Sally/David,

Buying listings has been going on for decades and is nothing new. Sellers make that decision and the agents who take the listing are wasting their time and money also.. I've never heard of an educated seller pricing their home too high and letting it go to foreclosure.. (Key word -- Educated.)

When you take the time to listen/watch the above links in the original post it gives a summary of how how we got here and how real estate fell apart to create some MAJOR problems that need to be dealt with the right way...

Some of the links also dispell myths concerning thoughts that Government providing a magic pill to solve the problem is the solution. In reality... it's more of the problem then the solution especially when you understand where the money is ACTUALLY Coming from. (It's kind of like taking an advance out on your Credit Card to make your mortgage payment...)

Knowing that and understanding what happened in the first place provides the tools to educating your clients so they are not waiting around for prices to rebound anytime soon with some false hope for homeowners program... which is increasingly becoming very clear that it's been a waste of money and has only caused more headaches.

If you are doing short sales... you should certainly be aware of the many clients coming across now who tried a program or two only to be dragged further along and what little they do have further drained.

The True Embarrassment to the Industry involves Ad campaigns such as "It's A Great Time to Buy and Sell Real Estate", "You Need to Buy Now".... "Prices are going to go up".. and The NAR pushing permanent tax credits to the tune of a Trillion dollars in Taxpayers money and I can go on and on and on...

It's no wonder that some of the Bubble Blogs have more followers then real estate professional blogs because many of them do a far better job of educating people when it comes to the great real estate ponzi scheme that took place.