a taste of things to come?, page-57

Kincella,

It's all about shock value.

Since my post had you going there for a minute maybe I should be writing for the Herald-Sun.

Maybe I could find one house which had an asking price of $1 mill and they are now asking $800K and say that property prices have plunged 20% already.

Never mind that some people ask too much to start with and then have to pull their head in, all I need to do is find one example and then project outwards from that to the entire city or the entire country. They will love it (especially if they are renting).

Now that I am on a roll, I could also ignore figures published by federal government bodies (RBA, ABS etc) and quote a website somewhere on the net to show that vacancy rates are 4 or 5 times as high as the official figures.

Problem with that is I would need to interview the guy that owns the website but he doesn't have an office address or a land-line, he only has a mobile phone. Nevermind I'll just use the figures anyway.

Finally I'll need to bring some credibility to it all and what better way then to quote an esteemed academic. I'll have to ignore all the other academics who state the opposite opinion of course. I just need one guy who is prepared to say outlandish stuff on the record.

I'm going to need some guy who is easily excited, maybe some guy who has been saying the same stuff for a decade or so even though he has always been wrong before.

Hmmm. Maybe if I find a guy who is down on his luck, you know renting some flat somewhere, maybe I can get that guy to hunger for 15 minutes of fame.

Then I can start the whole circus rolling.

So that's my formula.

* I need some fringe anecdotal sales which I will suggest are representative of the whole market.

* I need some guy who will swear black and blue that the government and various national bodies are in a conspiracy and only he has the "true" figures (which of course are really scary).

* I need some guy from some University somewhere who has been saying the same stuff for years.

If I can get all that together then I can go in direct competition with "Today Tonight" and "A Current Affair" which are esteemed financial forecasters of the finest calibre.