Esol Esek

Lessons from a Market 'En Fuego'

I read a lot of predictions online the last few years and saw this explosion coming, although when it came, it shocked me into complacency. The old maxim, buy the dip, made me want to buy last fall, but it seemed the end might be upon us. Now it seems clear it wasn't. Still, I keep remembering that before this debacle started, everyone kept saying we'd get through the mortgage crisis without it impacting the larger picture. That turned out to be false. Now, we're basically in exactly the same position except that about half of the mortgage crisis has been worked through, and the govt is there to backstop any failure. Maybe that's enough to postpone this crisis for the years needed to finally absorb the losses. That's a big maybe. The demographic factor of the boomers, both in spending and real estate liquidation, however, is a wrench in the works, along with the CRE blowup you can see coming just by walking through any city, even one doing ok, like Seattle. Add to these factors leaders who believe they can game the system in any way. Maybe they can, but eventually something's going to go very wrong.