Word: josephs
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...Marc Joseph grew up here, the Realtor son of a Realtor dad. He watched the market go mad and had his revelation: now is the moment to get back in - and stake your claim. At 41, he did not expect to be driving around Cape Coral in an old church bus that he bought off Craigslist, painted dollar green and emblazoned with the motto "ForeclosureToursRUs.com." But most people had no idea how to buy a house from a bank, and many were too scared to try, so he decided to lead tours of the new economic frontier...
This morning he has prospective snowbirds from Spain, Ontario ("We just can't ignore these prices"), Boston and Mingo Junction, Ohio, where another steel mill is about to close. "Opportunity is banging at your door," Joseph tells them, and he'd sound like any cheesy salesman if he weren't so attached to this place and so angry at what was done to it; it's as if his house had been burned down by reckless kids playing with matches and he's building it back up again board by board. It's gotten so bad that the courts have...
...those expecting to see buzzards circling overhead will be surprised. As quickly as one myth dies, another rises in its place, and Joseph is an oracle. It's when you buy that determines what money you make, he tells the fortune hunters on his bus. "A scary time? I'd say it's an opportunity. But it wouldn't be an opportunity if it weren't a scary time," he says. The speculators are back - but they've changed; he has investors up North who are buying houses sight unseen, for cash. (The conditions? No mold, no Chinese drywall...
...Joseph talks, you can practically feel the energy rising. This is still Florida; the sun is still shining; how clear is your vision? Gina, a special-ed teacher, and her husband Kurt, a contractor, have already missed out on two houses because they didn't bid fast enough. "Now it's every man for himself," Kurt says. "You have to play fair, put in a decent price." And then, just maybe, there will be rewards for the patient and prudent. "Someone else's loss," he says, "is another's blessing...
...have no doubt that Paul Krugman or Joseph Stiglitz will sober up my analysis of the summit in the next few days. But, for now, I’m chalking up this one as a small win and my “animal spirits,” to quote John Maynard Keynes, are high. A little more confidence in collaboration is a nice thing to have, and confidence, after all, is what recovery is made...