Realtors Crying Because The New Rules Are 'too tough'

Looks like the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) is really getting squeezed. Two stories out in the last week demonstrate that they pine for the old days where they could take their 5% of ridiculously inflated prices and live like kings. Take for example:

• Realtors are upset about new rules requiring that appraisals be done without any pressure from mortgage originators. They call them 'faulty' because the old way, letting appraisers value a house at whatever it was listed for, worked out so well (for them).
• They're also upset that those big old mean banks are refusing to eat millions of dollars in short sale losses. They think the banks are being too harsh on the poor home owner who wants to bail on their mortgage and leave the bank to absorb $10,000 - $100,000 + worth of bad debt. The NAR of course, is upset because they're not getting their 5% on the short sale. They say that only by reducing housing inventory will the market get healthy again. I note that they are not willing to split the loss with the bank to help 'reduce the inventory'.

I'm sure the NAR is probably getting lots of sad calls from their membership indicating the trouble they are having paying their Lexus/Mercedes lease payments with the market being what it is. But the idea that the NAR is even slightly concerned about the economy at large is laughable. Banks cannot afford to lose all this money any more than the NAR can and the faulty appraisals were a primary facilitator of what got us into this mess in the first place!