Longtime California real estate titan Fred Sands, speaking to a group of Realtors at the Southern California region of Sotheby’s International Realty, was very candid because “he was no longer in the home-selling business.” (Sands now leads Vintage Capital Group, an investment firm that focuses on commercial real estate,)

Here is a capsule of Sands thinking:

1) The last five or six years were not normal. So if you’ve been in the business for 5-6 years and are barely making a living, you might want to think about doing something else.

2) In the short term the local real estate market is not going to get better.

3) An estimated 12% of Californians will sell their homes at a loss this year, according to Realtors Association economist Leslie Appleton-Young, up from 2% in 2006.

4) The soaring market of a few years ago will be followed by a correspondingly sharp decline. The longer the up cycle, the more excess there is, the worse it is for what follows.


5) We saw 25-year-old guys buying $3 million houses, someone who makes $100,000 a year can’t afford a $2 million house, but that’s what been going on.

6) Property prices must be cut drastically, Realtors should drop sellers who aren’t willing to lower prices.

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