The real estate lies that they tell

I was reading my local paper last week, when I stumbled across this comment from a real estate agent: “The high end of the real estate market hasn’t been affected by the real estate slump.”

This simply isn’t true. And I suspect that the agent who said this knew it, too. The high-end market, homes costing $1 million or more, has been just as sluggish as any other part of the real estate market.

It seems that many real estate professionals are still unwilling to face the truth that the housing market still stinks. Sure, we had some good news the last week, with sales of both existing and newly built homes rising in July from figures posted in May and June. But remember, those sales in May and June were dismal. When you compare this July’s sales to those of the same month last year — which was supposed to be a bad year, too — sales were down 13.1 percent.

So, don’t believe anyone who tells you that the July sales jump means the housing slump is coming to an end. It’s not. July is typically a strong month for home sales, so the slight uptick is nothing to get too excited about.

I know many, many top-notch real estate agents who are completely honest with their clients. They are the agents who are surviving this down market. Unfortunately, there are other agents who’d prefer to blame the housing crisis on the media, or who keep predicting that the worst is over. Neither of these statements are true. And those who spout them to their clients are simply misleading their buyers and sellers.