Shovelling it!

Right on cue, a call from the R/E playbook.

On Monday I wrote, "I suspect we will see the R/E machine gear up in a replay of 2009 and attempt to fortify 'consumer confidence'... look for the real estate P/R machine to ramp the propaganda by drawing on those pages from the media manipulation playbook that focus on 'consumer confidence'.

I envision a flood of articles on creative first time buyers finding ways to 'take the plunge' and commit to their future by finding creative ways to don the massive mortgage chains that are so crucial to greasing the real estate wheels of upward property mobility."

And lo and behold, four days later, we have this article from the Vancouver Sun.

Ostensibly it is a business section article about the dramatic drop off in sales for the month of June.

But that 'news' is buried around a typical R/E propaganda puff piece. In this case we hear all about a single mother who is ecstatic because she bought a home at a time when the market has only just begun it's downward spiral (or what the R/E playbook currently calls a "buyers market"). And the hook is that she got $9,000 off the asking price for a home way out in the distant Vancouver suburb of Maple Ridge.

The purchase is spun as a 'shrewd' by a home-hunter who is 'in control' in this buyer’s market.

No comment is made about an appalling this situation wherein a single mother winds up assumming a $400,000 mortgage after a minimum 5% downpayment at a time when the Governor of the Bank of Canada has spent the last few months warning Canadians about the dangers of assuming massive debt on the eve of significant interest rate hikes.

You can understand the Real Estate Associations attempting to 'market' in this fashion.

But for the media to pimp out R/E industry objectives by candy-coating signifcant business news that would otherwise adversely impact herd mentality home sales is nothing short of a breach of ethical journalism.

It's a sad commentary on our media, on our democracy.

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Email: village_whisperer@live.ca

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