There is a great scene in Woody Allen's American classic movie Annie Hall where Alvie Singer, the conflicted character played by Mr. Allen, is standing in a movie line. Just behind him is a professor from Columbia University trying to impress his girlfriend with how well he understands the writings of ‘60s media expert and social scientist Marshall McLuhan. Alvie has enough of the pretentious blithering and confronts the guy. After the unresolved debate about how little or much the professor knows, Marshall McLuhan steps from the movie line and says to him: "You know nothing about my work!"
It is the perfect moment for those of us who know we are right and have the chutzpah to share it with others. Alvie says, "Boy, if life could always be like this!" Well, it can; I had such a moment the other day. It actually began a few days earlier during a 10-hour drive home from Virginia with my wife, who is by far a much fairer and nicer person than I am. Having driven for hours without provoking her into telling me what a jerk I am, I had had enough.
"Honey," I said to the defender of all people great and small, "people who hold out for the last dollar in this real estate market are idiots." I went on to use the hypothetical case of empty
"Honey," I said, "people who hold out for the last dollar in this real estate market are idiots."
nesters, done with college tuition payments and other child-related expenses, down to a small or no mortgage in a home that had doubled in market value over the last 12 years, and who had long planned a move south to their dream home and lifestyle. I went on to describe that my hypothetical couple owned a home in an area where average prices had deteriorated 6% over the last year and wanted to move to the Charlotte area, where prices have actually increased a couple of points over the same time.
"That's just stupid," she responded, and she wasn't agreeing with me. "People have all kinds of reasons for why they hold onto their homes, and emotional reasons are as valid as financial. Who are you to tell them they should take a certain price?"
Ah, now the tiger was out of a cage and backed into a corner.
"I'm Suzy Orman and Peter Lynch and Jim Cramer and all those other folks who make money from telling people what to do," I said, painfully mindful that I have never made a cent from giving people advice. But that didn't stop me.
"These homeowners had a plan to move," I blustered, "they know where they want to move to, and instead they are going to hold out for $700,000 for a house that is worth $625,000, which is $325,000 more than they paid for it. Meanwhile, the homes in the area they want to move to are depreciating much more slowly. They are losing buying power every month. They are sabotaging their dream by treating it as anything but a business transaction."
"THEY'RE IDIOTS!" I closed.
"And you are a jerk," said the love of my life as she closed her eyes and turned to the window.
Satisfied I had made my point, I decided to leave well enough alone. I tuned the radio back to Dr. Laura, the relationship doctor, who dispenses snap judgments about people issues based on a lot less information than I base mine about people's real estate issues. (And she gets paid for it!)
Fast-forward a few days. My wife and I are at home listening to National Public Radio. I am in the reclining chair in the corner trying to think of the next day's posting here, and she is doing
"Selling a house is a business transaction."
paperwork. The man on the radio is interviewing published real estate experts and a few people who have sold and bought homes in recent weeks. One woman tells the interviewer that she took whatever price she could get for her home outside Detroit, arguably one of the worst housing markets in the U.S. She and her husband then bought a home inside the city limits of Louisville, KY, and they are splendidly happy with their decision.
"They absolutely did the right thing," one of the experts said of the couple, and I am paraphrasing, "by taking the best price they could get. People are not doing themselves any favors by thinking their houses are worth more than they are.
"Selling a house is a business transaction." The other expert heartily agreed.
I cleared my throat in a purposefully obnoxious way until my wife looked up at me (it was starting to hurt, it took so long). "Nice when your husband is right, isn't it?" I said.
"Jerk," said she. Yes, I thought, but I am your jerk.
