There are no less than three metaphors awkwardly floating around in this statement below from a California real estate broker. Fun game! Can you name them all?
"It was a great ride for a lot of investors but eventually the music stopped and someone had to pay the piper," says Mr Kane. "What was supposed to be a liquid asset becomes a ball and chain around your neck when you owe more than the market value of the property."
What have we learned here?
The housing market:
- is a rollicking piece of music which has the power to stop unexpectedly (perhaps akin to Blur's "Song #2")
- is overseen by a mythical "piper," who has apparently lent us some undetermined amount of money in the past and now demands payment
- is comrpised of items which have the magical ability to morph from liquid assets into medieval torture devices
Sounds absolutely frightening; some Lord of the Rings-type stuff. And that Piper guy sounds like a total jerk.
Hat-tip to Alex Stenback for the metaphor. Photo by Charlie Chocolate.
I would have preferred, "...the asset becomes a slowly closing Iron Maiden..."; but I'll take ball and chain as a baseline medieval metaphor for poor market conditions.
"Hey! Guess what! Lofts are gonna be huge...trust me. Yeah, that's right...HUGE."
- Overheard at Grumpy's circa 2002
Posted by: Todd | August 20, 2008 at 11:53 AM