Posted by Leonard Steinberg on September 26th, 2011

Yesterday while on the treadmill I came across the Joel Osteen show…..yes that perennially grinning Joel Osteen preacher from Houston who broadcasts weekly from his Houston arena-sized mega-church….and I actually think a lot of his message is really quite good. It’s not too judgmental, angry or dark.

He was telling the story about how he and his wife were searching for a home many years ago, found the perfect one, but it was priced much beyond than their then very limited budget. A friend suggested they place a really low offer, 50% off the asking price…..of course the offer was rejected. But several weeks later, the Seller who was desperate and supposedly decided to take the loss called and made a deal with them not very far from their low offer. The message of this story was that miracles do indeed happen if you truly believe……yes, even real estate miracles. The audience/congregation applauded and cheered enthusiastically.

So I had to ask: were they applauding this miracle? Were they applauding the Osteen’s great fortune? Or were they applauding the Seller’s horrible loss? Does  a great win have to come at the expense of someone else’s great loss? And why does no-one in Manhattan real estate get that 50% discount? Are Manhattanites bad people?

As you can tell, I ask too many questions…..