if more people are buying for this reason I would expect invetory to decrease from historical norms. Once we get though the REO of those who bought want they could not afford, I expect that prices will increase significantly due to limited inventory - not at the rate of the bubble of course.
As for jobs, if we stay over 90% employment I do not expect jobs to impact the recovery significantly. I know of 2-high tech mfg startups in So OC that are hiring and have very good prospects and strong backing. Then there are of course the established companies that will be just fine once we adjust for normal consumption - that adjustment is underway and is no where as bleak as many would like to think.
I guess you speculators missed the class in Econ 101 that says when supply decreases and demand increases prices will eventually go up.
thanks lovetheweather we always appreciate the viewpoint of
those who werent able to attend college– for those who
did- remember how much fun that first calculus class was–
well good news all you need is a basic understanding of simple
math to see where our economy is headed- thanks to the laws
of compound interest–
http://market-ticker.denninger.net/
Rants, What happened to your Hwood alias?
leave it up to the simple minded realtors- like shockg- to
ask totally irrelevant questions that provide no value whatsoever–
thanks again oh real man of genius
the more you talk the smarter paris hilton sounds
“FHA financing up to $625,500 with smaller downpayment requirements”
FHA down payment requirements actually increased this last year from 3% to 3.5%. I guess Steve meant that they are smaller than conventional loans.
You can see a bit of where demand is and what demand is going to be hurt with the new lending guidelines by looking at this chart for Ventura County:
http://effectivedemand.blogspot.com/2009/01/ventura-county-october-2008-loan-to.html
It is an attempt to show what loans will be harder to get going forward relative to what is happening at a certain moment in time.
It is my belief that you won’t have a bottom until underwriting stops tightening. But underwriting must find a spot where making loans are profitable. For FHA, they aren’t worried about making a profit, just breaking even and you can see how people are just piling into those loans.
rants Says:
“wheres the outrage from the public who allowed these realtors to
dupe them into buying overpriced houses”
The buyers were just as greedy as the realtors were.
Their credit was shot even before they took out their liar loans.
The best part of this meltdown is that realtors like Thomas don’t have a clue as to the repercussions from the trillions of dollars in bailouts this country is going to face and suffer through in the coming years.
After all, the realtors didn’t have a clue about the repercussions the housing bubble would create until well after the problems surfaced.
The government would have to spend trillions of dollars each and every year to keep prices where they are now but knowing that they are on the brink of failure as it stands now, we can easily come to the conclusion that they can only stall the inevitable.
The bottom line is that home prices are going to fall significantly more than what we have seen so far no matter what type of lies the realtors can come up with.
Bill says: “Realtors like Thomas don’t have a clue as to the repercussions from the trillions of dollars in bailouts this country is going to face and suffer through in the coming years.”
Small correction.
Thomas knows pretty well what this is going to do to the future of this country but he doesn’t care. As long as he can make a sale, he doesn’t care if our children end up paying for it.
In all fairness, it’s not just Thomas, our culture is inundated with greed and that is why we are in the position we are in right now. Most Americans would do anything to make a buck. The same way we cheat in college, we cut corners as adults and we are now paying for it.
Wow, I was waiting for the beacon of truth to come through in these troubling times, and of course it would be a Realtor to provide the guiding light.
I will go out and buy some property tomorrow knowing that we are near the bottom.
If I can’t trust a Realtor, then who can I trust?
“cheat in college” - has this turned into the true confessions blog?
I find it very hard to believe that a realtor could talk a reasonable person into buyng a house. What I do believe is that people who could not afford a house assumed that they could sell and make a buck before the music stopped and they were left without a chair.
“I find it very hard to believe that a realtor could talk a reasonable person into buyng a house.”
do you think most buyers are as informed as the people on this blog?
Most buyers don’t have a clue of what is going on with the housing market and they just trust realtors to tell them the truth. What country do you live in? Most Americans don’t have a clue about finances.
Do realtors know what is going on with the housing market?
Of course they do, but they are not going to tell the public if things are bad because they don’t make any money if nobody buys homes. How many realtors did you hear telling you not to buy in 2006?
If you ever bought a house, you know that the process is very emotional and most buyers trust their realtor. That’s unfortunately because realtors have a vested interest in you buying that home.
Rants,
The West hollywood homes are starting to come down. Get ready !!!
