On the light and subjective side, here’s the real estate portion of Business 2.0’s [101 dumbest moments in business: Real estate. The year in shenanigans, skulduggery, and just plain stupidity in the world of housing [CNN/Money].](http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/101dumbest/dumbest_category_realestate/index.htm)

Of these real estate items, I think the most notable are:

Most Ironic
* Vail Board of Realtors can’t afford to be located in Vail: Unable to buy office space in a community where the average home price recently headed north of $4 million, the Aspen Board of Realtors heads north too — to Basalt, Colo., a town of 3,000 residents 20 miles away.

No Reason To Be On The List
* In November, New York developers William and Arthur Zeckendorf agree to pay $37 million for the air rights above a church and an 88-year-old private club. The Zeckendorfs’ purchase, part of a plan to build a 35-story apartment building that would tower over its neighbors on East 60th Street, comes out to a whopping $430 per square foot — two to four times the going rate for the skies above Manhattan. This seemed to shock only people outside of New York.

Most Amazing
* In May an Experian-Gallup national survey finds that 65 percent of Americans haven’t heard anything about a possible “housing bubble.” Another 12 percent have heard “only a little.” Indeed, 70 percent expect home prices to keep rising, while only 5 percent think they’ll slip. However, when the facets of a housing bubble are described to them, about 40 percent go on to say that the scenario is likely to occur in their area in the next three years.

Q: Why won’t we see a “List Of Smartest Moments In Real Estate?”

A: Because NO ONE is interested in seeing someone else succeed (aka boring) OR we simply enjoy seeing people screw up.


One Comment

  1. pcampbell January 29, 2006 at 9:43 am

    God bless America. Those who have never heard of a housing bubble must be living in a bubble. Don’t mean to be mean but this is why people say ” there is New York City and then there is the rest of the country”.

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