Are You A Real Estate Hater or a Love-ah?

As I was reading the comments of some real estate haters this morning, I immediately thought of The Love-ahs played by Rachel Dratch and Will Ferrel on Saturday Night Live.  Are you my love-ah?

Although I appreciate and respect that the real estate agent "used car salesman" stereotype doesn’t come from space, I’m still often amazed at the amount of disdain and distrust for the real estate profession.  What is so incredibly amazing to me is that even the intelligent, well-intentioned agents who are actually providing a wealth of knowledge and service to their clientele are lambasted for being disingenuous.  Case in point, Noah Rosenblatt of UrbanDigs.com had a recent post, Market Report: Active Transition, picked up by Curbed.   As I have been swamped the past few days, I just stumbled upon the RSS feed of Curbed’s post this morning (this is where you can read all of the comments).

First I have to say that I absolutely love Curbed mostly because of the uncensored hilarious comments that come from its readers.   But the comments regarding Noah and his blog are laughable in an unnerving sort of way.  Here is someone who is breaking the "old boys club" rules and reporting EVERYTHING he sees happening in the Manhattan real estate market on a day to day basis.  He’s honest, has his readers and clients best interest in mind, and provides information that is useful to anyone thinking of buying or selling in today’s Manhattan real estate market.  Of course, his information is anecdotal based on his own experiences in the trenches of the New York City market place, but isn’t that more useful to someone in today’s market than a plethora of economic numbers that are often outdated by the time they are released?   I think so.  

The number one question I and most of my colleagues (including Noah) are asked at a cocktail party is "how’s the market?" Those of us with blog platforms make an effort to answer that question for thousands of readers on a daily basis.  With that comes a credibility that makes many of our readers feel comfortable approaching us and perhaps even working with us.  Of course there will always be those who don’t agree with or even like what we are saying.  That’s the beauty of a blog.  It’s a dynamic platform for debate and hopefully change.  The fact remains, we are telling it like we see it.  Anecdotal or not, it’s reality.  And reality right now is that the Manhattan real estate market continues to favor the seller with a modest slide in the direction of a buyer’s market. Precisely what Noah is saying.  Summer should definitely bring some opportunities for patient buyers to finally procure Manhattan real estate.  If you don’t want to buy, don’t.  We’re not twisting anyone’s arms.  We’re giving you solid info from the front lines of a market that even baffles us sometimes.  Stop the hate and be a "love-ah."  

I leave you with this quote from Herbert Spencer:

There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance – that principle is contempt prior to investigation.