Bubbles all I can say is - what?
I now find it hard to believe that you believe what you are saying. Sure, lets throw down 10-20%, even 5%, on a multi hundred thousand dollar RE and trust someone else to do our thinking. There are most definetly a few out there that did this, but the majority?
Jon-
Why don’t you interview a professor and ask about what happens when the Fed starts raising rates again? What is the consensus on how much that will dampen demand again?
As long as the Fed has the RE market on low interest rate “cocaine” there will be activity.
How about asking the tough follow-up questions as to what happens when this situation is no longer?
Wow, finally heard the infamous Steve Thomas’s prediction.
Hmmm…not as bullish as I thought he might be (at least compared to his predecessor Gary Watts used to be)
Interesting how he is a believer in the herd mentality. Well, if you really believe in this while the market is going up, why would you not believe it going down? Goes both ways Sherlock. This is not something you control with legislation. This is the way people’s minds work and have worked throughout the history of time. This is why no matter what the government does, the cycle will complete itself.
If you want to stop housing prices to go down the only way to do this is to not have let them get so high in the first place. They will settle where they will.
Again — too much hope on Obama and our government. Whatever happened to a fundamentally sound housing market? Here’s some food for thought…if something needs to be “bailed out”, it probably means it isn’t a ‘good’ long term investment (think…AIG, Bear Stearns, GM….and whoever’s next). It sort of implies, ‘this thing is in trouble’! That’s exactly how this housing market will be in the next few years!
Tar, feather Steve and all like him.
# Shane Says:
January 4th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
“Rants,
The West hollywood homes are starting to come down. Get ready !!!”
Haha Sean! Rants must be gay because he thinks housing prices are too high compared to incomes and therefore his untermenschen opinions are worthless! You are a bigot.
# shockg Says:
January 4th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
“I guess you speculators missed the class in Econ 101 that says when supply decreases and demand increases prices will eventually go up.”
I guess you bubble buying homedebtors missed the class in Econ 101 that says when unemployment doubles in 12 months demand for housing doens’t increase and prices will go down.
bill youre right but like NB said- most people take the advice
of a realtor because they assume the realtor is an “expert”
when it comes to the purchase of a home- just like they take
their doctors advice when it comes to medical questions-
shane your jokes are so funny I forgot to laugh
Steve you are here ———->X
X<————————-Reality and logic are here
Amazing how some can detach themselves from reality and logic for the sake of greed. Well, not so surprising we are ground zero for all this greed driven fairy tales - this is pyramid scheme central.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28471885/
Can I ask one question - exactly what is going to happen when we do hit bottom? I mean I think it will look alot like NASDAQ in recovery from the dot.com bubble.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
This is more like a broken calender.
Rebound this summer? Wishful thinking. Someone thought the bump last summer was a sign of a turnaround. Now, all those folks who bought a home are upside-down.
Remember, there is always a fool in the market, and if you don’t know who that person is, it is you. RE agents and Wall Street brokers will say whatever benefits themselves.Their business is to exploit those who don’t know the market.
Nobody knows when the housing market will rebound. Period.
Are there people out there that still beleive him? Dude.
Here’s a good article to read over your cheerio’s
http://www.housingwire.com/2009/01/05/viewpoint-a-push-for-homeownership-that-backfired/
Rants,
I agree the fault is shared between greedy realtors and greedy buyers and you do have a very valid point that millions of cautious buyers were being pressured by the greed of realtors to purchase overpriced homes, without the due diligence of warning the buyer to the risks involved in buying at such a price disconnect.
As you can clearly see from Thomas’s article above, the high pressure salesman is still relentless.
His only choice is to blindly put all of his faith in Obama’s risky trillion dollar plan that even Obama himself doubts if it will work since the plan produces close to zero return on investment.
He’s using this plan that is doomed for failure as a sales pitch.
Anyone buying a property now is giving a free bailout to the seller and creating heavy losses for themselves.
Nationalbubble.com:
Maybe home buyers should just buy FSBO’s, and cut out the realtors.
Problem solved. Who needs realtors anyways?
I see the maggots are out in full force this morning.
Bottom can be this summer. No one knows.
This would be a better headline for Steve:
Realtor eyes O.C. housing bottom by tomorrow
Why wait till summer.
