As a real estate investor, I lick my chops when I see news like this. But as a human being it's so terrible to see happen over and over again. Watch "The Big Short" if you haven't - everything will crash again.
So when are you and your fellow investors gonna stick to being human beings? This game has gone on long enough. We're talking about peoples' lives. We're talking about an entire generation of people who can't afford to buy houses because the generation before them gave in to bad credit. We're talking about entire generations of people who are going into a personal debt based economy of fear and coercion. Is that the kind of legacy you want to leave?
There's likely nothing he can do as a single investor. It's like the Prisoner's Dilemma. He could opt out, but now he has to find a new line of work, and meanwhile there's plenty of other investors who will take his place and nothing will change. There's no way to get them all to change their ways at once.
The only solution is government action; it's one of the big reasons we have a government, to fix things that "the invisible hand" cannot or will not. The problem is that our politicians are either totally corrupt or inept. So just like they failed to prevent the 2000s mortgage bubble, and the 1990s dot-com bubble, and the 80s S&L crisis, etc., they're going to fail here too.
In short, if you want to blame someone, the only people to blame are the voters.
When being a human being is more profitable than not. If the incentive structure does not tie individual reward to societal reward then it's the system that's broken, not the people.
"Buy when there's blood in the streets" has always been good advice, but you can't blame a single person - or even a single class of person, in this case a real estate investor - on the immense scale of complexity that has put so many people in such a lousy situation.
A lot of people in this category have jobs, families to support, and so on. It's not like every investor is The Businessman from "The Little Prince."
Unless you think the GP is causing these types of problems, this attitude is entirely unwarranted. Investors buying on a down market soften crashes by providing an infusion of capital when the market indicates it's needed.
If real estate investors took the moral stand you seem to be suggesting here, who exactly would be buying a home from a distressed homeowner? What money would be floating around to cover short sales and prevent foreclosures?
blurbleblurble|9 years ago
Arizhel|9 years ago
The only solution is government action; it's one of the big reasons we have a government, to fix things that "the invisible hand" cannot or will not. The problem is that our politicians are either totally corrupt or inept. So just like they failed to prevent the 2000s mortgage bubble, and the 1990s dot-com bubble, and the 80s S&L crisis, etc., they're going to fail here too.
In short, if you want to blame someone, the only people to blame are the voters.
Spivak|9 years ago
rm_-rf_slash|9 years ago
A lot of people in this category have jobs, families to support, and so on. It's not like every investor is The Businessman from "The Little Prince."
dwaltrip|9 years ago
djrogers|9 years ago
If real estate investors took the moral stand you seem to be suggesting here, who exactly would be buying a home from a distressed homeowner? What money would be floating around to cover short sales and prevent foreclosures?
conanbatt|9 years ago