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"When I come into a house with buyers, I start picking it apart," says San Diego's Jim Klinge, known on the internet as 'Jim the Realtor,' a wise-cracking real estate agent who posts his honest, painful, and sometimes hilarious assessment of bank-owned properties on his Youtube channel: youtube.com/jimtherealtor.
While both the Bush and Obama administration have advocated programs aimed at keeping people in their homes, Klinge argues that this is the exact wrong approach and is only prolonging the agony in the housing market.
"If they wanted to do what was best for the market, they would just unleash the floodgates and let it rip," says Klinge. "It would cause a frenzy of buying to see all of these bank deals, and people would come running."
Reason.tv met up with Klinge for a walkthrough of a bank-owned property in North San Diego County, where he pointed out some of the issues with the home and talked about the past, present and future of the housing market. When does he think the market will bounce back and bring values back up to peak levels?
"We need to be prepared for it being never," he says. "I hate this whole investment thing. Buy a house because you like it and you want to raise a family. The good news is, I think today's buyer is exactly that."
About 4 minutes.
Interview by Zach Weissmueller. Camera by Paul Detrick. Edited by Weissmueller.
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