Lessons learned

that i am a fool for reading a thread you have started

bring a tape measure to the open house. ask for mortgage contingency for anything all the way until the bank funds the loan. Rent / buy analysis

In a falling market PRICE is the key to selling.

and warm cookies!

That the internet eats it's young. SE is a fabulous site. The troll did significant damage. I think if a specialized internet psychiatrist put the SE boards in serious psychoanalysis, I think the shrink would find that the uncomfortable volume was pumped up by the troll --increasing the levels of uncivil discourse, drivel and inconsiderate language. Repetitive market analysis and redundant posts were probably independent of troll.

As a result of inability to control troll, and SE's openly antagonistic language to certain posters whose lack of discretion was in large part prompted by the troll, some very interesting posters have left. I would love to have AR's take on current Sty Town happenings as well as her diligent work on comps. RS could have toned it down a bit but I found value in some of his postings. NY10023 seems to have disappeared and others got so discouraged that they have either left the building or don't seem to post very often.

En masse, regular SE posters seemed to operate as an ad hoc reporting agency on NY RE creating a stream of pertinent info and supposition on the markets that mainstream news outlets have failed to bring to public attention. If SE had provided some gentle or even direct guidance, things may not have gotten out of control to the extent that they did. But it is pity to have info and discourse on this site diminished - which has clearly happened. It seems to be rather boring now. Not sure if that is the season, the pace or just the fact that these past two weeks I have been online more often in an effort to avoid my writers block and my looming deadline