Bubblemoney jobs gone; homes not selling for what they did before it burst. Guess what it's gone forever.

Yesterday’s Sun contained several articles on the current state of the economy and the effects of this credit fed housing bubble.

The lead story about the state of the economy and election contains the personal story about a mortgage broker who rode the bubble up and down and is now renting trying to get her life back together and focused on being an entrepreneur.

After graduation, a friend recommended the mortgage business. She "just showed up one day" in 2003 at the offices of Castle Point Mortgage in Elkridge and was hired on the spot.
Within four months, she rose from processing documents to selling, becoming the company's top producer.
Times were heady, with a boom-town mentality permeating the office cubicles. She learned to project maturity and confidence over the telephone by talking louder. She collected $241,000 during her first full year in sales. She wouldn't reach that figure again, but her commission-based income remained in six figures.
Her husband, Justin, took an administrative job in the office, earning only a fraction of what she made. Still, the couple had enough money for a $600,000 four-bedroom house in Hanover (monthly payment: $4,000), and a Porsche for Justin - later upgraded to a Maserati (monthly payment: $800). The couple vacationed in Miami and still saved plenty.

Now I know some of you especially when looking at the comments in the sun article are probably thinking how am I supposed to have sympathy for someone making 200k a year doing what is mostly clerical work in today’s world of desktop underwriting? To me I see someone who in a way lucked into a trend, figured it would last forever and also made some bad choices in personal relationships. (In the comments section Erin explains her separation)It’s interesting how once the money stops coming in things all fall apart.

I can tell this story a thousand times all around the metropolitan area, and it’s one of the reason houses when up so much especially in the 2005/2006 peak. The people who created this ponzi scheme started drinking their own koolaid. Now many of them are bag holders holding on via credit cards hoping that somehow some sucker is going to come along and overpay for a house when everyone knows that if you paying more than 2004 price in Baltimore now your WAY overpaying and just making the buyer rich and you house poor.
My guess is that she will eventually find something, probably not at the income level before because honestly the position of mortgage broker has the feeling of outsourced to India written all over it and what needs touched to be a clerical position. The new reality is the trend of continuing downward pressure on wages will depress house appreciation for much longer than people expect(hope). I wish her luck and hopefully she’s learned a lot of life lessons in the experience.

In the same day we had an article that to those of us bubbleheads know as common sense but to sellers is well a disheartening reality.

Here’s the list and guess what’s number one, PRICE!!!
1. Sale price is too high
2. Location is a turnoff
3. House has no visual pizzazz
4. Condition is critical
5. We just don't like it

Now I hate to sound preachy but price fixes all of the above. This will come up more and more as baby boomers realize that they need to sell and will cut the price to get that cash they need because they need that money to live on. As I pointed out before living in Maryland pretty much requires peak earnings to just survive for most folks.