Refuse to give up

I put the post I wrote on the sidebar as I wanted this to be front and center. If this bores you don’t read it. I have to get it out.

The real estate blog I read was filled with people exuberant over the “death of the Manhattan real estate market.” One man in particular has been all over the threads and in posting so much spreads negativity.

He has a very vested interest in seeing others suffer as he wants to buy at depression prices. He cashed out. Or something. You never really know who commenters are. I gave up on political writing for large blogs a long time ago (as defined by the “youthful age of blogging”) because so many commenters had an agenda and would refuse to listen to any other POV. They and a few other people know everything and they know it well.

If they did, they would understand that a bad housing market is good for nobody as is a bad stock market which does go hand in hand. I caught this man talking about putting 250K into the stock market instead of a down payment. He mentioned putting it in one stock that would pay eight percent therefore paying $20,000 a year in interest.

In that one statement he showed ignorance in everything that he was trying to be an expert in. Nobody puts or should put that amount of money in one stock, one stock fund, bond etc. The 250K–put in a diversified portfoli– might go up but will probably go down. Therefore eight percent is eight percent of a lower number that is probably constantly changing and can’t be reliably predicted this year. He created a perfect stock market scenario which is exactly the opposite of what he says for the real estate market. You can’t have it both ways.

But what do I know? And for the record I don’t comment on that blog. It’s not worth it.

These people don’t seem to understand that that many of us bought not thinking of an apartment as an investment but were forced to by the very media that now tells us we never should have thought that way. And the psychology of entitlement that pervaded this country.

I never bought into that. I have never felt entitled to anything including being comfortable with my own intelligence and/or talent. This lack of feeling entitled caused me to wait too long. Or maybe not as I priced my apartment too high for me to feel comfortable with but I did that to see if anybody would bite. It was a couple of days before Bear Stearns went under but that was one event that shouldn’t cause an entire city to give up.

I know longer no what a fair price is but I know it’s not 100% less than somebody with a comparable apartment who sold last month. I have bills to pay and a life to maintain. Unfortunately it is that simple. I don’t have a mortgage so I can afford to be more flexible than most people but….

If my apartment doesn’t go into contract in x amount of time I will take it off the market. I can’t afford to pay maintenance and rent indefinitely. A strict coop board might be forced to let me rent me out.

Personally times are very different for me than during the last recession. I’m older. I can’t afford to wait ten years for housing prices to spike back.

I think new media and the affect of it on MSM can be very dangerous. People should bear some responsibility for what they say and not be content saying “the public has a right to know.”

The public doesn’t have a right to feel fear needlessly. And so far much of what’s been happening in Manhattan specifically is very fear generated. It might be a one industry town–the stock market–but it is different for many reasons I don’t have the time to go into now.

Tosay is seventeen years since my father died. That day was also the day the government officially said the stock market began its long trip upward.

I refuse to give into either fear or depression so I’m getting my hair done. Of course it’s pouring and very cold for the South.

I think murdering a contractor who took my money and stopped working and kept begging me for another chance would be considered justifiable homicide. I don’t want to get into that mind frame.

We are all in this together and we have a responsibility to look for answers that help all of us, not feed our own agenda.