Unreal Estate Agents

A desperate letter dropped on my doormat today – it was from the local office of estate agents Douglas Newman Good, eager to convince that now is, actually, a good time to sell. The letter was full of hilarious misdirection, suggesting that by not buying now, people are missing the ‘best opportunities and discounted prices’, and indicating that the market has reached its bottom.

Says Stephen Manek: “It is our view that house prices will not fall much further and that most of the price falls have already happened… We believe that now is a great time to move home and take advantage of the attractive falling interest rates and reduced house prives on your next purchase.”

If I believed that they actually thought that, which I don’t, it would be a black mark in DNG’s book, as it would fly in the face of all economic indicators. If a company can blinker itself to what’s happening in the global economy, that’s a company whose advice I don’t want to take.

House prices fell almost 15% in 2008, according to Daft.ie, with the rate of the fall accelerating considerably during Q4 of 2008. Back in April, the Economist’s report on global housing markets put Ireland top of a list of overvalued housing markets, with the average house overvalued by more than 30% at peak.

Applying basic junior-school maths, that means that a proper correction is only half-way through, so the bottom is some way off yet. The courageous might sell now, rent until things bottom out completely, and then buy, but the average person won’t risk it. Anyone who sold a year or more ago and has rented since might be tempted to buy now – if, that is, there was anything on the market to buy, which there isn’t.

If DNG honestly ‘believe that now is a great time to move home’, they are fools. What is more likely is that they are so desperate to sell something, anything, that they are happy to blithely smile and lie and hope that the people they are bombarding with junk don’t read the papers, turn on the radio or have a television or internet connection.

I’m staying put. But if I was selling, DNG would have just lost my business.