And we are suppose to take advice from Realtors?? They are guilty in this fiasco just as much as the banks and mortgage companies. They knew that people generally could not afford these loans, but “found” a way to qualify them!! Realtors are the new Lawyers! They weren’t selling the American Dream, rather than destroying the Dream for thousands of buyers that would not qualify under any circumstances.
If you lie with dogs- you are gonna get bit!!
Supply is down because many sellers took their homes off the market for the winter. They thought things will be looking better for them in the spring. They are wrong. All those properties will be back on the market in the spring, increasing supply. Plus a whole new load of foreclosures will be coming on the market.
another overly opptimistic realtor smoking crack and ignoring Option ARM reset schedules through 2011, unemployment, etc.
I do think that prices will bottom sometime this year…likely towards the end. With that, I think they will go flat for a long period time as most of the “upside downers” and those that finally succumb to reality and price their home accordingly sell. Once most of the toxic loans and foreclosures have cleared the market place, it may be time for prices to start to rebound. I just dont see any economic signals otherwise.
As far as supply/demand curves go. As we can see now, there is not an inelastic demand for housing…meaning people will not pay any price for it regardless of supply.
You can’t treat housing the same as you would any other good like copper. Copper is cheap because the demand is low…this is bad for people who have/manufacture copper.
Housing takes in too many factors to use a simple 2 line intersecting curve with an equilibrium point. Incomes, jobs, credit, availability of financing, cash on hand, etc….play just as important factors as housing supply. It is possible that some people will panic if housing supply dips below a certain point and run out and buy, but if all the other factors dont line up…supply means sqaudouche.
I seem to recall that Thomas has a BA in Quantitative Economics. I too have the same degree….so it seems odd to me that he can’t understand simple economic principles. I guess it is his job to find any positive news he can to encourge people to buy….what else is he supposed to do??
Oh yes…..let’s all listen to the realtards prediction, he has no vested interest in the real estate market rgiht?
Why don’t you make a prediction on the unemployment rate too while you’re at it Steve?….roll my eyes.
Reality bites, eh Helen
Gina Says:
January 5th, 2009 at 7:25 am
Problem solved. Who needs realtors anyways?
In the not so distant future, we wont. Isn’t the internet great!
Meantime, i’ll hapilly pay them 3-4k tops per sale to cart people around in show-mode and to cover their costs of writing and running ads in ALL CAPS in the Sunday papers. That’s a fair days pay for a fair days work.
Sombody doesn’t know what realtors do:
Meantime, i’ll hapilly pay them 3-4k tops per sale to cart people around in show-mode and to cover their costs of writing and running ads in ALL CAPS in the Sunday papers. That’s a fair days pay for a fair days work.
Your stupid comment might be worth more if you had a clue about real estate.
No Bogey you bite
So, is Steve Thomas buying? Or is he just all talk?
Looks like the REtards are out since open house foot traffic is down. Here you are typing away, madly trying to shout down the posts of people whoose opinion is different then yours. Just look at the trend of people using realtors to do their foot work. I know for a fact that I will not need a realtor to show which home I want to see. Nor do I need one to do the paper work. So what is left? Free rides?
It is not up to the buyer to dictate anything. The seller will pay the their agent the whole commision no matter whether you accept help or not. One day you will have to sell as well, and you will be equally handicapped.
The herd will continue to drive prices lower throughout 2009, despite Lil’ Orphan Steve Thomas’ song about the sun coming up tomorrow.
Mr. Koolaid, the buyer dictates EVERYTHING. The sooner you realize this and get out of the RE biz, the better off all of us will be.
The problem I have with realtors, is the stupid ones who think that prices WERE high and that everything now is such a GREAT DEAL. They even talk in CAPITAL letters (although they’d say like CAPITOL). Especially, the ones who say two years ago houses like this were going for 800K! They really believe that homes were really worth that much because some fool paid that much (even though they never had at actually owning the home). Now we get “prices won’t go down much further in this neighborhood” even though there hasn’t been one sale in 3 months.
Eat it
It’s like knowing somebody that weighs 400lb and then when they lose 100lb saying “wow, they lost 100lb now they are really sexy!” Wake up idiots! They still weigh 300lb!! Not hot.
Hey koolaidflavor,
To quote many an RE agent……. ” a home is an emotional purchase”
Exactly!
