Before I started this web site, I was posting my informative links and news on Craigslist.org under the title "What Realtors Don't Want You To Know". My goal was to inform people from Long Island in particular about how house prices are unreasonably high and are going to freefall. I have been doing this for some time and all along it kept getting flagged down and I just kept reposting it; this happened several times a day! This actually helped me because since I was always updating it, by them taking it down, I was able to post fresh so it would always be at the top whenever someone did a search. I was getting emails from people that were glad to see my posts and were encouraging me to continue to do so; and then there were those that would send me hate mail. 
The only people who were complaining about it were those who were trying to sell houses....namely Realtors! You would think that giving free information about the true state of the market whether it was good or bad would be what all honest people would want, right? After all, if you didn't want to know about it, you can just ignore it! It's not spam; I'm not trying to sell anything. Why would anyone not want you to know what is really happening? The Realtor's shouldn't be getting mad about it. It's like the surgeon generals warning on the side of a cigarette box. I'm presenting the information, but there will still be people buying regardless. Anything I do to warn the public is not going to prevent the crash; it is just going to protect those who have no idea of what is happening in the market because they don't know where to get their News from. I give them fair warning; I present facts along with my own advice so they can make their own decisions on whether it is a good idea to buy or not. Everyone deserves a fighting chance, don't they? If you wind up losing your house and destroying your net worth, shouldn't it be your own fault rather than some Realtor or advertising site? The fear of the crash is here; most people can tell by the amount of "for sale" signs and ads that say "price reduced", but not everyone knows why it's here or if a bottom is here. Realtors want you to believe that a bottom is here because they need to sell whether it is in your best interest or not. Listening to local News will just play down fears of the crash and leave out very important pieces of information that bring reason to the crash. I make sure that the information gets around.
It seems today's Realtors will do anything they can to generate a commission. It doesn't matter what happens, as long as they get their money. It doesn't matter if you the buyer find that the value of your house is falling and you are stuck in a situation where you must sell. It doesn't matter if the monthly payment on the loan they convinced you to take out doubled, it's just that nice juicy commission they "earned" that matters. During the boom, Realtors made obscene amounts of money and they didn't have to work too hard for it; some of them made so much that they can actually retire early; others became Realtors just because of the boom since during a boom, houses sell themselves and it doesn't take much talent to sell.
Anyway, eventually Craigslist started putting blocks on my posts. When I would do a repost, I would get a message that my post was being blocked and that I could request that I have the block removed. I did several times asking what was wrong with my post and why they would block it. Of course they never answered me! You would think that they would at least give me a reason why they would block it. I even looked through the terms of service agreement and I couldn't see one violation to justify a block. I found that what they do is take part of a sentence or phrase and make a filter to block any post that contains it. It got to the point that I felt maybe I should start my own web site; so that is exactly what I did.
I went ahead and continued making posts, but I made them very simple with just a link to my site. For a while, it stayed up there and no one flagged it down; I think it actually stayed for a whole week and then it started to get flagged down and eventually blocked entirely. I found that they used "libubble.atspace.com" as the filter. I requested to know why they would block a link to my site; of course they never answered that! Now I just put the address on a jpeg and post it so their filters cannot see the address. I do not feel welcome posting there, but I do feel I have every right to post so I will regardless.
One thing you will notice about Craigslist is that all the prices are ridiculously high; much higher than Newsday's. Another thing is that Newsday doesn't seem to have many Real Estate listings lately. Since it costs a couple of hundred dollars to post a Real Estate ad in the Newsday and statistics show that it takes up to 12.9 months to sell a house on Long Island, it's no wonder! It's the serious people who want to sell a house that would post in the Newsday. All the others that are posting for free on Craigslist are just wishful thinkers and they will ask ridiculous prices for houses that are just priced to sit. This may cause some people to believe that houses really are that expensive and that they should accept it and buy anyway.
This brings us to the issue, "Are the owners of Craigslist just as deceiving as the Realtors"? Why would they block my post? What is their motive? Posts are free and Craigslist doesn't get any commission on the sales.
- I'm not posting spam (not selling anything).
- I'm not offending anyone personally.
- I am not making multiple posts (Just one post at a time) or multiple categories.
- I am posting under "House for Sale", but this is information for people buying a house so it is in the most appropriate category.
The only thing I can think of which is very obvious is that Realtors are complaining to Craigslist that I am hurting their business. Am I hurting their business? Maybe a little, but that would only be because some people have learned the truth about the market and decided not to buy. I am no guiltier of hurting someone's business than Consumer Reports is. Blocking my posts would be like a company trying to sue Consumer Reports because they truthfully stated that the company's product isn't of great quality. Blocking my post would be equivalent to removing the Surgeon Generals warning on every pack of cigarettes sold in America and on top of that, encouraging people to start smoking and making claims that it builds character.
It may be justifiable to remove a post because the majority of people feel they are being offended in some way, but unless they can specify exactly what it is that is offending, there should be no reason to remove it. So far nobody has been able to give me a justifiable reason. Why is Craigslist so against my post? It's not like I am hurting their business in any way at all! The only thing I can think of is that the N.A.R. is behind this since they started a $40M ad campaign in desperation to convince people to buy. Perhaps Craigslist is getting a piece of the pie to make sure people like me don't warn people about buying and if they're not, they should be considering all that they go through removing all of my posts.
So now I come to the conclusion that this is a conspiracy against me as well as a conspiracy against all those who are looking to buy a house using Craigslist.
