Does it strike me as odd that our federal government continues to limit the autonomy and freedom of Americans right down to what we can do with our phones? No. Does is strike me as wrong? Absolutely.
You can do this. This may seem idiotically simple, but you can easily see how very possible this is. Track the market you are interested in purchasing a home. Watch the number of homes sold vs the number of homes coming up for sale. (simple supply and demand) If you see more homes coming on than being sold you are going into a buyer's market (price dropping) If the opposite, then seller's market (price goes up). By doing this, you can stay ahead of the market. Note: you must seasonally adjust, which is very easy to by getting a history of the market you are tracking.
Proof:
Look up historical solds vs "on the market." (ask a realtor for this info, keep calling you will eventually find one who will give it to you) Then look at zillow or any other site that tracks historical home prices. You will see the supply leads price, usually by months/years not days or weeks.
How can this the be possible?
1. Realtors, on average, are wildly misinformed and much more interested in making a sale than doing market research.
2. It does not pay for large investors to buy individual properties so you do not have savvy investors correcting market errors. (this does not apply to commercial property)
Your idea seems reasonable. It made me think of when the 4 minute mile was broken. Once it was, people began doing it on a regular basis.
Elon promotes this idea and people believe it to be possible, then suddenly it becomes possible. It makes me wonder how many breakthrough ideas are out there, that are undiscovered.
Clearly Elon is a genius. How much more of a genius would he be if he knew this principle of human nature, and used it to find the solution to a problem that he hasn't figured out. He would use the collective intelligence of the world to solve the problem.
He probably has a reasonable idea that this can be done, but what if he were to use this power he has to essentially scale his genius by harnessing the imaginations of people like you around the world?
"Congress's 2010 vote to require 1,500 hours of experience in August 2013 came in the wake of several regional-airline accidents, although none had been due to pilots having fewer than 1,500 hours."
I don't think the author meant to imply that asking for a discount is toxic. I think he was saying that if combined with several other behaviors, it may be a red flag.