Most buyers know ‘ if ‘ they want to buy a certain home the minute they walk in. Some, even at the point they pull into the driveway.
The thing is .. …
Sellers have begun to realize this and don’t need to pay someone to sell something someone else already wants to buy.
OLD WAY TO BRING BUYERS TO THE HOME: RE AGENT
NEW WAY TO BRING BUYERS TO THE HOME: INTERNET
MEANTIME, TO ALL OF YOU SELLERS OUT THERE. . . . IF YOU STILL REQUIRE THE USE OF AN AGENT, JUST SAY NO TO 3-5%
1% IS THE MAGIC NUMBER.
Sniffing glue much? The internet has been with us for a long time and it has had very little impact on the use of agents. It’s so funny how many novices post here. Most don’t even know (as appears to be the case with you) that there are two agents in a transaction and they do very different things. And 1%? LOL! Let me guess, you too have a $20,000 nest egg ready to deploy? The whole of OC is your oyster, ready for the slurping!
Here Bogey, learn up! The best offer is the 3.99% (4%) commission offered by Realty Direct. The other lower priced ones do not get you on MLS. No MLS and your plan is shot to hell. No MLS and you have a yard sign.
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/real-estate/20060424a1.asp
koolaid, I do not utilize RE agents to sell my props anymore.
Sales transactions by owner, nice, easy and clean plus I get to pocket the 30K+….. not them/you.
RE AGENTS, here is your chance to make your case … … .
Why pay a middleman to sell something somebody else already wants to buy?
The value of MLS is fading, little by little. If you don’t embrace this fact, the world is going to pass you by.
But don’t your arms get tired from spinning your sign? I just read something interesting: Redfin has a minimum commission of $5,500 to represent a buyer.
MLS fading? (Chuckles) Your plan only works when a cheap seller is matched with a cheap buyer and the cheap buyer pays as much or more than all other potential not-cheap buyers. The only thing is: there will be a tug of war over who gets the “savings”. Buyers think it’s theirs, sellers think it’s theirs. Only one can win.
So tell me, koolaid, how many transactions did you have last year?
It’s none of your business what I or anyone else does for a living. I don’t care if you dispute these facts or not, which I assume you don’t, otherwise you wouldn’t be attacking a stranger to divert the discussion.
koolaid, lets review a RE transaction in its simplicity . ..
Buyer wants house, seller and buyer agree on sales price.
1) Sales docs are completed
2) Trip to the title agency to commence escrow
3) Wait for legal proceedural aspects to be completed
4) Escrow closes, buyer receives keys
Other than filling out the initial paperwork, what else does an RE agent do in this process?
So defensive, which means not very many. Probably not many this year, either. Rather than defend your withering industry, why not go back to school and then get into a profession with real promise?
Your process begins with a buyer and seller agreeing on a sales price? Enough said.
I repeat: I don’t care if you dispute these facts or not, which I assume you don’t, otherwise you wouldn’t be attacking a stranger to divert the discussion.
Excellent point k o .. .
koolaid had an opportunity to ‘defend the withering industry’
but ….. has failed to do so.
koolaid, WTF are you talking about?
To come to an agreement on sales price is really quite simple.
1) ask price
2) offer
3) meet half way
4) counter
5) agree or meet half way, and so on……eventually, you’re there.
Nuff said, eh koolaid
If it was as you describe there would be no business going to brokers. I don’t believe you have ever owned any property or you wouldn’t say such stupid things as you do. The facts speak for themselves. A minute percentage of the population agrees with you.
Listen to this guy at your own risk. The National Association of Realturds has misled people for years. Google “David Lereah” or “NAR economist admits lying”.
NAR wants you to think that realturds are professionals who will look out for your interest. They aren’t. They are sales shills who want you to believe they are not sales shills. That’s a liar where I come from.
Anyway, Goofy, you might want to take an economics class. Without job growth, there will be no recovery in 2009 and probably not in 2010 either. You might want to start looking for a job.
Geez, where these guys come from? First of all he speaks in platitudes - all of his statements are like headlines. There’s no substance. Second, I don’t think this guy has a clue about what’s going on in the economy. It’s as though there’s a silver bullet out there somewhere that’s going to fix housing - forget about everything else. He doesn’t know how the dots must be connected in order to “fix” anything.
Send in the next one.
The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.