Estate agents, builders, lenders, many economists and even Alan Greenspan, chairman of America's Federal Reserve, have all insisted that there is no house-price bubble.
Regulators are investigating as I write, but the overwhelming response to our campaign should show that virtually no one wants this state of affairs to continue apart from the freeholders, managing agents, builders and some insurers.
The patrons included local real estate agents, builders, members of the town's Planning and Zoning Commission, retired schoolteachers, well-dressed commuters with briefcases, a local author, mothers with toddlers and women snacking after an exercise class at the local Y.M.C.A. — and those were just the people I recognized.
Ignoring nearly every piece of advice from real estate agents, builders and architects, the couple bought the property a year ago with ambitious plans to restore not only the filling station but also the modest 1820 colonial in front of it, and a surrounding menagerie of six dilapidated outbuildings, including a chicken coop.
Hadley Freeman Buy this book at the Guardian bookshop Anyone who has suffered at the hands of estate agents, builders, electricians, architects or plumbers will empathise with the plight of Mr Blandings and the hassles he faces after moving from Manhattan to rural Connecticut in Eric Hodgins's property-porn classic.
But the coalition of real estate agents, builders and antitax groups that unsuccessfully opposed the tax in the East End towns has redoubled its efforts to fight the Brookhaven measure, marshaling a $500,000 campaign of television and print ads and mass mailings attacking the proposition with messages such as "Brookhaven Wants Another Tax on Your Home".
Real estate agents and builders maintain that the Florida Dream can be revived, without fundamental change.
What is remarkable, real estate agents and builders said, is the extent of stonework being done, particularly in new construction.
Real estate agents, home builders, Wall Street executives, many economists and millions of homeowners were all saying that home prices would not drop, and the typically sober-minded officials at the Fed persuaded themselves that it was true.
A 2004 report jointly written by the top economists at five organizations — the industry groups for real estate agents, home builders and community bankers, as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the large government-sponsored backers of home mortgages — was typical.
But while the Association of California Water Agencies opposed Senator Kuehl's bill to the end, real estate agents and builders associations signed off on the bill after it was amended to affect only large subdivisions.
