Thursday, September 04, 2008

A house is not a Homeland...

...and now, a straightforward strategy suggestion for Israel (alevey it would be used) from the new Blog from GLORIA, Watch on the Middle East (WOTME), by Barry Rubin, September 3, 2008:

... many people selling their apartments or houses...[set] the price ...high. As any real estate agent can tell you, if you ask for too much money you might not make a sale. On the other hand, if you have patience, someone may come along and meet your price or something close to it.

And then it hit me: this is the ideal strategy for Israel's leaders. For a number of years [too many - SL], their main strategy has been to make concessions in order to be liked or in hope that this will lead to a peace deal. They acted as if they had to make an agreement fast, even on worse terms. Thus, they gave away a lot of real estate and are offering bargain basement prices for more.

This didn't work for several reasons. First, Israel could afford to be patient, far more so than many outside pretend-experts argue. Second, when you signal that you are in a hurry and willing to lower the price fast, the buyer takes advantage of that to offer even less.

So that's the answer: Israeli leaders should treat the real estate of the land of Israel like ... real estate. That doesn't mean they should never give up any land at all, but only if the price and terms are real good. Until then, they should signal, I can afford to wait. Come back when you have a serious offer.

...So just set the price high, hang tough, dare to dream you will get an offer that meets your demands and everything will be all right.

Notice to potential buyers: If you don't keep up the mortgage payments, you lose your deposit and we repossess the property.

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