There's a message over on the Bend Economy Bulletin Board, called; One Agent's Report. To recount it in full here would require that I reread it again, which might cause permanent brain damage, so I'll try to remember how it went:

Something along the lines of: Sales are down, prices are down, inventory has exploded.

It's a great time to buy!

Buy now before it too late!

This is your last chance, before prices begin to rise again and you are forever priced out of the market!

And, oh by the way, I have this huge foreclosure list I can show you!

You have to admire the agent's guts; he or she is basically bulletproof. Prices going up? Time to buy! Prices going down? Time to buy! Which makes sense in that agents make money when houses sell, and when you are taking a percentage, the actual price isn't as important.

Too much inventory means that there will be too little inventory!

You have to admire someone who so blatantly attempts to make what are so clearly negatives into positives. But the fulcrum at which his whole spiel falls apart is when he simply asserts that all this inventory is going to disappear, and the prices will start to go up.

I suspect the inventory is going to continue to explode, driving prices down. Even if his premise is correct, the time to buy would be this winter when the sellers are desperate.

Anyway, a fascinating glimpse into the mind of an agent, or a joke, or both.