'Bulldozing' The Bubble In 'Verbal Firefight'

The New York Times looks at the language of a housing bubble. "How best to describe the condition of the New York City real estate market? Is it 'cooling' or 'melting down?' Will there be a 'pause?' A 'soft landing?' A 'slow leak?' Are you a 'bubble' believer or of the 'frothy' faith? These and other buzzwords have been appearing in articles and rolling off the tongues of broadcasters. They are whirring around New York cocktail parties and being whispered in Wall Street elevators." "As intangible as words are, they influence the decisions buyers, sellers and lenders make, and those decisions can affect the market. As Jean-Paul Sartre said, 'Words are loaded pistols.' A look at the most popular ones being bandied about nowadays may not reveal the future, but they reveal the pulse of the public. Its beat is a mix of fear, confusion and wishful thinking." "The yearning for a smooth transition from the surging market is seen in the increasingly frequent use in the last six months of the phrase 'soft landing.' 'Soft landing is everyone's big hope,' said Paul Payack, (who) analyzes language trends and their impact on politics, culture and business. He uses an algorithm that tracks words and phrases in the media and on the Internet in relation to frequency, contextual usage and appearance in global media." "Among the market buzzwords he ranked, 'soft landing' and 'pause' were ranked first and second respectively, while the more ominous sounding 'housing bubble' ranked seventh. 'Pause' is another one of these hopeful things,' Mr. Payack said." "Brokers are loath to use hyperbolic language to describe the market partly because they think the market is cyclical and partly because it is in their best interest to bulldoze fear. Steve Solomon said that 'professionals use words to soothe and to give hope and positive feelings about properties so there isn't as much anxiety.' So they engage in verbal firefighting. 'If prices are going down, we don't like to say that,' Mr. Solomon said. 'It's 'prices are leveling off,' 'there's a pause in the market.'" "These days, brokers frequently find themselves massaging market buzzwords, or the 'macro' language of real estate, to make it more palatable. At the same time they are also busily tweaking the 'micro' language of real estate, the language used to describe properties, to make it more alluring and meaningful. A new micro lexicon is emerging, one that borrows from the art and fashion worlds and in which nearly every word implies affluence, exclusivity and limitlessness." "Then there are words that were in vogue a few years ago, like 'cozy,' but which have since been put out to pasture. 'Everyone knew it meant small,' Ms. Liebman said. 'They figured it out.' She now predicts the death of the word 'luxury,' because it is overused." "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, yet at the end of the day the building must 'live up to the words,' Mr. Solomon said. For some, words are but white noise. Still, if you feel the market is too frothy for comfort, you can always retreat into your grand apartment, climb into your spa-bath and wait for a resurgence."