Yes, we are open!

I was halfway through another post delighting in the revelation of a spruiking attempt turned to dust, when my ADHD kicked in. Flicking through 80 something channels didn't curb my restlessness, it led me back to the computer, over to news.com.au and into the Courier Mail's website.

The post I was working on is now is pushed back a day or so - nothing urgent - I can't imagine anyone purchasing a couple of overblown $800k Devonport town houses in the next 24 hours anyway. And so begins this post.

If you've ever been fortunate enough to have a flasher operating in your local park, you'll know the deviancy starts on a minor level: Grannies copping an eyeful of junk and mothers scared to let their kids off the leash. All because one of the human races' more pitiful physical specimens likes to drop his shorts in public. From here the deviancy usually escalates and things become more brazen - no longer is he hiding in the bushes, he's wide in the open and now he's pulling on it.

Of course this analogy is leading me to the real estate industry; no longer are they content with simply pushing out their press releases and having them sloppily recycled by an unquestioning media. No longer are they content with finding happy home buyers to appear in their shock 'couple buys house' stories. As the market fails they become more brazen and their deviancy steps up a level, they're out there without a concern - basically pulling on it in public. 

We found out this morning, courtesy of the Courier Mail and reporter, Michelle Hele, that FIRST home buyers are slowly returning after being absent for more than a year. Michelle told us...

ABS figures this month show nationally the highest number of first home purchases since March last year. The largest number of first home buyers in November was from New South Wales with 2542 home loans approved, followed by Victoria with 2342 and Queensland with 1559.
Queensland has not recorded this level of first home buyer activity since November 2009.

Now I'm buggered if I can find any ABS housing stats out this month, so I'm guessing Michelle is still referring to the November finance stats as a whole and she's telling us Queensland has not been at this level since November 2009. So I have to ask, what the hell is she talking about? In November 2009, Queensland had 2185 first home buyers, how is 1559 buyers anywhere near that level?

Moving past the muddling of stats, which would take another 1000 words to accurately decipher, first home buyers, Ben Markwell, 23, and Elizabeth Brier-Mills, 22 were introduced. Before I had a chance to read Ben's slightly spruikish thoughts on the housing market, which were...

Mr Markwell said they decided to buy a home at Collingwood Park when they discovered it would not cost much more than renting. He said the first home buyer's grant was a great incentive to people their age.

"I think people now in their early 20s are quite interested in property. They are interested in getting their first home," Mr Markwell said.

 I stuck his name into google...

And that's Ben, in his regal looking Century 21 jacket. Cute isn't he? You could just squeeze those chubby little cheeks. See in addition to being a a first home buyer, Ben is also a real estate agent for Century 21 on Brisbane's westsiiiiiiiide. So there's little surprise he thought the first home buyers' grant was a great idea, and young people were interested in property and buying their first home. In the confidence game known as the real estate industry it's important to create the impression people are buying houses, especially when buying is at record lows. 

Now the question to be asked here - did Michelle Hele know that Ben Markwell was a real estate agent, and if so, why didn't she bother to disclose it in the article? Given her buffoonish handling of the stats, I'm not convinced she would have been sharp enough to google Ben's name before writing the article. The web then becomes a little more twisted, as the Managing Director of Century 21 Westside, Gerard Baden-Clay, makes an appearance, trying to back the claim that first home buyers are returning to the market.

Wading through this nonsense is becoming common place and those involved have either become more retarded, or just completely arrogant. The journalists involved are contemptible, but a few hundred thousand in Brisbane probably swallowed this one whole.

Not that anyone should get overly excited about the antics of Century 21, you might recall their harbinger of death for the US property market...

And another credit to Simple and Sustainable who I noticed also unearthed the same subject of this post.